Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blogs, blogs, and more blogs – so much online space, so many questions!
I am delighted to announce that I will be moderating a panel called Negotiating The Parent/Teen Divide Over Social Networking at SXSW Interactive 2010.
I’m very excited about this panel as an opportunity for parents and teenagers to speak directly to the social networking companies about how they negotiate use within the home.
Now, this is a topic that parents vary widely on – some parents give their teenagers free reign on social networking sites, others dramatically limit what they can do, and some even require their teenagers to provide the parents with their passwords. I will soon be creating a survey about how families negotiate social network use by teenagers, but I’m interested in hearing from my readers first in the comments section:
- What are the rules in your house about social networking sites?
- How well do these rules work or not work for you and your teenagers or your parents?
- Have the rules changed over time?
- How knowledgeable are your – or how knowledgeable are your parents – about social media?
- And whatever else you think would be interesting or important to me!
I do, by the way, have my own opinions on these matters, and I’m sure I’ll be sharing them with you in more detail as I ponder my panel. But for right now, I’m interested in what you have to say, so please share!
Both my boys (14, 16) use Facebook. I don’t put limits on what they post, but I have told them both that anything they post should be gentlemanly, because anyone can read what they say.
I have their passwords, but I don’t log on with them. I just check their main pages every so often–maybe once a month? I haven’t seen anything questionable, so I don’t bother them about it.
So many of my friends and family members use Facebook, I’m wondering when the young people will migrate to something else that doesn’t have so many old people on it. For heaven’s sake, one of my boys friended his grandmother.
In any case, I do believe that teenagers need their own world, their own space, and I try not to violate it. I trust my kids not to do anything really dumb (maybe that’s naive, but I do.) The fact that it’s public, though, makes me feel that I should be able to give them a little guidance if necessary, so that’s why I have the passwords.