"Mom, I don't want to be your friend!" Parents struggle with social media monitoring

The Shrouding of Social Media

During my senior year of high school, I finally broke my social media cherry. Some friends of mine created a Facebook account for me, took off the training wheels and let me wobble and ride down Social Media Lane.

At first, of course, I was confused. What seemed to come so naturally to my peers was like a minefield to me. However, one thing was clear – I did not want to be Facebook friends with my family. My mom had yet to create a Facebook profile, so I wasn’t worried about her, but my family was another story. For some reason, I felt my Facebook profile was to be kept for only my friends and me. Even though I had no idea how to use it, Facebook was sacred.

It felt instinctive to want to seclude that part of my life from my family. But why?

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Facebook Famine: Why were you so hard to give up?

Day 1: What did I do?
The words “I got this!” came to mind as I had my last look at Facebook and logged off. I thought two days without Facebook wouldn’t be hard at all. I’ve willingly gone many more days without it when I was in a time crunch, so I thought, “What could be different?” However, just coming off of a one-month break that included multiple daily visits to Facebook, it wasn’t so easy. I was shocked by how many times I reached for my phone to go on Facebook. While waiting for a friend to come to lunch – reach. Waiting for a class to start – reach.

But it didn’t stop there. It turns out I have a nasty little habit of opening a new tab for Facebook after I check my email. Who knew I went on it so much?

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