BAD IDEA OF THE WEEK: Being too old for Facebook

And no, I don't mean parents. I mean a 114-year-old woman named Anna Stoehr. Anyone can lie about his or her age on the Internet, but Stoehr actually had to, if she were to join her friends and family on Facebook. Stoehr is the oldest living person in Minnesota, and celebrated her 114th birthday on Sunday. She recently befriended Verizon sales representative Joseph Ramireza, a Verizon sales representative who sold an iPhone to Stoehr's 85-year-old son. Ramireza was so impressed with Anna that he made the 2-hour drive from the Twin Cities to Plainview, where Anna currently resides in a nursing home, to teach her how to email, search for things on Google, use Apple's FaceTime video chat, and join Facebook, the last of which didn't prove easy for Stoehr, though she can blame Zuckerberg and co. for that. Facebook only lets you use dates later than 1905 as your date of birth, and Stoehr was born in 1900. So she did what many people do on the Internet, and lied about her age. Hence, Stoehr's Facebook friends were notified that she turned 99 (meaning she took ten more years off her "age" than she had to) on Sunday. I've heard of inconveniences but this one is just stupid and unnecessary. Just because Facebook is aimed at newer, digital generations doesn't mean that the very old should be shut out.