In a moment of weakness today, I let my (younger than legal age) daughter create a Facebook account. I was on Facebook myself and had just read a post that my cousin-in law’s photos were featured in the New York Times. I called Ruby over to have a look.
One thing led to another and then boom, the question I’d been dreading: “Can I have a Facebook account?” I knew the answer - “NO. Not until you’re legal and that isn’t until you’re 13” - but recently I’d been losing my conviction. So many of her school buddies belonged that I was feeling that she might be left out (although that was likely me projecting my own insecurities). Also, I reasoned to myself, if I let her join I could teach her the rules while she’d still let me.
I wasn’t worried about safety issues or that she’d post something she’d regret later. I had made her read American Girl’s “Smart Girl’s Guide to the Internet” from cover to cover and we had reviewed (ad nauseam according to Ruby) the rules of online behavior:
- Ignore friend requests from people you don’t know and don’t initiate a request to a stranger
- Don’t post comments or pictures you’ll regret – basically, anything you wouldn’t want a high school/college admissions officer or a future employer to see
- Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say face-to-face to someone in real life
My biggest fear was that Facebook would become yet another distraction that would compete with homework time, family time, reading time and so on. But, hoping to be able to manage this with rules about Facebook time, on we went.
The first thing we did together was to set the privacy settings:
- we reset all her settings to “only friends” versus the default “everyone" or “friends of friends”
- we disabled the feature that’s allows Facebook profiles come up in online search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo
- we also disabled email alerts - an enormously distracting and addictive feature whereby an email is sent every time every time someone posts on your wall or sends a friend request
With a few last minute words of advice from me, Ruby was off into cyberspace. Within minutes she had friended about 4 school buddies and, when she discovered that she could live chat on Facebook, she was hooked. Then she moved on to friending family members.
The first glimmer of a problem was when my sister called: “You’ve put me in a really tough position.” she said. Turns out she really didn’t want her 11-year old niece to belong to her Facebook club because her wall postings could sometimes be R –rated. “If I accept her request, I’m going to have to mind my p’s and q’s” she moaned.
Then it dawned on me that I hadn’t cleared this big decision with her Dad. When I called him, the news got a chilly reception. “What benefit does Facebook add?” he asked. “What’s she going to be able to do that she can’t already do on email, Skype and ichat?’ “Um, it will all be in one place….?” I countered knowing that it wasn’t much of a defense.
So, I’ve spent the whole day agonizing over my temporary lapse in judgment and I’ve decided that, at the risk of having my daughter hate me for the rest of her life, I’m going to deactivate her account.
I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to stuff this particular genie back into the bottle, but I’m sure as hell going to try.
One thing led to another and then boom, the question I’d been dreading: “Can I have a Facebook account?” I knew the answer - “NO. Not until you’re legal and that isn’t until you’re 13” - but recently I’d been losing my conviction. So many of her school buddies belonged that I was feeling that she might be left out (although that was likely me projecting my own insecurities). Also, I reasoned to myself, if I let her join I could teach her the rules while she’d still let me.
I wasn’t worried about safety issues or that she’d post something she’d regret later. I had made her read American Girl’s “Smart Girl’s Guide to the Internet” from cover to cover and we had reviewed (ad nauseam according to Ruby) the rules of online behavior:
- Ignore friend requests from people you don’t know and don’t initiate a request to a stranger
- Don’t post comments or pictures you’ll regret – basically, anything you wouldn’t want a high school/college admissions officer or a future employer to see
- Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say face-to-face to someone in real life
My biggest fear was that Facebook would become yet another distraction that would compete with homework time, family time, reading time and so on. But, hoping to be able to manage this with rules about Facebook time, on we went.
The first thing we did together was to set the privacy settings:
- we reset all her settings to “only friends” versus the default “everyone" or “friends of friends”
- we disabled the feature that’s allows Facebook profiles come up in online search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo
- we also disabled email alerts - an enormously distracting and addictive feature whereby an email is sent every time every time someone posts on your wall or sends a friend request
With a few last minute words of advice from me, Ruby was off into cyberspace. Within minutes she had friended about 4 school buddies and, when she discovered that she could live chat on Facebook, she was hooked. Then she moved on to friending family members.
The first glimmer of a problem was when my sister called: “You’ve put me in a really tough position.” she said. Turns out she really didn’t want her 11-year old niece to belong to her Facebook club because her wall postings could sometimes be R –rated. “If I accept her request, I’m going to have to mind my p’s and q’s” she moaned.
Then it dawned on me that I hadn’t cleared this big decision with her Dad. When I called him, the news got a chilly reception. “What benefit does Facebook add?” he asked. “What’s she going to be able to do that she can’t already do on email, Skype and ichat?’ “Um, it will all be in one place….?” I countered knowing that it wasn’t much of a defense.
So, I’ve spent the whole day agonizing over my temporary lapse in judgment and I’ve decided that, at the risk of having my daughter hate me for the rest of her life, I’m going to deactivate her account.
I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to stuff this particular genie back into the bottle, but I’m sure as hell going to try.
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