Could Facebook Ruin Your Child's Future?

Posted February 12, 2009

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What does your child's profile say about her?

Posted Thursday, Feb. 12 by Shannon Riggs

I recently logged into my Facebook account and found an announcement that my 14-year-old daughter was "in a relationship," along with a link to her boyfriend's page. This status was not news to me. After all, the boy had been on our living room couch the entire day before, and I was driving them to the movies that evening. The surprise for me was that my daughter was announcing her personal relationship details on the Internet.

I called Sabrina into my office and explained to her that she had to take the announcement down. She thought I was over-reacting, getting too involved in her personal relationships, and that I was, at that moment, the most unreasonable mother on the planet. In the brouhaha that followed, I managed to explain three important reasons for my position:

1. Although her Facebook page is set up so that only friends can see what she posts, it's against our family's rules for kids to post personal information. And, although it felt like an intrusion, one condition of our kids' use of the Internet is that we monitor their activity. Just as I want to know who they're with when they go out, I want to know who they're "with" online. Just this week, a news story arose with one example that shows why. A teenage boy in Wisconsin posed as a girl on Facebook and enticed his male classmates to send nude pictures of themselves--and then used the pictures to blackmail the boys to have sex with him. An extreme case, yes--but definitely an example of what can happen when parents don't monitor and set limits on their teen's Internet use.

2. I also told Sabrina about how employers search the Internet--including social networking sites--to screen prospective employees. A recent article in PC World reported that more than 20% of employers check the profiles applicants post on their social networking pages before hiring.

3. Finally, to be mature enough to be "in a relationship" means being mature enough to respect that relationship by not gossiping about it. I asked Sabrina if, when one of them broke up with the other, she would want her 112 friends to receive the broadcast, "Sabrina and her boyfriend are no longer in a relationship"?

Sabrina persisted in her protest. She told me that all of her friends posted news about their relationships and breakups, and she couldn't believe I was going to make her take the notice down. After all, if she put something up that she later changed her mind about, she could always delete it.

But that wouldn't necessarily make it go away, I informed her. Although I may not be as Facebook-savvy as my teen, I was able to teach her something new about the Internet. I explained that sites like the Internet Archive Way Back Machine keep archives of Web pages, so even when you take something offline, an archived copy remains available for years to come--possibly forever. As an example, I showed Sabrina my personal Website. Then I showed her how the Way Back Machine had versions of my Web page going back to when I first created it in 2003. A search of the home page for Facebook.com shows versions going back to 1998.

Though she was not happy about it, Sabrina called her boyfriend and explained that she had to take the relationship notice down so that he'd be prepared for the announcement on the newsfeed. The next few hours brought a stream of Facebook comments, text messages, and even a phone call from my sister, who said she saw the news on her Facebook page and was sorry to hear that Sabrina and her boyfriend had broken up.

Was it uncomfortable for Sabrina to explain to all of these people that they hadn't broken up, and that her mother had made her take the notice down? Yes. A month later, though, when they did really break up, Sabrina admitted that she was glad she didn't have deal with the Facebook comments, texts, and phone calls, and she didn't have to talk to anyone about the news, until she was good and ready.