As a mother, I have recently discovered Facebook. My kids knew about it long ago and I poo pooed it as another mindless waste of time. Finally, I joined so I could track my kid's antics like a sneaky James Bond spy. Trouble is - I somehow got hooked myself. Suddenly, friends from far and wide started popping up. People from the dim recesses of my childhood resurfaced. Facebook is like a really good piece of chocolate or a bag of those great salt and vinegar potato chips.
However, the way I use Facebook is a bit different than they way my kid's do, and plenty of kids are getting addicted beyond reason, using it for brutal cyber bullying or daring to say the types of things they would never dream of in person. Kid's depression rates are sky high, average onset at age 14, and there have been many reports of teen suicide from internet related bullying.
For over 25 million youth, Facebook is replacing email as "the" way to communicate, and parents are often left in the dust and wondering is it safe? What age can kids safely have a Facebook page? Should they insist to be their "Friend" and monitor their endless chatter?
Jill is a mother of three children ages 10-14, who are fully into the digital generation. All have iPods, computers, Wii games, cell phones, and are addicted to Facebook. They are like most middle school aged kids in America today who have their hands on toys most adults only recently acquired themselves.
One day, a call came from the principal informing Jill and her husband, their middle daughter was being given in-school suspension for creating a Facebook group used to make fun of another student. Called something like, "Eric is a Hairy Beast," the group quickly filled with loads of kids making fun of a quiet Armenian boy, uploading cell phone pictures of him and becoming more brazen by the day.
These kids are "A" students, and far from brats; but most are not cognitively developed enough to recognize their behavior is hurtful to others. According to Lisa Ott, the Youth Empowerment Coordinator at the Women and Family Life Center, this is on target with research in adolescent brain development.
Kids get into trouble with sites like Facebook and MySpace because they are too self-centered in their overall development to understand the impact of what they are doing, she said. Middle school age children are the most susceptible to cyber bullying, and high school students most likely to use poor judgment in giving out information.
Dr. Jay Giedd is the chief of brain imaging in the child psychiatry branch at the National Institute of Mental Health, and an expert in adolescent brain development. His research shows the brain is not fully developed at age 12 as was believed, but reaches full maturity in our mid-twenties. Adolescence is a time of profound brain development, surpassing that of toddlers. The area of the pre-frontal cortex develops last, which is in charge of higher reasoning and understanding consequences. The emotional centers of the brain that control happiness, fear, anger and sadness often over-compensate, and can be 50% stronger during adolescence.
I set about interviewing scores of parents with children from elementary to high school, asking their opinions about Facebook and kids. While most felt it was a relatively safe place for kids to connect to each other, many expressed concern over the obsessive nature of these sites. Designed to be "sticky;" a site is deemed successful the longer it entices you to stay on, yet these hours are replacing other activities critical for healthy development.
A child's brain reaches its full size at age six and the gray matter is actually the thickest around age 12. Remember how the world was full of possibilities at that age? Because it truly is. After this stage, the brain begins to prune back gray matter and the phrase "use it or lose it" becomes key as certain brain cells die forever. The skills your child learns during adolescence; like sports, dancing, music or academics become hard wired. Other skills that are not being used will fall away.
What's a parent to do?
1) Be Involved - Kids will always be ahead of us in technology, so encourage them to show you how to set up a social networking page. This encourages them to share what they know and gives you access to what they are doing.
2) Be a Parent, not a Pal - Insist on knowing user names and passwords of all their social networking accounts. Explain to them it is not to be used to spy, but to have in case they were in some sort of danger.
3) Create a Balance- We want our kids to develop their own identity and become independent. Learn to trust them and allow opportunities for them to explore when it is age appropriate and set clear limits for internet use.
Most kid's today don't have a local bowling alley or soda shop to hang out, like the baby boomer generations had. They also aren't allowed to play outside until the street lights come on as recent generations enjoyed. Hours of skipping rope, climbing trees and building forts is replaced with the tap tapping of tiny keyboards. The cyber playground has replaced the physical one, for better or worse. It is our job as parents to make sure their developing brains know how to do more than move a mouse around a keyboard and encourage more face to face social time.
Peggy Orenstein, author of Growing Up Daisy recently wrote about "Growing Up on Facebook" in the New York Times. She notes most kids now going to college have been 'facebooking' since middle school, and wonders how our youth will be able to take the important steps of "reinventing themselves" with "450 friends watching, all tweeting to affirm ad nauseam your present self?"
Time will tell. Here is a funny little minute-and-a-half video to check out if you are addicted to facebook- Enjoy!
Are you addicted to facebook?
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Maybe we should have compulsory education about cyber bulling taught to us from a young age.
Most cyber bullying by kids is caused by their elders. If a kid is growing up in a home that refers to Arabs as "ragheads" that child is not going to have a good impression of Arabian people.
The American media has a terrible habit of slurring foreigners. In the USA it's considered humorous to put down anyone not like them. There is hardly a country in which the US does not have an offensive nickname for its people. To curb bullying we must start to train our elders to be politically correct.
That being said, I don't think there's any reason to believe that cyber-bullying is different in any way from real bullying. To say that these kids are "far from brats" and that they don't understand that they are being hurtful is completely ridiculous. Believe me, they know exactly what they are doing. Kids can be really cruel, and I think the parents of this generation can be really lacking in the discipline area. Parents, PLEASE stop blaming everything but your own child for the mistakes they make. If they are doing something wrong(especially if it's cruel and hurtful to others), it's their own fault--and if you don't correct them, you're to blame, too. They aren't making "Eric is a Hairy Beast" Facebook groups because they grew up playing computer games instead of jumping rope. I grew up doing both, and I turned out just fine.
