Are You a Facebook Spy?
When I became a mother, I promised myself that I would never read my children’s diaries unless I had real cause for concern over their health or well-being.
Is Facebook a diary? Is following your child’s chatter the same as reading their diary?
One late night of no sleep, I decided to download pictures of my kids. I went to each child’s Facebook page to look through photo albums. And there was the picture – my daughter embracing an unknown boy. Several times.
So began the midnight spy adventure. From the album, I went to her wall. I followed the conversation between her and her friends. Then I searched Facebook for the tagged names in the photo. And so on and so on… None of this information was difficult to acquire. My daughter did not consider this information private.
But I felt terrible. While the information is there for all to see, I knew she did not consider me, her mother, to be part of “all.” I knew that I was not welcome and that she would be disgusted to think that I cared enough about her social life to go through these machinations.
So what is a caring and curious mom of a tight-lipped teen to do?
To watch a hysterical video about one mom’s gathering of information from her college son’s Facebook page, click here.
To find out why teens are abandoning Facebook for Twitter Click here.
My parents are divorced. My mom is an 8th grade teacher at a public school. They had a meeting before school to say the teachers had to get off Facebook! Were they afraid of teachers spying on students or students spying on teachers? Either way, I’m bummed because I used to share photos and stuff with my mom via Facebook. Sometimes a phone call is just too hard when I’m staying with my dad.
I really hope this isn’t MY mom.
My suggestion is to sit tight. The truth will eventually come out. If this boy really means something to your daughter, you will hear about him. It may just be a passing flirtation.
It is so hard for me to come to terms with the fact that my daughter has a life that is includes secrets from me. Of course it does. Of course it should. But the reality is difficult to accept.
Don’t think twice about being a creepster (these are our kids we’re talking about and why shouldn’t we know what they’re doing)… but NEVER tell them you’re creeping or bring up information you’ve discovered this way!
When anyone posts on Facebook, they need to realize it’s out there for the public. Whether it’s kids or adults. So looking at other peoples’ pages is the point, it’s not spying. It’s fun and entertaining. And that’s why it’s taken off like it has.
Interesting perspective. Just not the one a teenager would have about his or her mother.
Teens must realize that their parent is the most benign of those who may see their profiles/info/photos. If they’re embarrassed about mom and dad seeing, it shouldn’t be out there for pedophiles and frenemies, either.
Parenst shouldn’t “stalk” their kids unless they suspect that something is not right. Follow your instincts with regard to your kids and make sure they know that you will check up on them if your have a strong reason to.
Parents should not be afraid of being parents and protecting their children, even if their children don’t think they need protecting. In this world, parents need all the information they can gather about where there children are, with whom, and doing what.
These websites are public domain. Who knows who is watching?
[Caveat Emptor -- I am not a Mom, but I have dated a number of divorced Moms.]
While I have never had cause or reason to read my children’s email, search through their Facebook profiles, or search their rooms, I have made it clear to them in the past that I am their father, I am responsible for them, and I would be within my rights as their father to do so. Implicit in that statement is a truth about the Internet.
Nothing is private.
Certainly there are degrees of privacy on the Internet. There is a reasonable expectation that when you write an email to another person, it is not going to appear the next day on the front page of the Washington Post unless the recipient gives it to the Washington Post, and that’s an important conversation to have with your teen, as well as the related conversation about picking a good password and NOT SHARING IT (a conversation the woman I am dating now are trying to have and impress upon her tweenage daughter.)
Now as to Facebook, while it is not in the public domain [which has a specific legal meaning], as suggested above, information from Facebook can be widely disseminated. So we come back to my original point — educate your kids about privacy on the Internet
As Jennifer points out, you should not be stalking your child on the Internet (be it Facebook, email, whatever), but Facebook, cell phone and email access are not rights, they are privileges. Simply because technology has driven down the cost of this and opened up the varieties of way kids connect to one another does not change that, and (also as pointed out above) gives the Bad Guys new venues to exploit potential victims.
Caveat Emptor.
The onion has a video that is on point and hysterical. Enjoy.
