In yesterday's "cyberfamilas" column in the Times, cybermom Michelle Stlatalla addressed something I'm sure she's not the only one asking herself: why can't I be on the cutting-edge and get a Facebook account? And what happens if I join and try to friend my daughter? She got a harsh response: her daughter called her creepy, told her she shouldn't think she could "get away with this" and eventually friended her back after putting privacy settings on most of her profile. After reading her sad story, I asked myself, and my friends (whose responses are below), how the hypothetical situation in which our parents joined Facebook would turn out, and for my own response, I came up with two conclusions. Let me start with a not-so-hypothetical example from my own experience.
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My mom didn't have to join facebook to see my profile, nor did she have to wait until I left my laptop unattended and hope I happened to still be logged on. One day, she just said she was curious, and asked me to show it to her. And I did. I figured it would unnecessarily disappoint her trust in me if I said no, and since she was well aware of my love for Regina Spektor, movies with Matt Damon in them, and the fact that college kids sometimes drink stuff with alcohol in it, there would be little harm in letting her glance at the ubiquitous site that documents my away-from-home life.
I hadn't even gotten past the part of the tour where I showed her the special section that gathers all the photos tagged of me on the site, when she alarmingly asked me to click on a thumbnail-size picture of what seemed to be a tall red-head guy dancing in nothing but tiny white briefs.
Oh god, here it comes.
So I clicked the icon and there it was: one of my suitemates, almost naked except for those white briefs with the phrase "ahoy matey" across the butt, about to jump on another suitemate of mine wearing a nice blazer with no shirt underneath.
From that moment on, the image my mom would have of my life at college, living in a suite with seven of my best friends, six of which happen to be boys, would never be the same. In her worst nightmares, I spent valuable time at college participating in--and taking photos of--naked dance parties, and judging from this photo, her worst nightmare had come to life. It didn't matter that my only involvement in this situation came from my amused yet mortified self in the background, looking at the photo subjects from the hallway of my suite, making into the photo and getting tagged. It didn't matter that I have never seen those briefs except for that night, nor that the only reason those photos were on facebook in the first place was hilariously clear in the album title--"burst into my room at 3 am, interrupt my studies, you will feel the repercussions...." None of that mattered at that moment, nor does it matter now: "I'm still freaked out," she says half-jokingly (or not?) when I remind her of that day.
The thing about Facebook is that once one actually thinks about the complexity of implications involved in all the different options and features--which hardly any of us do, because our familiarity with them makes analysis trite--one realizes that the aspects of Facebook that our parents would gain access to are too idiosyncratic to make any sense to them, and its too easy for them to take anything the wrong way. If my mom hadn't stopped looking after those photos, she probably could have found out that I "dated" the aforementioned boy in briefs in 2006, and that "now we aren't speaking"--a joke response we made up, as kids these days are prone to do on Facebook, to fill in the option for answering how two people know each other. Or she could have worried that my friends and I dress like hookers and truck drivers for parties, if she didn't know that those photos were from a party whose only options were to dress "classy" or "trashy." None of the stuff is inherently dangerous knowledge, but in belongs to a different "level of existence" (to be a bit dramatic), one possible at a certain age, in a certain environment, which could lead to awkward misconceptions that should be avoided.
Facebook means little without context. It can even mean nothing with context--my friend tagged a photo of a penguin from her trip to Argentina as "Fernanda Diaz" and I still don't really get why. Most of it isn't meant to be taken seriously. Yet as paradoxical as it might seem to call the contents of anyone's facebook profile, network, etc "private," it really is a good way to describe these aspects of ourselves we make public in the most secluded way. I'm pretty sure if my parents went through the process and got their own accounts, their lack of a network of friends to stalk or make fun of would bore them, and they would never use it. If parents really want to know, they should "just ask," as many "about me" sections of profiles sometimes proclaim.
