Social Media, Us, and the Seniors

It's all fun n games until a few of yr family members join FB/twitter n comment on yr posts, some tht 1 is not comfy with. #JustSaying #Fact
— Ahmed Ali (@ahmedalee87) July 1, 2013

The above tweet is not a result of me getting bored while having nothing to do. As a matter of fact, the tweet is just a reflection of what is going through my head at the time I was browsing my Facebook newsfeeds and sorting my friends’ lists, making sure that I have the right person in the right list, by how much I know them, and the fact that how much activity should I make visible to them.

Coming back to the point as to why I am trying to brag about the fact that I have a twitter and that I am the most intelligent and clever being on this planet (so-called). There are certain events that have tempted me to reconsider my privacy level on Facebook, and they focus revolve around the senior and not so senior family members that have just joined Facebook.

Starting off with the latest one, my Uncle (the youngest of my father’s brothers) just joined fb and I added him as soon as I got his friend request and on top of that, I pinch my own cheeks for putting him in the restricted section. Why you ask? Because on a one fine evening I shared a picture of the “Super Moon” week before it was actually going to happen. The next day while on my way back home from work, I got a notification on my cell, I opened it and it read

“Please do not use this word again in your comments. You are a very special child”

Surprised, I opened up my facebook to have a look at what exactly is he pointing at; after all it was just a picture of a moon. I checked every detail of my post and suddenly I came across the title of the page through which it has been circulating around the social media. The page was named “I Fucking Love Science”. That’s when it all came together; he read my post as “Ahmed Ali shared I fucking love science's photo.”

One can excuse him for saying that as he is new to facebook and will take time to understand how things work, but if I had not put him in the restricted section, he would be commenting on my every post and well, if he really talks about this with my dad on the phone, a lot can happen then. That’s right; I have also got my dad in the restricted section, for reasons similar to the above incident.

Months ago I shared a picture on which it showed that pencil that has multiple nips in it, more like when you use it for quite some time and the nip automatically breaks away, there are plenty of nips in the pencil already and all we do is push the end of the pencil and out pops a new nip. Basically the picture gave a message that only us 90s kids will remember that incase we lost a nip, we were lucky to have more otherwise we would be F***ed.

Unfortunately I had shared it publically and my dad came across this post and as a result, it wasn’t a healthy Sunday morning. Being scolded and having to delete the post (mind you, if the app had an edit privacy option, I would have chosen that) but yes he was pissed at the fact that my uncles will see the post and they are going to highlight the F word (just like it was highlighted above).

Its just hard to understand for me, as to whether I am doing the right thing or not, mind you I still fear the day my dad and others find out that I have placed them in the restricted section and to be frankly honest, I will not mind at all. Simply becaue at the end of the day, that is my account on Facebook, I am now old enough to share stuff that I want, add or delete anyone I want, just my privacy from person to person. If anyone has a problem with the stuff I share then he can either delete me or may I do the honors then.

I honestly hope that he keeps on respecting my privacy because clearly, this whole “Generation Gap” thing really does bite anyone in the butt. Dad and others are tring to stay up to date with the world and we should not have any problem with that, but a certain misunderstandings can go a long long way in increasing the gap. Although I should put him in the family list but I have done otherwise, because I know that his (and others) feedback on my posts can be a bit, you know, not likable. Since we look at the message in the picture and not the words but we should all know that there comes a time when kids grow up quickly then you can think and I feel that they should realize this, rather than labeling me as a “special child”. Seriously these words made me think that I was disfigure or something (Give me a break).