Top 5 Awkward Moments Parents have faced with Social Media
by Nate Berzack
In today’s world, it is clear that the millennial generation and other younger generations are very attracted to social media. This somewhat obsession is likely a result of the internet’s popularity drastically increasing around the same time as the birth of these younger generations.
Due to this obsession, the millennial generation has acquired a sense of expertise across many social media platforms, including Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, and even text messaging. The same cannot be said for the older generations.
Our parents (Generation X and Baby Boomers), although at times can prove their proficiency when using social media, are also prone to technological awkwardness as opposed to the younger generation. The lack of skill in using social media is partly due to their inexperience with social media.
Here are the top 5 funny yet awkward mistakes that parents have made on Social Media.
5. Commenting a birthday message but on the wrong post
When your birthday comes around, you may be expecting people to post a “happy birthday” message on your Facebook wall. Unfortunately, your grandmother has different plans.
She’s still going to wish you a happy birthday, but on someone else’s post.
The situation may be initially awkward, but you cannot help but laugh when you see something like this.
4. One word sentences and capitalizing ALL THE WORDS in a text
Parents not being able to express their emotion over text is another big technological blunder. Many of us have experienced this on some level.
When texting your parent, they will sometimes reply in one-word answers, which can often leave you confused with the emotion they are portraying. Are they mad at you? Did you do something to upset them?
Most of the time, the answer is no, but even after a lot of experience with this scenario, we are still taken aback every time we see it.
Furthermore, capitalizing all the words in a sentence can prove to be quite confusing when you’re on the receiving end. In my experience, baby boomers, in particular, are the ones most responsible for this mistake. But, we can’t help but laugh every time we see it, as it is clear they are unaware of how to turn off caps lock.
3. When parents text with too many Emojis 😳
One of the funniest and awkward mistakes that parents make while texting is their obsessive use of emojis. Emojis are often used by millennials sparsely, making it quite funny to see it used excessively. Since parents learned that emojis existed, they have not stopped using them.
And there does not seem to be an end in sight.
2. When the profile pictures are extra zoomed in selfies
Another strong stereotype that parents hold on social media is using zoomed in selfies of their faces as their profile pictures. This stereotype, in particular, is especially humorous because you can see every single pore on your mothers or fathers face along with their awkwardly big smile.
1. Parents obsessively and awkwardly tagging their children on Facebook posts.
The number one classic mistake parents make on social media is when they unknowingly tag their children in posts, not knowing it is public.
An example of this mistake is when parents want to share a tasty restaurant with their children but do not realize they are publicly sharing this information.
They will then proceed to type up an embarrassingly personal caption to the post. Little do they know, the message is not private at all, resulting in a very awkward situation for the child.
Those are the top 5 mistakes parents have made on social media. For more exciting content like this, be sure to follow Tech It Forward.
