Saving Face - How to Manage Facebook in Your Life - Part 3, Kids and Facebook

In Part 1 of this series of articles, we examined the potential privacy risks involved in the social world that is Facebook.  In Part 2, we looked at taking control of Facebook's privacy controls.  In this, the third and final installment, we will examine how we can help our children and students navigate the Facebook universe safely.

 For some of us we may need help in understanding why young people are attracted to social networking sites like Facebook.  There are a number of reasons:

• They enjoy the sense of being connected to others.  In one sense, this is nothing new.  On the other hand, a world full of devices (computers, laptops, and cell phones) has magnified both their desire for connectedness and their ability to stay connected to their peers and others.
• Kids love having friends, and with Facebook, they can amass "friends" by creating connections with more and more people.  In some cases, this may turn into a bit of a competition which isn't necessarily healthy.  In others, it can lead them "acquire" friends with whom they have little or no face-to-face connection.  This too, can have drawbacks.
• Facebook provides a number of games and amusements (surveys, quizzes, ...) which appeal to all ages.  Some very young people are initially drawn to Facebook because their friends have told them about a game they are playing.  In many ways there is nothing inherently wrong with playing these games, but engaging in them draws the youngster into the entire Facebook universe.

What do you do as a parent when your child has expresses an interest in having a Facebook account or has simply gone ahead and created an account on her own?  If you decide to allow your child to create an account, here are my suggestions:

• First talk to your child and make sure that she fully understands that Facebook is not a private realm.  Explain the concept of two degrees of separation (friends of friends).  If your child seems unable to grasp this concept and its ramifications, perhaps she is too young to have a Facebook account.
• Explain to her that any information which is posted or published on the Internet must be considered to be permanent.  If you need help in making that argument consider this:  the Library of Congress recently announced that it will archive every single twitter post (tweet) since Twitter's inception!  Nothing seems more insignifcant or ephemeral than a Twitter post, yet every single tweet - no matter how banal, trivial, offensive, or bizarre - will no be stored in perpetuity.
• Stress with your child that virtually anything posted on the Internet can be searched by schools, employers, and governments, and, therefore, can have consequences later in life.
• Create a Facebook account yourself and insist that your child must add you as a friend.  In this way you will be able to track most of her online activity.  Assure her that you will judge her only by her own online behaviour, not that of her friends (which you will also see a great deal of).
• Occasionally browse your child's friends list.  Ensure that she has a face-to-face connection with everyone in her list or that she can provide you with a good explanation for those people she does not know face-to-face.
• Have your child log on to her Facebook account and walk through all the privacy settings with her, helping her limit her exposure on the Internet.
• Discourage your child from posting photos on the Internet.  If you do allow her to post photos, ensure that she sets the privacy settings on all her albums to "only friends" or tighter.  Stress to her that she should ask permission of her friends before posting photos of them online.
• Make sure that her notification settings ensure that she is notified if she is tagged in any online photos or videos within Facebook.  Then stress that if she is uncomfortable with any photos posted by her friends that she should insist that they remove them.

Finally, what advice should you give your students regarding Facebook?  Virtually everything in above list applies to your students except the advice of having them add you as their friend.  Since Facebook is blocked in many of our schools, showing students how to set privacy settings can be difficult.  I have two suggestions here:

• You could have your principal request that TIS unblock Facebook for one day so that you can walk through the process of setting privacy settings with students who have Facebook accounts.
• Barring that, you could show them this online video, which would at least raise their awareness of privacy issues and familiarize them with the settings to some degree.

Some might argue against teaching kids how to be safe on Facebook and argue for denying them access instead.  While I can certainly agree that there is little reason for very young children to be on Facebook, I believe it's much wiser to teach older children responsible use of social networking technology than to simply preach abstinence.  As our children become old enough to ride a two-wheeled bicycle, we teach them the rules of the road, give them helmets, and run along beside them until they have their balance and can ride safely.  In a similar vein, they need to be taught Internet safety, and they need us at their side as they are learning to navigate the roadways of cyberspace.