So that's what I think. But I don't think one response is enough, so here's what my friends thought (some names have been changed):
If parents join to keep up with their friends and such, why not? But seriously, joining facebook to stalk your kids? I always thought it was a little weird when parents had screen names or facebook accounts...don't they have better things to do, like bring home the bacon? - Amanda, 20
Parents joining facebook is a bad idea. However, I can accept adults joining facebook. While I respect facebook's right as an emerging social -- and not just college student -- networking site, a parent is not a typical adult, and friending a child is almost an act of invasion. Just like a parent would never think of hanging out at their kid's roller rink in the age of yesteryear, a parent shouldn't even consider hanging out in the realm of facebook (in a manner that interacts with their children). Facebook, and the internet in general, is a new social atmosphere for our generation, and every generation deserves to have a social atmosphere with boundaries. Do parents have a right to control what their kids do with their time? Of course, but most parents aren't hanging out on playgrounds keeping tabs. Just like I wouldn't want my mom to see me hanging upside down off the monkey bars, I don't want her to see me share inside jokes on my friends' walls, let alone have her newsfeed tell her. - Kyle, 20
Facebook has a long and storied tradition of stalking, so this is really nothing new. At least in this case there are (hopefully) no creepy sexual overtones. - Lars, 22
Facebook should not be the medium by which parents learn more about their children. Although the profiles seem to offer some kind of distillation of their users' personalities and interests, they are largely superficial and should be acknowledged as such. There are so many more meaningful ways to stay involved in a person's life, and parents who pursue that end on Facebook run the risk of coming across as creepy or sad. There's also something to be said for allowing one's children a degree of privacy in their online interactions with friends. As people become more independent, they have an increasing expectation of privacy and responsibility for their day-to-day lives (at least in my family); this extends to inane Internet activity...What's more, if parents join just to show how irreverent or playful they can be, that's even more sad (see "I'm not a real mom; I'm a cool mom!" speech by Amy Poehler's character in Mean Girls).
As for me, I use Facebook (in descending order of importance) for mindless procrastination, remembering the dates of my friend's birthdays, and responding to the occasional event invitation. I don't think I'm "exploring my identity" (if anything, I think I'm much more interesting than my profile would suggest), and Facebook is simply a distraction when I want to turn my brain off for a while. That said, I love to check on the activity of my friends who are Facebook obsessives and post every detail of their lives online --that has definite train wreck appeal. -Ian, 20
One day I saw on my newsfeed that my grandpa had friended my brother. I immediately went and changed my privacy settings for the first time. - Sasha, 21
The column did nothing but affirm my adamant belief in the stereotypes that adults are computer-illiterate, and that having "cyberfamilias" write a column on online social dynamics is like having someone from Vermont write a column on urban racial dynamics. For example, if my father were to join Facebook, he would become a member of the "City of Seattle" work network, as well as the "Seattle, WA" network, but the redundancy would be lost on him after the five or six hours of grueling physical and emotional labor, such as flailing the mouse around, roaring at the computer, or giving it the silent treatment, that it took him to set the account up. His friends would include his coworkers and, of course, my mother. Because I am so pure and wholesome and nothing ever happens in my life, I would allow both parents full access to my profile, where it would probably astound them how many bitches, I mean, young ladies, I was friends with. -Chris, 19
i would be fine with my parents being on facebook if they would just learn to use text messaging. i don't think i would let them friend me, though. that would show em. - Tim, 21
I would kind of freak out if my mom or dad joined Facebook, and I hope they'd never want to. This isn't because they would see anything they disapprove of: I've untagged almost every questionable picture of myself that's ever been posted on Facebook, and my profile is definitely PG-rated. But, as absurd as this might sound, if my parents could see my Facebook profile, it would be as if they were eavesdropping on a conversation between me and my friends. I hope that my parents understand that even though my Facebook profile is pseudo-public information, it's intended for people who are sharing my college experience. The thoughts I share, the pictures I post, the comments that my friends write on my wall: those reflect my college self. Just as there are things I'd tell my parents that I'd never tell my friends, there are also things I'd post on Facebook for my friends that I wouldn't want my parents to read. When my parents went to college, their parents didn't have a way to "friend" them and instantly have an in-depth view into their child's college persona. I hope that my parents can remember how it felt to be in college and to be able to guard that part of their life just a little bit from their parents. - Amanda, 20
The thing that I find interesting about facebook is: what happens when we start having kids? It seems like such an integral part of everyone's social scene that it seems unlikely we will abandon it all together as we get older. What will we do when we have teenagers and we are all on facebook together? Will a different site evolve for every generation? Or will facebook start a spin-off, something like, "not your mom's facebook: new and improved."
It s strange to watch social technology not only change the way we interact with each other but cross-generation. My boyfriend's little sister lives in an alterna world on the net that is all about social sites. She'll be on facebook before you know it and she's 9. - Anastasia, 24