Courtesy of http://www.bloggersblog.com/teens/
Parents are apparently tired of the mystery and so many are trying to find out what their kids are up to on Facebook. The Washington Post reports that some teens and young adults are shocked to find their mom or dad trying to “friend” them on Facebook. Some are even finding their Mom or Dad friending their friends.
Across the country, Facebook users are contemplating similar questions when they log onto their accounts. More and more moms and dads are signing onto Facebook to keep up with their offspring. Not only are they friending (or attempting to friend) their sons and daughters, they’re friending their sons’ and daughters’ friends.Some, like Matt, take the requests in stride. He ultimately friended his dad. Others are less sanguine, voicing their dismay via online groups that decry parental intrusion and offer tips on how to screen out mom and dad. (“Just go onto their computers and delete their accounts.” “Just don’t add them as a friend or any1 that is a co-worker with ur parents duh.”) Even parenting experts are getting involved, offering their own tips on proper Facebook etiquette.
“I do not know if this has happened to anybody, but this morning I log on to Facebook and I have a new friend request!” wrote 19-year-old Mike Yeamans, a sophomore at James Madison University, on one of several “No Parents on Facebook” groups that have popped up on the site. “I am excited to make a new friend so I click on the link. I could not believe what I saw. My father! This is an outrage!”
Some might argue that this means Facebook has jumped the shark. They might be right. If someday in the near future young people start complaining that their parents are following them on Twitter it could mean that many twittering teens are about to relocate. However, these same types of stories popped up a couple years ago with parents becoming the MySpace friends of their children. We’ve seen this all before. We’ve even seen this story before with Facebook and parents. Last June the New York Times ran a story called “omg my mom joined facebook!!” Today, MySpace is still going strong although one could argue that some of the younger people have gone elsewhere. Facebook seems to be holding onto its young users. Most 20-somethings can probably deal with the idea of parents on Facebook but parental intrusion might discourage some of the younger Facebook users who just aren’t interested in having their parents as Facebook friends.
Posted on March 9, 2008
I just want to say that this is hilarious. It gave me a good laugh. Thanks, Alyson.
For the record, a coworker that I told about this found it as outrageous as Mike Yeamans, but frankly, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again–if you put yourself out there in a public, online environment, whatever you do or say is fair game to anybody who chooses to seek you out.
If it feels like an intrusion upon your privacy–and I understand that kids need their space, so I can condtionally concede to that–then that’s something that people need to work out individually with their parents. Because to be honest, if your parents are spying on you, it may indicate that you’re too dense/naive/susceptible to bad influences (maybe you are the bad influence!) to make good decisions on your own. Or it may simply indicate that your parents are control freaks, but again, if either of those is the case, you’ve got worse problems than your parents being on Facebook. There’s a larger trust issue that needs to be worked out.
If Mom and Dad feel a need to ‘friend’ their kids and their kids’ friends on Facebook, haven’t they already missed the mark of having/building a solid interpersonal relationship with them? What became of parents talking to their kids F2F? Even if they don’t live at the same residence, parents should be able to come up with ways to communicate with their children without invading every personal space their child has.