It occurred to me the other day that I hadn't checked on my mother-in-law's facebook account lately. This gives me a little twinge of panic every time. We just Never Know with her.
To my astonishment, it wasn't bad. Usually there are tens of notifications because she can't grasp that concept. There were no notifications, even game ones. There were two messenger notifications and I left those alone.
She had liked three pages that I immediately unliked: Conspiracy Time, Humor for Men, and Hilarious Texts. The algorithm was also feeding some suggestions that I was all "Oh, no. That is not happening." So I blocked a bunch of ads and suggestions to recultivate that to something more elderly great grandma appropriate.
Her friends list was okay too. I wonder if Kevin or someone has looked at it lately. Usually there is one or two that she has friended and not known who they are. There were two questionable ones. One turned out to be a nephew whom we haven't seen in years. (a cousin to us) He has the same name as our neighbor so I had to make sure she didn't friend someone because she thought it was someone else.
The second one is a little more sketchy. He is the fiance of one of her nieces. He looks like a gang banger and with that side of the family this is a possibility. However, he has a great grandma on his friend list so there's that. I left it and will just check in from time to time. It looks like he doesn't use the account often.
She also had two friend requests, both spam. One was obvious and the other one I had to click through to make sure before I deleted it.
I did hide a few topics, again. Her sister-in-law is a huge Cheeto Hitler fan and even though I've blocked all things Fox news, etc. things still slip through. I have this aunt hidden on my feed because I am exhausted by all the lies and hatred. It's relentless.
I thought about updating her profile picture or something but it feels like that would just be overwhelming for her. It will also generate likes and comments that are going to be ignored so I just left it.
Mostly why I think it wasn't so bad this time is that I believe she doesn't look at her facebook much anymore. She's pretty exhausted most of the time and her mind just isn't the same. I mean, she has her moments of clarity but she spends her day napping and watching cable news.
My advice to anyone who is raising elderly parents is to treat their social media like you would with your kids. Do periodic check-ins like above to make sure that there isn't anything untoward happening. I made her log in and password super simple (I used her anniversary date as the password, for example) and I connected our accounts so I can switch back and forth easily. I did not share the info with the b-i-l or s-i-l because they tend to change things and not tell me. Like passwords or wifi connections.
I am not above parental controls on her devices if it ever comes to that.
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