<p>It seems like lots of high school kids, college students, adults use facebook. I would to know parents’ opinion about that. What are your experiences? Do you like them or not like them? Why?</p>
<p>This is my opinion on the issue: I can see it as a good networking among friends, but it seems to be a waste of time looking at friends’ journal, profiles, and pictures.</p>
<p>Whether we like or dislike it doesn’t matter. Facebook and other social networking sites are here, apparently to stay.</p>
<p>I think parents need to learn to use Facebook so we understand what our kids are doing, what the exposures are, and how to use the privacy settings.</p>
<p>I also wish more parents would get a Facebook site themselves, as I think it would be a great way to re-connect with old friends in a casual way. I have one, but I wouldn’t ask to “friend” my kids - that would creep them out. I have a couple of cousins and school friends as my “friends.”</p>
<p>I have been known to check out my kids’ Facebook, and those of their friends, when they forget to log out. I reserve the right to check their facebook at any time and require them to delete anything I find objectionable (at least my 16 year old, not so much for my 19 year old).</p>
<p>My mom has a facebook and a myspace…mostly so she can make sure I’m being safe (not so much my 20-year-old sister).</p>
<p>“I also wish more parents would get a Facebook site themselves, as I think it would be a great way to re-connect with old friends in a casual way.”</p>
<p>It’s true that many parents are so busy worrying about their children being on Facebook that they don’t see how it could benefit them to be on it as well. It really is a useful tool for networking and keeping in touch if one uses it correctly. Additionally, the privacy settings are indeed easy to use and very helpful.</p>
<p>My 19 year old would not be able to do without Facebook. She conducts all of her social life on Facebook. But I will not let my 14 year old HS freshman daughter have it. The reason is that young girls are quite mean, they use Facebook to let people know who were invited to parties by posting pictures the day after. My older daughter was very hurt a few times in high school, and I just think it’s not necessary for young kids. I have a Facebook acct, have not befriended my older daughter, but have checked out her acct when she didn’t log out. Facebook is a great networking tool, many professionals are using it now.</p>
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<p>How on Earth do you control that? 
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<p>It’s an internet networking site. I can basically access it anywhere – I can’t imagine being forbidden to use it. Many of my friends have been blogging since primary school and Facebook is basically an extension of the user-generated web.</p>
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<p>It saves time calling up everyone. People make a big fuss about privacy – but the thing is, half of the usefulness is in making in public. If one friend posts on the wall of the another, I don’t need to be updated the next day. Why shouldn’t younger kids use it? I remember in early secondary school we spent quite a lot of time on MSN – Facebook just seems to be an extension.</p>
<p>The economic potential of Facebook – the kind to organise mass-coordinated consumer action – has yet to be realised, I think.</p>
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<p>For the same reasons I do not let my younger kids hang out with 18-year olds or watch “R” movies. Much of the content and language, as well as pictures posted, by the 18+ crowd is inappropriate for younger children. Some of us believe our young kids are not ready to mentally process and understand which of the depicted behaviors are healthy and worth emulating, versus those which are simply risky showing-off.</p>
<p>galoisien - you wouldn’t survive in my household :), we have a lot of rules. As an IT profession at a financial institution, I am very good at snooping. My older daughter told me one time a guy she was dating in college (just his name, where he was from), in half an hour I was able to tell her where he went to high school, his father’s profession, how much they sold their house for, new home address. I didn’t have to pay for any of those information, power of internet is amazing. It is one of the reasons I do not like my kids to share too much information on the internet. Even on their school’s website (newspaper, awards, events), I would prefer if they didn’t give out our kids’ home address.</p>
<p>We absolutely minimize our kids’ footprint on the internet. Our son shows up on about 8 pages related to academic awards and that’s it. There are other people out there with the same name too. I haven’t been able to find our daughter on the internet at all.</p>
<p>Facebook stuff doesn’t show up on Google. Don’t be too confident that just because an internet “search” is blank that your kid doesn’t have a Facebook (esp if they know how to use the privacy settings).</p>
<p>They don’t have facebook accounts. They’re both as security and privacy conscious as I am. And everyone in the household uses browsers that I personally build.</p>
<p>Wow.</p>
<p>Some of you, it’s obvious that you just want your kids to be safe. 
