When speed is NOT of the essence

When I saw an advertisement in the Daily Telegraph this morning inviting readers to make their announcements in the traditional way, I thought, “Who’d want to do that when you can do it free of charge via Facebook?”.

But then I remembered a couple of weeks ago a friend of mine telling me that he had asked his daughter not to announce her engagement on Facebook. How come? Because then her friends would know about it before her grandparents. Although I usually take the view that people should embrace modern methods of communication (I have no patience with people of my own age who say things like “Facebook?”: it’s the 21st century: get over it!), I can see that some battles will never be won, and are probably not even worth fighting. (Or do you think (as part of me does) that all these “oldies” should stop acting like old people and get signed up to Facebook, Twitter and start blogging?)

This seems like a good example of where using the modern approach would cause offence to some people because of the unintended consequence of appearing disrespectful. Even we digital evangelists have to exercise self-restraint sometimes.

Comments

[Gerald]

I do agree with your feeling about "oldies' not acting like old people. I think I may older than most of the people I encounter in my freelance work, but I do try to embrace technology. Twitter, for example is hugely valuable to me in all sorts of ways.
I do have some issues with Facebook, though, and I've recently de-activated myself from it. The problem is -- and you or others may be able to advise me -- that I found myself immediately befriended and drawn in by lots and lots of young (some very young) relatives. In a way I was flattered by this, and quite enjoyed it for a while, but then I started to read things that frankly I didn't have time for and didn't want to know. It was like having your grandad standing around at a teenagers party. Buried among it all was useful stuff from people in our line of work, but really nothing I couldn't get from Twitter. I didn't want to be seen churlish, de-friending people, so I just withdrew from the whole thing. I have a feeling that I didn't engage with FB properly in the first place. What does anyone think?

[Lyn S]

For information such as weddings, birth and death announcements, the old fashioned paper way is preferable. Although one danger of Facebook is that youthful indescretions stay around until they become embarrassing, important information for geneologists and historians may not be preserved.

For family members not on Facebook, a simple call announcing the engagement could be made before it is posted electronically. It really isn't that difficult to accomodate family. And family should be accomodated before Facebook friends.

[Terry Freedman, Educational ICT Consultant]

@gerald couldn't you have just stopped reading? or, as an older uncle or whatever, helped to keep them on the "straight and narrow"?

[Terry Freedman, Educational ICT Consultant]

@Lyn that seems like a simple solution, except that I think a letter or postcard is more formal and, if you have a large family, quicker. I agree with yr last sentence, definitely.