<p>Does Google know where you’re searching from? I just found a mention of D being part of a winning team on the first page of the results. What are the chances that of the million results found, she would be on the first page?? I think Google knows where I live…</p>
<p>It is so fun, though, to read your child’s name listed in events all over the world. She’s seem very well traveled. LOL</p>
<p>Oh dear. I just googled myself for the first time. There’s a website “MaryTN’s real name”.com. The woman is a creepy psychic.</p>
<p>All the links to my son’s sports stuff have been broken!
I guess if it’s more than 2-3 months old the newspapers expire the page but it still shows up in Google.</p>
<p>Sure, why not Google the roommates. I’ve Googled S’s professors, teaching assistants, etc. The info is public, why not use it?</p>
<p>I assume that the roommates, etc. also are using Google and Facebook to find out info, and that may include info about H and me. That’s the way the modern world works.</p>
<p>A few years ago, when I took classes for fun at the local university, I Googled the instructors. I also have Googled prospective employers, and I assume they did the same with me. Among the info that I learned was that someone who wanted to go into business with me had been convicted of a felony for battering a romantic partner. I had had no clue that such a thing was in his background.</p>
<p>As far as I am concerned, anyone who doesn’t use Google is naive beyond belief.</p>
<p>I Googled older S’s college roommate, and found lots of interesting info that indicated they had lots in common. Older S found the info interesting, and wasn’t alarmed or anything that I had Googled. It’s not as if one is stealing the roommate’s diaries and reading them.</p>
<p>Let me explain one more time; I don’t think I’ve been clear. I fully realize we live in a Googling, no secrets, everything is out there world.</p>
<p>What I find, well, creepy, is the lack of boundaries demonstrated by wanting to check up on aspects of your adult child’s life. Unless you’re thinking that you’re going to find out the roomie is an ax murderer and you’ll need to warn your kid before the semester starts, it just seems, as I said before, over-involved. If your kid wants to google his/her roommate, then fine, but a parent needing to collect background info on their adult child’s roommate, friends, or anyone else–well, I just don’t get it. It’s their life, not ours.</p>
<p>My youngest told me that he googled up his own name and found an identical named person who had a different biography than he ever will have, including some work in a very obscure computer language.</p>
<p>So he wrote the guy a wry letter, saying that HE bore that name and HE, of that name, would NEVER use that computer language or go kayaking on rapids in Colorado…
signed it, “deeply offended.”</p>
<p>He told me after this was all done. I can’t keep up.</p>
<p>Just talked to a friend who googled her son’s roommate. She has been losing sleep over the pairing; S, who went to a diverse public HS, listed himself as “atheist,” and roommate is a home-schooled fundamentalist Christian. Her older son had almost as extreme a pairing a few years ago, with disastrous results. I think it’s better to know this ahead of time…</p>
<p>It might be useful for the student to know, and maybe when he learned it, he might choose to discuss this with his parents. But why does he need his mother to collect this information for him?</p>
<p>I’ll take my place with garland and ADad. Like it or not, we have to back off at some point, and this seems like the appropriate point.</p>
<p>I think googling has its place. When the basketball coach for the tiny independent school my son attended in 9th grade just disappeared, missing a practice and a game, I googled his name, and found his face on a Wanted poster issued by the sheriff’s dept in another county. A cross-check with the “arrest warrants issued this week” column in the local paper solved that mystery.</p>
<p>If you’re curious, the crime was closing his checking account out without waiting for all of the checks to clear first. I’m not kidding.</p>
<p>"Just talked to a friend who googled her son’s roommate. She has been losing sleep over the pairing; S, who went to a diverse public HS, listed himself as “atheist,” and roommate is a home-schooled fundamentalist Christian. "</p>
<p>Well, that will be interesting, and good preparation for the world of work. If it doesn’t work out, they won’t be roommates forever.</p>
<p>Doubleplay – that’s what google’s cache is for.</p>
<p>I’m with Northstarmom – the information is out there, it’s public, so viewing it is not stalking, it’s like reading the paper. </p>
<p>The intrusive question seems to me to only be how you got the roommate’s name. If your child told you, go ahead and google. If you opened your child’s mail, intrusive.</p>
<p>I’ll admit that I checked my daughter’s future roommate out at the time. There were a few references to academic achievements - nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps I was a little over the top but at the time it made me a bit more comfortable with the notion of my daughter moving in with a stranger to have some information about her.</p>
<p>If my D’s freshman roommate (or her parents) had googled my D before their first meeting she/they would have found some cross country race results and some similar academic activites as hers. Nothing earth shattering - and if it made HER parents feel more informed I have no problem with that.</p>
<p>It’s not like I hacked into the D’s facebook account. ;-)</p>
<p>At the time my daughter thought I was absolutely nuts. I told her to get back to me when she is sending one of her children off to college.</p>
<p>“so viewing it is not stalking, it’s like reading the paper.”</p>
<p>No its not, its like doing a search on archived issues of multiple papers for multiple years (only a lot faster). If you feel you must investigate your child’s roomate, do so, but at least be willing to be honest about what you are doing.</p>
<p>"Just talked to a friend who googled her son’s roommate. She has been losing sleep over the pairing; S, who went to a diverse public HS, listed himself as “atheist,” and roommate is a home-schooled fundamentalist Christian. "</p>
<p>Amazing to me what people lose sleep over. The problem seems so minor compared with major problems others are coping with such as serious illnesses.</p>
<p>An asset of going college is being exposed to diverse viewpoints.Sounds like her S will have a great opportunity with that.</p>
<p>When my older S, an atheist was in college, his roommate, too, was a fundamentalist Christian. Their diverse views didn’t seem to hurt their relationship. They both were slobs, which bounded them. I remember once my S told me they were cleaning their room. I asked if it was for a dorm inspection, and he said, “No. It’s so that we can walk across the room.”</p>
<p>Interesting, too, that when I had Googled S’s roommate, the info that I found indicated they had lots of other things in common, which was true, too. The Google search didn’t reveal anything about their differences in religion.</p>
<p>I did not research my kids roommates, and if I had they would have been annoyed with me. Here’s why-
When they received their assignments, somehow they all ended up getting in touch with each other, I believe through Facebook. The emailed each other as well. They got a good enough “feel” for each other without me going online and digging up two year old news. </p>
<p>It’s my view that students should be allowed to go off to school with a new slate. There are many students out there RIGHT NOW who spent their four years of high school living up to a reputation that had been established for them- whether it’s the nerd, the computer geek, the dumb jock, the emo-kid, the easy girl…you name it. They want nothing better than to go off to school and recreate themselves, start afresh. And here we are going back, trying to figure out what they were like/what they did in high school. </p>
<p>Anonymity can be very liberating for some kids. Let them have that second chance to start over with themselves.</p>
<p>I googled my son after reading this. Not too long ago what came up were chess awards from elementary school, math awards from middle school and not much else. Now the first three pages are an 80 year old physicist, a couple of high school awards on both high school and local news websites. And if you dig really deep some weird things that are related to linux and other programming that link his real name with various email addresses of his. Not so happy about that, but he’s a big boy now.</p>
<p>mathmom,
My oldest son’s google came up with a bunch of Scottish athletes. (More than one!) Our name must be common in Scotland. There was also another Scottish teen’s myspace, same exact age as son, which I suppose could be mistaken for him, except it clearly indicates he’s from the UK.</p>
<p>Buried way down on page whatever are some old sports/school news from my son’s hs days.</p>
<p>Thanks to whoever told me to go to the Cache. I never knew that! (blonde)</p>
She’s seem very well traveled. LOL</p>