Kudos.</p>
<p>But BCEagle…do you just not trust your kids at all? There’s a difference between being security-conscious and being paranoid. I don’t mean to sound rude or to offend you, but what are they going to do when they move out and don’t have all that restriction anymore? Do you really expect them to act the same way?</p>
<p>There’s nothing wrong with MySpace or Facebook if you use them correctly. Set them to private and only accept people you know personally (and they need to have pictures of themselves up, lots of them, for me to accept them) as friends.</p>
<p>I also use the feature on MySpace where people have to know my last name in order for them to add me as a friend.</p>
<p>oldfort-that’s kinda cool, but creepy at the same time. XD sounds like something my mom would do (she’s very tech-savvy).</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your feedbacks on facebook! I am trying to be open about pros and cons of facebook.</p>
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<p>Facebook can be set to show up on Google. As I recall, the default security settings do have it popping up on search engines, but even if it’s not default, it’s still possible. I wasn’t a fan of that when I noticed, so just a heads up to make sure you have that particular feature disabled if you’d like it to be.</p>
<p>I’m on facebook. My little sister’s on facebook. My cousins, my parents, my aunts and uncle, some family friends, some parents of friends…all on facebook. Personally, I’ve found it just as handy for connecting with extended family/other adults as with peers (and in some ways, perhaps even more so, b/c they’re people to whom I wouldn’t otherwise drop texts, casual calls, etc.). My parents and their friends were surprised with how convenient the site can be. </p>
<p>I think that people need to be aware of the privacy options, and also aware of their limitations. Objectionable content shouldn’t be out there, period, whatever your settings…it’s just a request for trouble, and I do know people who’ve suffered major consequences over stuff that’s gone up on facebook. Frankly, I think that having parents/relatives/etc. able to access my profile is an excellent thing. I keep my security settings the same for all of my ‘friends’, so whatever gets posted, I have to think about whether it’s something I want those particular people to see. If my answer is ‘no’, I probably shouldn’t have it up there, regardless. Decent litmus test.</p>
<p>I did a cross-country move at age 12, a year or so before email addresses became really commonplace among my friends, and then I went to high school in another city. So above all, facebook has been wonderful for reconnecting with old friends. I’ve really appreciated the site, but I do think it’s prudent to act as if it’s less private than it gives the impression of being.</p>
<p>I have had a facebook account for a while now, and now more and more of my adult friends have one as well. It’s a wonderful tool, as others have said, for keeping in touch with those physically far away from you.</p>
<p>“But BCEagle…do you just not trust your kids at all?”</p>
<p>There’s nothing implicit in what I wrote that indicates that I don’t trust them.</p>
<p>“There’s a difference between being security-conscious and being paranoid.”</p>
<p>I would suggest reading Slashdot regularly.</p>
<p>“I don’t mean to sound rude or to offend you, but what are they going to do when they move out and don’t have all that restriction anymore? Do you really expect them to act the same way?”</p>
<p>They have no interest in Facebook or MySpace. They routinely ask me about the relative safety level of the things that they do.</p>
<p>Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.</p>
<p>I am a parent and I have been attempting to learn the ins and outs of Facebook the past few weeks because a non-profit organization I do work for wants to have a site on it to publicize their events. There are thousands of non-profits on there with pages. </p>
<p>My D has had a Facebook page for a while and found it useful last year for organizing meetings and events for the school clubs she was president of. An unexpected benefit is the application where you write down all the books you are reading. I noticed that some college applications ask for a list of books you’ve read the past year and when I asked my D if she was keeping track she said it was all on Facebook. </p>
<p>Although my D has used the computer socially for several years my son has shown no interest at all. I’m not sure if it is a boy/girl thing or just him.</p>
<p>Both my kids have Facebook; I don’t…the only problem I have with it is that it is as addictive a time waster as CC…</p>
<p>Rodney – Bingo!!</p>
<p>Both girls have facebook. Not concerned about the safety issues because both are very careful about what they post, their settings, etc. Facebook has replaced e-mail, just as e-mail replaced land lines. (Texting is replacing everything, though).<br>
D1 found groups for all the colleges she was accepted at and was able to chat with people, get a sense for the kinds of kids going to the school. She met her future roommate on facebook, whom she has now met face to face, shopped with, etc. It really worked for her.
But oh my – what a time waster. It is my biggest concern for her going into freshman year at college – how will she, on her own, limit her facebook time.</p>