It is a truth universally acknowledged that your whole family has moved from the living room to WhatsApp. There are only a very few people nowadays who can’t work out how to write a comment on Facebook or insert an emoticon in the group "What to give our dog for his birthday” on WhatsApp. Gone are the days when my great-aunt used to ask me if we could talk through the ‘mirror’, meaning Skype. Now my friend’s grandma, who has seen me twice as a child, likes my party pics. Rock’n’roll, baby!

When I joined Facebook in the early 2000s, it was merely to stay in contact with my international friends. We used to post comments on each other’s then ‘walls’ that went on like this: "Hey girl, is it cold in Paris right now? We miss you! Please respond on my wall.” Facebook was THE shit and our parents didn’t even know what the Internet was. Yet. There is that well-known graph that shows the usage of Facebook before parents join (100%) and after (10%). Not to mention making all pics private and deleting the videos at Oktoberfest. Actually, thanks to our parents and relatives, Facebook and co don’t get as much data from us anymore. Rather pleasing, no? 

But then, Instagram came. Selfies of food, with food, belfies on boats, whoa! Never had a burrito looked sexier than under an Instagram filter! I joined Instagram very late only to notice that everyone over 50 had joined years ago. You might ask yourself: what can your aunt possibly want to insta-post? You’ll be surprised to find out that it’s either a lot of the same (thank you, smartphones) or nothing at all. It’s simply cool just to be there, you know? Posting is for phonies.  

They say that young people are only on Snapchat now, which is more difficult to grasp for older people. I get that. Thing is that our parents’ generation is still at stage two on Facebook, which is the level where you post blurry pics of something that looks like a flower, you get 120 likes for that from all your former classmates of every school, college and master class and people start commenting like it’s the last day on earth. They abuse the comment section either as a diary, memory lane ("Those times were great! We had nothing to eat, but they were oh so great!”), a coffee chat ("So, tell me, Viola, is your husband better? How did the surgery go?”) or weird compliments on the subject of the photo ("Wowwwwwwwww, such a beautiful flower! Wait, I’ll show you mine in a minute.”). The best part is when you post an article on the political situation in Sierra Leone and among the comments you will find your neighbour’s: "Call grandma, she’s worried sick because you didn’t call her last night like you promised!!!!!!!!” And yeah, I guess I don’t have to go deeper into the topic of the motivational quotes going something like: "Breathe, take your time and spread your wings. – The Buddha of Suburbia” 

Not to mention the long and painful process of showing the parents how to use an iPhone 4, an iPad or Facebook ("How does your aunt know we are in the spa?? There are these messages that pop up on my screen! I didn’t tell my sister we’re here! Call me! Now!”) and then you even get a new friend request: person ‘x’ (formerly ‘y’) wants to be your friend on Facebook. Wait, Grandma?! It’s unethical not to add your grandma, you know. So you’re a nice kid and you add her. All aunts, uncles, parents, neighbours ‘like’ that. But where have all your actual friends gone?