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<p>I’m not talking about confessing to a couple of sips of wine with dinner. I’m talking about openly celebrating a hard-partying lifestyle. And when you choose a fun screen name along the lines of “Drunken(female dog)” for yourself to reinforce the point, it should come as no surprise when later an opposing lawyer will use this material to paint you as well, a hard-partying, drunken (female dog).</p>
<p>Young people seldom think these things through.</p>
<p>Coureur,
THAT’S just plain stupid. I’ve seen those myspaces. </p>
<p>A classmate of my son put her pics up (or someone else did) drinking a bottle of booze (from the bottle) while reclining in a bubble bath. Really, really, reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelly stupid.</p>
<p>(Hope she or her mom isn’t a member of CC!) :)</p>
<p>
double~</p>
<p>We live in a small town, and one of our city council member’s daughters posted pictures of herself and some of her friends having a drunken spree at one of their homes. There were pics of the girl (the age of my oldest D…probably 15-16 when the pics were posted) wearing a small, fitted t-shirt and black panties, various liquor bottles (including an Everclear bottle), up-close pics of <em>gag</em> vomit on the floor, the furniture, and in the clear vacuum, etc. Let’s just say that my kids wouldn’t be using FB/MS if they were posting stuff like that! :eek:</p>
<p>berurah,
Is this some kind of virus? I’ve seen the <em>vomit</em> pics. There’s also the new <em>fad</em> of girls taking pictures of themselves using the toilet. (???) Honest. Is this just in my town?</p>
<p>Doubleplay. Ewww. I have never seen any toilet pictures. Hope I never do.</p>
<p>Do they think there is something sexy about a girl sitting on the toilet with her pants down to her ankles, smirking at the camera??? No kidding. And these were the really pretty, popular girls doing this. My son said, “What’s up with that?”</p>
<p>How are you seeing these nasty pictures?</p>
<p>I have no problem with Facebook. In fact, everyone in my family uses it. It’s great for us because my husband and I live on the road in an RV full-time, and our kids can find us in space this way when they choose and even see the pictures we post easily. Contacts for our educational work can, too.</p>
<p>But Facebook has lots of privacy controls,and I wouldn’t elect to go to anyone’s site where I could expect to see the kind of garbage some of you are discussing. My own privacy controls allow only those I want to see my information to see it. As do my son’s. What’s wrong with that?</p>
<p>I did warn my son that potential employers, etc were evaluating people through their Facebook pages, and he took a few things down, but he had enough sense to begin with not to have a lot of offensive material up here. You just don’t plaster billboards up about personal information, regardless sof the locations of those billboards, and everything will be fine. It’s just egotistical, after all, isn’t it?</p>
<p>It seemed to me that what happened (this was a year ago)…</p>
<p>On “myspace” they allow you to have a <em>photo album</em>. I’m not sure what the term is for it (I don’t remember) but you can put different files of pictures on your site, sort of like an online photo album.</p>
<p>What actually happened was a friend of mine knew my son had been at a party where there was known drinking. He wasn’t in any of the pictures, but she knew he had been at the party. So she sent me the link on email, saying “I think you should know that ****** was there…” and I was indeed able to access the pictures through the link she sent.</p>
<p>Funny thing, though. Upon perusing the pictures, and the myspace page, I came upon pictures of her daughter at another party, which were very provocative…there was obvious drinking (as in bottle to lips) and then, as the <em>album</em> went on, it escalated to close up pictures of the girls in their swim suit tops, squeezing their breasts together. :eek:</p>
<p>What to do? What to do?</p>
<p>So I thanked her and sent her the link.</p>
<p>My kids use facebook and each has shown me their site on occasion to share pictures of old friends, etc. I think all of them have reconnected with friends they had years ago, which is fun! One D had a girl add her recently, who she knew 17 years ago! I wish I could reconnect with old pals that easily. </p>
<p>They all know the ‘dangers’ of sharing too much information online, and I’m reasonably sure that none of them is sharing bubble bath photos. 
