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.
I had no reason to. When my mother joined Facebook, she
hesitantly brought up wanting to add me as a friend. She’d never really asked
much about my Facebook account before. But that was probably because I was 17
when I got my account. By then, I was about to go off to college, so she
probably thought she’d taught me as much as she could about the good values
that will get me through life. Apparently, she trusted me a lot. I don’t know
if that’s more of a reflection on her strength of parenting skills or my
reputation as a “goody-two-shoes.”
Either way, we never had the privacy vs. protection fight.
So, when she got an account, I accepted her, as well as other members of my
family.
But, did other teens have it so easy?
The “Friend” Fight
As you hear on the news or from younger friends/ family
members, parents are increasingly trying to monitor what their children do on
social networks. And parents find that there are many different ways to go
about that.
Some teens outright don’t want to be friends with their
parents, but it might happen anyway no matter what is said. According to a study by Lab42, 92 percent of parents are friends with their children on
Facebook. Of those parents, 55 percent sent the request.
As part of a separate statistic, 72 percent of parents have
their child’s Facebook password.
However, even though friending (or following on Twitter) or having the password are the
most obvious ways to “spy” on your child’s Facebook account, some parents choose
an alternative: the social media monitor.
In a study conducted by SocialShield, only 5 percent of
parents say they use a monitoring application to alert them if there is
something they should be aware of. However, some say that number may be growing.
When you do a simple Google search for “parents monitor
facebook” the top results are about software that enables parents to monitor
their child’s account(s). Most are made to alert the parent when something
potentially hazardous is posted. That includes instances of cyber-bulling (whether bullying or being bullied) and inappropriate posts.
The Dilemma
With 43 percent of parents saying they look at their kid’s
wall or photos daily, it begs the question: Is that OK?
As a recent kid and a supposed adult, I’m stuck. I’m stuck
between two worlds of wanting to protect privacy and wanting to protect the
ones I love.
I see where teens should be trusted to make their own
decisions and have their own social media mishaps, but then again, I see how
parents are compelled to want to protect their kids. Parents always want to
know if something’s wrong, and in many cases, in the past few years, parents
have been blindsided by suicides related to social media networks because they
didn’t know what was going on.
For me, I think it all comes down to age.
Those first starting out in the digital space at 13 years
old should have to share their social media passwords with their parents and
have the parents be a part of their social network. Parents need to fully know
how their child is handling living in the social space, or as Carrie James from
the Harvard Graduate School of Education put it, becoming digital citizens.
Parents should help guide their children to make smart
decisions online and then take their training wheels off and see where they go.
Then, just being their friend on Facebook may become less of spying and more of
plain old good-fashioned interaction.
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