The growing popularity of Facebook has an unintended consequences for young people who used to have the social networking website all to themselves: their parents are joining and befriending them!
The Facebook group entitled "For the love of god -- don't let parents join Facebook" has 5,819 high school and college-aged members who want to stop the growing number of parents who are joining Facebook, the massively popular social networking site, from "spying" on them. [...]
"It's really weird that nonstudents and parents use Facebook," said Emma Gaines, a Tufts University sophomore. "It makes me feel really uncomfortable that my older aunt has Facebook, because she says that she likes to check up on her teenage nieces and nephews and takes our pictures for her own use. That's creepy."
But Gaines' comment about how non-students and parents shouldn't use it? That's sad. I know my aunts use it to keep in touch with each other and their friends and organize things.
It's not just for students.
My 11 month old son isn't old enough for the computer yet (although he tries), but I would definitely want to know if he was involved in something illegal or dangerous (like planning to meet a complete stranger he met online) when he is older. I'm not the kind of parent who overprotects, but being vigilant is a good thing.
My daughter doesn't want me to read "Twilight" because "That's just weird."
There are some strange lines being drawn between teenagers and parents. As long as all is well, I don't need to cross them.
But, I'll cross them if I think I need to.
By the way, I thought "Twilight" was boring so she's safe.
The invasion of privacy would just create a greater rift between their relationship if the parent is reduced to spying.
it may just be me, but i'm of the opinion that you probably shouldn't be doing or saying things on the internet you'd be embarrassed if your parent(s) saw it. after all, in this day and age employers and such often check potential employee's myspace/facebook.
It's a rhetorical question, obviously, given that I know I'm probably the one non-virgin under 25 who hasn't also screwed a good half dozen people, and that I'm one of the rare people who didn't get serious about alcohol until after she turned 21. If these kids didn't make stupid decisions, they'd have nothing to be ashamed about in the face of their parents. Well, mostly.
And also, Facebook did USED to be only for students. Obviously it's not so much anymore... But there was such a time, and more recently than over half its members may realize! At the begining, I boycotted facebook for exactly that reason - I wanted nothing to do with my party-hardy classmates, and most of my friends weren't able to afford colleges, or at least not colleges with their own Email system. Nowadays, I want to boycott it because it's nothing more than MySpace with less black backgrounds a little less emo.
Eventually when they are mid-20s or 30 years old, they will add their parents back for sure.
Or maybe it's about realizing they are more popular than us?
As for declining Grandma's friend request that just mean :'(
I don't listen in on their phone conversations, either. It's the same idea.
Those are the people that can't understand why you wont add the 39'th app they've sent to you.
if my rents ever get on i'm saying noo to that frend request
And another reason why I don't look at my younger cousin's profile: Looking at the crazy pictures and odd comments is an unwanted reminder that I am old and that I was probably once as ridiculous way way back when the earth's crust was just beginning to cool.
Just do away with all of this drama and return to the time when communication was done by carving into stone tablets. It's so time-consuming that the wild teens would rather walk the straight and narrow rather than put the effort needed to post a picture and caption from the weekend's kegger.
If people are weirded out by their family or coworkers or boss or customers or anyone else looking at their online profile, they need to stop worrying about who's looking and do some looking at their lives. If you're uncomfortable, it's probably because you need to get real with yourself, or with everyone else.
Besides, my Facebook I keep open because I like to have people stop by and just say hello. It's not very personal nor revealing. :)
you are so damn right. one of the best explanations ever.
This is part of the reason that my generation is going down in flames, because the parents are so afraid to 'offend' their kids, they want to be their friend, they want to never be the 'mean parent'.
I have a newsflash for you. My parents were considered very strict and restrictive by a lot of people that know us, but my siblings and I have a great relationship with them. Maybe it is time that parents realized that if you lay consistent ground rules from the day you are old enough to understand (which by the way, does not start at 13, it's more like, simple stuff at 1) and you stick by them and always communicate clearly, then you will have a much better relationship with your kid in the long run than if you just let the kid do whatever they want.
Because eventually the kid figures out that you could have saved them from some of the mistakes they made, if you would have just made some rules based on your own past experiences, and set consequences for not following those rules. I know the kid will not always follow those rules, But I know my parents saved me from a lot of trouble with their rules. I got to do a lot of learning from other people's mistakes instead of making them all myself!