A Forum on Facebook
Last night I had the pleasure of speaking and moderating a group of middle and high school parents in my town on the subject social networking. We had about 70 people attend in a packed library. I spoke for about 25 minutes (you can download my slides here) and then we had a panel of four students discuss their use of Facebook and answer parent’s questions.
Needless to say, parents had LOTS of questions. But there was a dominant discussion on who can see their children’s Facebook profiles and who can and can’t join Networks on Facebook. I found an excellent source on the Facebook help pages to further explain networks.
While we attempted to stay away from pushing any particular set of values in the discussion, I believe each family needs to consider what they are for them, where the line should be drawn on what is and isn’t appropriate for their kids to share online. On one slide I wrote “A Generational Lack of Understanding of Private vs. Public” and I visibly saw many parents shaking their heads in agreement. Perhaps this is a good time to have that discussion with your son’s and daughter’s about what they are posting online - especially those preparing to go to college or seeking employment.
I hope everyone found last night informative and not too stressful (as one parent put it at the end of the event, talking about kid’s and their behavior always creates anxiety, but being informed is better than not). And it doesn’t start in high school or even middle school - it’s starting in elementary schools with relatively harmless sites such as Webkinz and Club Penguin - a topic for another time!
Thanks to all who attended. See you on Facebook!
Note: for the two mom’s that were asking about Facebook advertising and the ability for advertisers now to target students based on almost any keyword, I went back and re-listened to the NPR story you also heard. This story was about the new abilities Facebook gives to advertisers that allows them to target ads based on keywords in your Facebook profile - much like Google serves up ads based on keywords you are searching for. Advertisers won’t be able to see your kid’s profiles just by advertising, but they can place ads on their Facebook page based on what is in their profile. Sound creepy? This has been standard practice on the Internet for over 10 years - you just didn’t notice it until now as we’re all talking about privacy and even the slightest bit of “data mining” by advertisers is of concern to many. But since Facebook is free, this is the tradeoff we must accept, or we shouldn’t use it.