As you discovered, your Facebook page didn’t attract friends; it attracted acquaintances from the dim recesses. Virtual friends aren’t real friends. There’s little responsibility required in virtual space and there’s no shared sacrifice and suffering, which are required in real, physical friendship.
Facebook and MySpace aren’t neutral activities. Just because it’s high tech, just because children think they must have it or their social lives will be ruined, and just because kids are intensely social with their peers, doesn’t mean that we should let them waste their time on Facebook or MySpace.
Encourage your kids to connect in person with true friends, and to engage in real face-to-face activities with their friends after school and with their family. Don’t simply acquiesce to the idea that the cyber playground has replaced the physical one.
The dynamic between parents and children has always been the same. If we, as parents can’t find more thrilling activities that satisfy deeper yearnings within our teenagers, then that’s our fault.
Disclosure: In addition to having six children, I’m a practical, pragmatic coach and consultant. I’ve written books of case studies, “Parenting Bully-Proof Kids” and “How to Stop Bullies in their Tracks.” Check out my website and blog at BulliesBeGone (http://BulliesBeGone.com).
Parents have to adapt to this growing phenomenon. 3/4 of my class have a Facebook account and phone. Whether a child uses his/her time to read, or go onto Facebook, that is ultimately up to that child. Parents are supposed to be there to guide them with advice but not control them and stalk them on Facebook. I have a friend whose parents are extremely strict; in response, this A student lies to her parents on constantly and secretly hides a whole slew of email accounts. You can't force a child to draw, or read, or write, and make her/him like it. Children are growing up more mature in a maturing world, and are becoming more adaptable and flexible to ideas. Children are actually becoming used to a rough world, with Katrina, 9/11, and global warming being normal ideas they hear. Maybe it's simply the parents who can't let go of a conservative idealistic concept of childhood that modern children can't fit into.
I kept my daughter away from Social Networking sites - and we killed the television set. (Horrors, I know)
She always liked to write stories, and draw and paint. So I got her a full graphic arts suite of software and introduced her to online artistic communities and I introduced her to online writers communities.
On these online communities they discuss what they produce- not what they are. They talk about the merits of this piece of art or that story - rather than the merits of Janes new haircut.
My daughter now makes money doing artistic commissions through the artist community and is in the process of getting her Masters Degree in Fine Arts. She doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, doesn't get high and is still a virgin- despite being slim and gorgeous. Most importantly - she doesn't give a crap about what other people think of her.
Oh, and what is this about idealizing lack of sexuality in young adult women? It's essentialist and a bit puritanical for the 21st century to assume that virginity into adulthood is automatically good and a mark of your successful parenting. This attitude is the other end of the horrible double standard that traps young women--the simultaneous glamorization and demonization of a sexual development that is nothing but natural. I think you fail to understand how much girls get judged on BOTH ends of the spectrum, since you seem so giddy to take part in the fetishization of virginity that continues to demean women.
I so like what Dr. Barker says in her post "This does not make the computer the evil one". There are many useful and interesting aspects about the Internet. It's just that our children should be taught how to use it wisely and how to protect themselves.
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/03/15/magazine/15wwln-lede.graphic.ready.html
IT'S YOUR GENERATION THAT'S ADDICTED TO FACEBOOK, NOT MINE!
Check out the video on the article, it pokes fun at all of us, as is the healthiest thing to do. Life is too short to take all this too seriously or assume fingers are being pointed when they really aren't.
Bullsh*t.
My kids are 9 and 7--younger than the middle kid mentioned--and they have been taught to be kind and respect the dignity of others. To say that a 12 year-old is not "cognitively developed" enough to know that they are being cruel is the biggest load of wunderkid coddling apologist crap I've ever heard.
My kids think Facebook is boring. Maybe if people spent more time reading books with their kids, taking them to interesting places, playing with them, and engaging them, they wouldn't need mind numbing crap like computer games and Facebook.
People spend all their time chasing after money, watching TeeVee, and ignoring their kids and then hyperventilating when they realize their kids have created their own social norms based on peer pressure and internet chat rooms. Worse yet, they feel so guilty about ignoring their kids they can't say boo to them for fear of hurting their wittle feelings. God forbid parents should be able to say no to their lonely little princes and princesses.
Time for people to raise their kids instead of the overstimulated, self-absorbed, jaded, and obnoxiously precocious little monsters that currently grace our society.
It is hard to fully appreciate the changes that adolescence brings, until you have one. Understanding medical research and discoveries does not replace parenting, make excuses or justify societal trends. Many women used to drink and smoke during pregnancy, until we knew better.
I believe some of the methods in which we raise our youth will modify as we come to understand how we grow. Nothing can ever replace one on one parenting time - nor can we ignore the world in which our youth live in today.
reported by incoming college students was 2.6.
It is now 1.6, with a mode (most common answer) of 0.
Studies also show that the"more wired up" you are, the
less likely you are to have developed interpersonal skills
necessary to "read" people. (HuffPo on this about a month ago.)
"virtual friends" are little more than imaginary playmates,
they are not a substitute for "real friends".
One of my biggest interests is helping us remember how to develop community. Thanks for reminding us all how important it really is.
People in my generation feel uncomfortable talking on the phone (maybe why texting is so popular?) phones have a very "committed" feel to them, in a way--we only make phone calls when we're confirming a place/time to hang out, or when we have a specific plan in mind. Tools like facebook are useful for when we're interested in hanging out, but we don't want our friend/aquaintance to feel obligated to agree or provide a response immediately. if someone asks me if I want to hang out on facebook, I can think about it for awhile, check my schedule, ask another friend if they had been wanting to do something and get back to the first person. On the phone, I have to make a committment right away. Sometimes that's a good thing (being scared of commitment = bad) but sometimes it can prove to be inconvienent.