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Facebook, the once college only social network (does anyone remember those days?), is getting older and older.  Eventually you will face the familiar “You have a friend request,” but it’s from your mom.  What do you do?  We had a round table discussion at Gadgetell to see what we would do faced with this odd eventuality.

JG Mason: Multiple Facebooks are the answer

I’d go limited, though, to be honest, I’ve no idea how to do that.  I’ve been researching all morning and the settings are less than user friendly. 

Then there is the problem of living double lives.  Do I post something for everyone to see, two versions?  ignore one set of people?  I’ve tried this and the result is always showing your grandparents pics of you running naked down a hotel corridor.  It always ends this way.

What I’d love to see is this:

Facebook Me: (Yep, stole it from Windows) - you, uncensored for your core friends - the default
Facebook Pro: For your business associates, church friends, straight laced up and up.  You have to post stuff here specifically.
Facebook Fam: In between Pro and Me.

Then you tag stuff Pro, Me, Fam and it gets posted as you wish.  That would makes tons more sense to me.  Of course, I’d still end up tagging something wrong and my grandparents would still get nudy pics of me.  Damn!

Jodie Andrefski: Mom may not approve

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Well, I can’t even imagine my mom or dad on Facebook, but I would definitely go limited—especially with my mother.  I do have family members on my Facebook account, but they are ones that I am cool with seeing whatever I put up there and vice versa. 

Even now my profile isn’t public.  I used to have it that way and noticed I tended to get a bunch of weirdo stalker sorts.  It’s not nearly as bad on Facebook as back in the myspace days at least.  That place was like a virtual playground for people on the make who just couldn’t understand that you might not be.

Natesh Sood: Don’t underestimate passive resistance

I would let the friend request sit there, I wouldn’t accept it or reject it.  Either way my parents can’t really force me to add them on Facebook.  There’s just things on Facebook that they couldn’t understand and would probably annoy me about it. 

Shawn Ingram: What, me worry?

I would not even add them if I had anything I had to worry about.  It depends on how Internet-savvy they are.  I actually did add my father as soon as he got on, because I knew he’d never take the time to learn too much about it.  it could also be because I don’t have friends that would post pictures of me doing stupid things at college, that is probably until they start taking video.  I guess it depends on the personal situation.

Being in college I’m almost expected to be doing stupid things at the start, so it’d probably be more of a surprise to my parents that I’m not.

Sue Walsh: Follow one rule and you’re set

Actually my dad is on Facebook and he’s on my friend’s list.  Since my rule is to never put anything on my profile I wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the New York Times (and my friends have the same rule) I have no worries.

Robert Nelson: I’m an open book

My Mom, along with my sisters and a bunch of other family members are all on Facebook and so are my friends.  Personally, I do not worry much about what they will see or learn about me, other than my daughter, but we just added her recently and are still considering that one fully.  They have known for a while that I am not the most normal person in the world and have done more than my fair share of stupid and crazy things during my life.  I am pretty certain that while there are still secrets, nothing (should it appear on Facebook) would be all that surprising.

I have them all, just like everyone else, with full profile access. It is also safe to say that I have way more than I should in terms of personal information available on Facebook.  I take the “if they really want to know, they will find it somewhere else” approach.

Personally, I think it is kind of cool that my mom and many other family members are on Facebook, heck the Facebook app even convinced my Aunt (mom’s sister) to buy an iPhone.

Iyaz Akhtar: It’s all public

Personally, I’m pretty cautious on Facebook since I have put all my info as public.  So if my Mom wanted to follow me, I’d say “Sure” and she could see my entire profile.  Although I wonder what would happen if college friends put up pictures of me doing dumb things.