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/facebook_twitter_revolutionizing?utm_source=videoembed
My daughter had a Facebook page after I told her not to but she followed what my foster children where doing. When it all came out and we discussed it, she had no idea how open and NON-PRIVATE those sites are. We told her to wait and when she was allowed and really understood what she was doing that she could have a page with us monitoring it. She’s 15 now and says that it doesn’t bother her when we check her page besides we also have family and friends that keep an eye on it too. So go ahead and “Be The Parent”, if you don’t help keep your child safe who will? God Bless
Without getting into the ethics of this case, I would like to suggest that asking random people on the internet for parenting advice (or any advice) just seems like a stupid idea.
I mean do I know what I’m talking about? No. I’m just some yoohoo who saw this and was like “Hey- I should voice my opinion in a public forum. That will make me feel important!”
And yet, here I am, blathering on. Am I the type of person you want telling you how to raise your kid?
Maybe. But maybe I’m a serial killer. You don’t know.
Sue Ann: 110% correct
Voice of Reason: I am on a public forum because I have (or at least think I have) good ideas about Child raising and this is an easy way to get it out
To almost every one else, If you are stalking your child without them knowing, stop. Now most of them accepted you as friends which allows you to see what they say which could be taken as permission however you need to consider one thing; You are NOT their friends. What you can get out of them face to face is fair game but what you have to electronically pry (spend more then 5 minutes looking for) is stalking to at least a dishonest degree. So for everyone who was ever a child, parents get out of your childs life besides what they let you in on
I check my 14 year old daughters facebook not to spy on her but just to make sure that she’s safe. I look at her friends list and had to show her just how easy it is to get personal information from someone, I think she doesn’t really like it but it doesn’t seem to bother because I never bring something up that I may have read.
There is a HUGE difference between simply looking at a friend’s page or child’s page to catch up and spying. Unless you have no common sense you realize this. It’s all about the intent.
And a lot of people apparently need to get a clue about how Facebook works. No, just because your child friended you does not mean you can see everything they’re doing. There are tons of nuanced privacy controls that allow a user to control who sees what. Get with the program and read about Facebook in detail or log into your account and start checking the privacy controls out.
And no, just because someone has a Facebook account does not mean the whole world has access to their page. Anyone who has spent a decent amount of time learning about Facebook would know this. I’m 29 years old, and have no interest in showing my boss or professors or family or co-workers what I was doing over the weekend, even if I was just going to a bookstore or a BBQ. So my Facebook page’s privacy settings doesn’t allow people who aren’t my friends to see anything but my main picture and some very scant details (name, location, some groups I’m a member of). They also don’t allow family members who have friended me to see my wall, see tagged photos, certain photo albums, or tagged videos. I would like to assume I don’t have any family members who would poke around my Facebook simply because they’re nosy. But as this blog proves, you just never know.
When I was about 14 my mother read my diary. She had no serious cause for concern as her reason for doing this. I was a good kid: made good grades, my favorite hobby was reading, I’d never been in any trouble. Nope, my mom is just a nosy type of person and let the urge to poke around overcome her common sense. And when I found out she’d read my diary it seriously undermined my trust in her. To the point that I didn’t tell her a lot of things I wish I could have talked to her about.
I think it is okay to check text messages or facebook periodically if you suspect something is wrong. I know a lot of parents who spend hours stalking their teens. It is like getting addicted to a reality show. I would hear them talk and think how pathetic it was.
Then I started to fall into this routine. I started out looking at my daughter’s wall. Then I figured out which kids in their circle of friends didn’t have their walls blocked. I would read the posts, look at their pictures, etc. Then I would want to fill in the pieces of the story. I would check my daughter’s texts.
The sad thing is that I think it actually hurt my communication with my daughter. Rather than seeing her looking a bit dejected and asking sincerely about what was wrong, I already knew (and felt guilty about it), so I was probably more nonchalant than I should have been. I realized how horrible my invasion of her privacy was and I decided to focus on my own life. I had a friend change my facebook password so I can’t get in for awhile.
The best part is that my daughter is talking to me more than ever now and telling me many of the things I used to read. I will still check in if I think there is a real reason to do it, but I am going to try the old fashioned way of parenting for awhile… face-to-face communication with my daughter.
Hi, I want something to be clear. Maybe your daughter likes this boy… but also maybe not. I hug boys all the time. I don’t care about my parents looking at my faceook, but reading text messages or IMs is like listening in on a conversation… and I’m sure you know that’s not ok… though if this isn’t good enough, look at it this way- if your teen was doing what your doing with you as the subject would you be okay with it?