The issues that some kids have on facebook and similar sites whereby they’re sharing ridiculous things as mentioned in this thread are probably issues these kids have in real life, too. Kids who show bad judgment don’t usually do it exclusively online.</p>
<p>
always~
I would concur 100% with this. Attention seekers are attention seekers both online and IRL.</p>
<p>double~
<em>DEFINITELY</em> not just your town. There are epidemics of this gross/nasty/inappropriate stuff!!! :eek:</p>
<p>ctymomteacher~</p>
<p>You really do not have to be sneaking or spying to come across most of this stuff. Not everyone has their site set to “friends only,” and it is possible for kids to follow trails from one site to another to another. My girls often share their facebook (and/or myspace) sites with me, so many times what they see, I see too.</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>A very thought-provoking article by Caitlin Flanagan in this month’s Atlantic about the emotional/physical hazards kids face online: <a href=“http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200707/myspace[/url]”>http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200707/myspace</a>
The most disturbing part of the article comes at the end, when she demonstrates how very easy it is to stalk someone.</p>
<p>As a parent, I don’t mind either myspace or facebook for my own particular kids. I’ve never seen my older kids’ facebook pages, since facebook seems part of their independent college identities (and they rather pointedly haven’t asked me if I’d like to check it out). I did require my youngest d to show me her original myspace page when she first set it up, and told her that she’d have to be open to showing it to me if I became concerned about something specific in the future. I know her older sisters access it periodically, and would let me know if something detrimental or threatening surfaced. But I’m always pondering how safe it is.</p>
<p>berurah, well, then, ewwwwwww!</p>
<p>I think facebook is a great thing…myspace sort of overwhelms me, though. I did see a rather poignant piece on GMA (today maybe?) where siblings who had been separated at a very young age and adopted by different families found each other via myspace.</p>
<p>Myspace – So easy for kids’ feelings to get hurt. Esp. middle schoolers. Some kids post who their <em>heroes</em> are. And then suddenly, someone is not a <em>hero</em> anymore. Ouch. And then a friend, after a spat, might actually delete you from their friends list. Ouch again. And so very very public. And it is like gossip taken to a new level – kids posting <em>comments</em> or on bulletin boards, then e-mailing or posting, did you see what so and so wrote, what a jerk. And then there are the girls in high school who label their sites with derogatory filthy names in order to be <em>cool</em>. And then there is the whole parading of relationships and the ending of relationships in public, or at least to your 120 or so <em>friends</em>. It all makes me very uncomfortable. I haven’t made my daughter take down her site, but I have thought about it. She doesn’t list her friends or heroes anymore, though.</p>
<p>My kids use both–but not extensively. I don’t look at their pages unless they send me something to look at–like “Here’s me at that fanatastic fancy dress party”. </p>
<p>Usually, after I’ve had a look, I say something like:</p>
<p>“Clean up your Facebook/My Space page so that you won’t be embarrassed if someone shows it to Gramma.”</p>
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<p>Sure, but the on-line technology makes it possible for them to show their bad judgment in front a million people instead of perhaps a half dozen. Thus the stakes can be much higher and the consequences much bigger. And thanks to Google storing cached copies of old websites, their bad judgment can be remembered by everyone forever.</p>
<p>Yeah- tell me about it. If you google my son’s name, the first thing that comes up (before all his athletic accomplishments and awards) is a link to an article he wrote for his college online magazine about drinking. It’s a funny article, but still…</p>
<p>Technical question for an ignoramus here:
How do you “get on” Facebook? what I’m getting at is, How would a college admissions person inquire about an applicant, via Facebook? According to one of my D’s, the facebook individual in question has to ‘grant permission’ or something, for particular others with particular identities, to view your page. Or maybe it’s just permission to ‘correspond’ with you. </p>
<p>Enlighten me.</p>
<p>I hate MySpace, btw. I think it should be outlawed, because of these age considerations, not to mention the associated kidnappings which have occurred through the use & abuse of MySpace. And as to Facebook allowing topless photos, I don’t see why they would allow such provocative content. There’s no content screening? View porn, too?</p>
<p>epiphany, there is a search feature on facebook which allows you to search for someone by name. You will then get a results page with, likely, many people with the same name. As many others have said, there are privacy features which allow members to restrict who has access to seeing their page, or even seeing who their friends are. If someone ‘adds’ you, they cannot view your page, if it’s restricted, until you ‘add’ them back. So, yes, there are features which can control who is able to view and/or communicate with you. </p>
<p>As to obscene material, anyone is able to report such activity, photos, comments, and the individual will be instructed to take it down, or lose their site, which, in my opinion, is reasonable. It would be impossible for someone to ‘screen content’ on a site like facebook. Who would do it, and how?</p>
<p>Yes, there are issues with kids putting inappropriate material on internet sites, and yes, it may come back to haunt them in the future but this, in my opinion, is not a good reason to eliminate the positive activity, which is, I’m sure, the great majority of what goes on with facebook. The internet is here to stay so kids need to be warned/educated/prodded/threatened to use some judgment when utilizing its many facets. If they choose not to, then perhaps they will suffer some consequences but I’m not convinced that it happens as much as some people believe. I think the stories of adcoms and future employers searching for ‘dirt’ on individuals are very much exaggerated and are nearing the point of urban legend. Yes, there have been cases of individuals posting inappropriate material and being fired, e.g., the flight attendant who had someone take provocative pictures of her in her uniform, draped across a row of seats on a plane. She was stupid and was deservedly disciplined. I haven’t heard of many other documented cases of this type, and not one of a kid who has gotten into more trouble for something than they would have gotten into, had they been ‘caught’ in real life.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply, alwaysamom. However, your first paragraph would still seem to imply that students may block strangers like admissions folks from viewing their page, & that perhaps those whose pages have been viewed unwillingly have not bothered to safeguard that viewing or identity?</p>
<p>Also, I thought you need “an account” even to enter Facebook & search someone’s name.</p>