As teenagers still living under our parents’ roof, finding a place to extend your social life online has become more and more difficult. One place where many of us decide to express our social lives is Facebook. With the accessibility of Facebook, we’re able to post statuses about our crazy weekend out with friends and pictures of us having a grand ‘ole time.
As Facebook’s popularity is sprouting and more people are creating accounts though, our privacy is going down, down, down. One specific group of people who ruins that for us. Who am I talking about? Well of course, the people we’re closest to -our very own parents.
With more parents signing up for Facebook, the less privacy we have with our social lives.
Of course, not having our parents as friends doesn’t give an excuse to raid the town, and post the pictures of everything we do, but there comes a point where teenagers need a little wiggle room to be social and open about it – with people their own age.
There is a fine line between parents and friends. Accepting that friend request from one of your parents, it changes you and your parent’s relationship from being parent to daughter/son, to friend to friend, which is abnormal. This is what I find weird about the whole situation.
A parent is supposed to be the person who supports and loves you, not one of your many Facebook friends who likes your pictures and comment on your statuses. I just don’t find that normal.
This brings me to another point. Why do our parents need to be friends with us on Facebook, when we are around them every other time of the day? It seems like they should know enough about us if we’re around them practically all day, every day.
So, why should they be friends with us on Facebook if they supposedly “know us better than ourselves”?
Although some people, like myself, believe that becoming friends with your parents on Facebook is completely inappropriate, putting yourself in their shoes can make you understand the whole situation. Many parents create a Facebook in the first place to catch a glimpse of their children’s life.
So, here’s a simple solution: to avoid your parents from becoming apart of the ParentalStalkingBook, simply educate them with more information about your social life, instead of them doing it themselves.
Case in point, Facebook is a place where we can interact with our friends who are our own age who we either want to reconnect with or just want to check in on every once in a while. It makes no sense to become your parent’s friend if you’re already connected to them. Plus, it just gives them yet another resource to stalk us, and who wants that?
