<p>When DD got her room assignment, she also got her roommates information, and I googled them - only found good information on them, nothing negative. My husband thinks I overstepped my bounds by doing this - what do you think? Did anyone else google their child’s roommates or am I just the nosiest parker that ever lived?</p>
<p>Did it last year. Discovered that my son’s roommate’s father and my husband played against each other on high school teams in the 70s – in our boys’ sport! It was a great beginning between both the boys and our families.</p>
<p>Your child is doing the very same thing on Facebook. Why shouldn’t you do it on Google?</p>
<p>Just remember that multiple people can share the same name. My daughter has the same name as a well-known documentary filmmaker. My son has the same name as a guy who is big in the world of classic car collecting. You would really have to hunt through the endless Internet references to these people to find anything related to either of my kids. (On the other hand, if you knew my real name, you could find me in five seconds. My name is odd because I married a man of a different ethnicity. My real first name (which is not Marian) and last name do not “match,” ethnically speaking.)</p>
<p>I googled my daughter too, to see what her new roomies would find if they googled her, and even though she has an unusual first name, she has a very common last name, so there were pages of other people with her name before I got to a reference about her. (It was about a theater performance).</p>
<p>Well, this may be a little old-fashioned, but I think you should only learn about your child’s roommate from your child. It just strikes me as a little stalk-y, whether or not the info is available, as well as a bit over-involved. I’m sure I’m in the minority on this, though.</p>
<p>I think it’s over-involved, too; then again, what’s the point of Google if you can’t Google people. It’s amazing (and just a little bit scary) what turns up.</p>
<p>I’ll just add that I would not do this with a potential roommate-- would actually never occur to me-- but I do think it’s fascinating to put in one’s own name and see what shows up. Again-- just a little bit scary how much information is really out there.</p>
<p>I would be tempted to do this, but there is no way I could ever use the information anyway. My son would be furious if he suspected I was “butting into” his life in this manner. He is determined to be in control of this life transition. He would agree with Garland that this would constitute parental over-involvement.</p>
<p>I agree with your husband. Adults don’t do thigs like that to other adults, and your college student is an adult.(Or close enough to resent such an action)</p>
<p>D googled her roommate in college as soon as she found out who she was going to be. The gal turned out to be one FABULOUS kid. </p>
<p>I think kids are just used to googling and facebooking each other. They don’t think of it as stalking.</p>
<p>I’ve done stuff like that before (not for my kids’ friends/roommates though). We have “sunshine state laws” that allow all public information (deeds, traffic violations, criminal charges, marriages/divorces, etc.) online. You can look anyone up by name. </p>
<p>I used to look up my kid’s actual/potential baseball coaches (for LL and AAU). Some of them were pieces of work- spouse abuse, stealing cable, etc.</p>
<p>LMNOP–but isn’t it not quite the same when it’s the parent doing it? I have no doubt my own kids would be horrified.</p>
<p>My kid knows me too well. D refused to give me her roommate’s last name because she didn’t want me “stalking” her. When I asked what in the world that meant, she said “Googling.” If she had given the last name to me, I would have! Guilty as charged! :)</p>
<p>Our soccer association here does background checks on all adults with an official position on any team or affiliated club. You don’t get a soccer association I.D. card unless you pass the background check. Thus far, when my son has gone to summer programs, he has never known the name of his roommate until he walked into the dorm room (four cases out of five). Only once has he been in a program that honored roommate requests, and then the roommate and he requested each other after previous online acquaintance through a subject-specialized Web forum. I have no idea how often my son Googles people–probably a lot less often than I do–but he does get Facebook pokes and friend requests from time to time. It may well that anyone he rooms with in college, at whatever college, will be part of a Facebook network that includes my son through previous summer program relationships.</p>
<p>I must confess I have done this too, especially before this summer’s internship when D was going to room with three girls from different schools. She knew I was doing this and laughed it off saying “Mom, you are such a stalker!”</p>
<p>It’s funny to think that I’ve done something over-involved - I’m <em>so</em> not an over-involved parent. I really just was kind of bored one night when I couldn’t sleep, and I was curious (or just plain nosy, I guess.) DD is out of the country, I’ll ask her when she comes home (tomorrow!) if she thinks it was totally out of bounds.</p>
<p>DD already has tons of Facebook friends who are going to school with her next month.</p>
<p>LOL!
It’s a good thing WE all have anonymous login names! :eek:</p>
<p>Stalking seems to be misused by many–actual stalking is a very serious and scary matter. I don’t consider a parent looking up a roommate on google to be stalking. </p>
<p>It could be curiousity; it could be a parent being cautious about someone who will be spending a lot of time with his or her child. </p>
<p>I didn’t look up my D’s freshman roommate on google (it never occurred to me that some high school kids have been written about extensively in the media). I suspect most kids won’t have anything on themselves on a google search.</p>
<p>But if a parent did the search, I wouldn’t blink an eye. I think I’ll google myself…</p>
<p>As I suspected, only 1 entry that pertained to me…and it had nothing to do with Brad Pitt.</p>
<p>You can always search later, after giving yourself a chance to see how things go in the Internet-free approach. The reverse is not possible; you can’t unlearn the information from the web search. So why not wait it out?</p>
<p>Also, there will be more information on which to base a search after meeting the room-mate(s).</p>
<p>I google people’s names – I’ve googled myself, my kids, family members and friend’s names, as well as the names of performers that I’ve seen in community theatre productions, teachers, etc., just to see what comes up. I’ve never found out anything juicy about anyone that way, but occasionally theatrical resumes will pop up, or old pictures of someone in a play, or on team. It has all been fun harmless stuff, and pretty random stuff at that. I really haven’t found out much about anyone that way I’ve always thought of it as entertainment – just curiousity to see what shows up. I’ve never even thought of googling the kids’ roommates, but don’t see any harm in it.</p>
<p>“you can’t unlearn the information from the web search”</p>
<p>You also won’t necessarily know if its true or not - either due to a name mixup or simply encountering inaccurate information (which has been known to happen). </p>
<p>Snooping on my son’s roomate would definately go beyond the bounds of our relationship.</p>