"If you're old enough to have a job and to have a life, you use Facebook exactly as advertised, you look up old friends"
About this Quote
The intent is diagnostic. Lanier is separating two Facebooks that often get collapsed into one: the adult version, where the site functions as a low-stakes Rolodex for rekindling dormant ties, and the younger or more socially precarious version, where the platform can feel like a stage, a scoreboard, or a pressure cooker. “Old enough to have a job and to have a life” is doing heavy subtextual work: it implies a baseline of stability that makes the algorithm’s emotional weather less dangerous, because you’re not asking the platform to supply identity, belonging, or status.
Context matters because Lanier has long warned that ad-driven platforms don’t just reflect social life; they reshape it to maximize attention. By framing the “proper” use as looking up old friends, he’s not praising Facebook so much as quarantining it. Use it like a tool, not a habitat. The cultural sting is that reconnection - the warmest story Silicon Valley tells about itself - may be the least corrosive, most banal part of the machine. Everything else is the product, and you’re the raw material.
Quote Details
| Topic | Friendship |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Lanier, Jaron. (2026, January 17). If you're old enough to have a job and to have a life, you use Facebook exactly as advertised, you look up old friends. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-youre-old-enough-to-have-a-job-and-to-have-a-66401/
Chicago Style
Lanier, Jaron. "If you're old enough to have a job and to have a life, you use Facebook exactly as advertised, you look up old friends." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-youre-old-enough-to-have-a-job-and-to-have-a-66401/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"If you're old enough to have a job and to have a life, you use Facebook exactly as advertised, you look up old friends." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-youre-old-enough-to-have-a-job-and-to-have-a-66401/. Accessed 26 Feb. 2026.
