Boomers want to connect with their kids and extended families online. Now Facebook and others are making it easier

By Douglas MacMillan
Forget the breakfast nook—the new family hangout is online. As more baby boomers and older Americans sign up for social networking sites, they're connecting with their kids and other family members to start conversations, share photos, and coordinate schedules.

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Some suggest that social media is facilitating a retreat from reality and face to face meetings.

I think the opposite is true.

I see the social media as bringing people together, facilitating reunions, and encouraging connections that otherwise would be non-existent.

The trick is to use it well and follow through. Like any other tool, it can be used in a variety of ways and its potential is never fully realized.

To the extent that anything gets people communicating with each other, I think it is essentially good.

“It was impossible to get a conversation going; everybody was talking too much.” – Yogi Berra

Yogi was right. Sometimes in a crowded room, on or off the internet, real conversation is lost. Genuine communication between people requires focus, concentration, and reciprocity.

Otherwise we become like George Bernard Shaw who wrote, "“I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.”

However we converse, let us remember that we are talking with and listening to people and not just words and ideas. Let us remember Paul's teachings in Colossians 4:6 "Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone."