Parents and Privacy

I cannot even count the number of times that I have had to explain social networking and privacy to my parents. After over a year of my mother being on Facebook, she still does not understand how it works and continues to make embarrassing Facebook faux pas.  From commenting on my friend’s pictures(who she doesn’t even know), to mistaking wall posts for private messaging, she really should not even be allowed to have an account. Ironically however, despite her technological incapability, she is more active on Facebook than I am. She can spend hours Facebook stalking old friends, she uses status to announce her every action and she comments on nearly every post on her newsfeed. I find it very interesting the way that my generation uses social networking vs. the way older generations do. For my age group, each social networking site has its own purpose. Twitter is for random thoughts and “status updates,” while Facebook is for more general communication. Instagram is to share cool photos and Vine is used to take videos. But for our parents, they haven’t managed to differentiate between these seemingly similar but different services. It seems that they use Facebook for all of the above. I have seen this with all of my family members on Facebook, of which I have many. Both of my parents, all of my aunts and uncles and even my grandmother is on Facebook. 

The other recent development I have noticed regarding parents on social networking: using social media for keeping tabs on their kids.  This is a phenomenon that I have been witnessing a lot lately among my younger siblings friend’s parents. Never has it been easier for parents to stay up to date on their kid’s social lives. As of the last six months, my mother not only has a Facebook account, but an Instagram, Twitter and Vine. My 16-year-old sister recently just got in trouble based on something that was posted on Facebook, and my Mom is on a daily basis keeping close tabs on my little brother’s “questionable” friends via social networking. What kids are struggling to realize is that their transparency applies to parents too. 

 My mom's most recent post....pretty sure I am friends with all of these people on FB.