Parents Invading Facebook

After my morning run I found myself reading the Contra Costa Times, as I often do. I was happened looking through the Time Out Section (for those of you not familiar with the CCT; time out = comics + pop culture) when an interesting article caught my eye.  You see I usually only read the comics for I find the an unskilled writers take on current fads to be a tad, oh how do you say... lame?  Now I know with a $50g a year education I should be able to come up with a better word than "lame" but I am tired and I was a physics major so suck on them apples.

Anyhow, so I stumbled upon an article about how Facebook is now becoming overrun (9% usage for adults over 35 yrs. old...ZOMG oh snap watch out lol rotfl haxor wtf? sorry) with an older user base who tends to be... parents! The article goes on to collect statements from frustrated college aged kids who simply can no longer handle having their parents invading and taking over their "fad" and "thing" and other words that teens and unsophisticated rich white kids use for an Internet phenom. The article tries to play to these poor and damaged students woes by offering the most cliche sage advice to parents thinking about getting a Facebook account and how they can do so without ruining their kids' lives.

The article fails to note that Facebook originated as a online directory with the intent of being just that, a directory. Thus in theory parents getting a Facebook account would be justified in doing so and collecting "friends" that they can add to their "directory" so that they may stay in contact with said people. ESPECIALLY if they happen to have gone to college and want to get in contact with other ALUMNI! It seems that not everything is about you, little girl from Northridge or UCSC or wherever. I am too lazy to go back and check the reference. And to be honest I have a bigger qualm with Facebook opening its doors to people outside of or disconnected from college, such as those still in High School, but I wont go into that now. 

I was glad this article pointed out that Facebook users can easily block or limit access to their profile as to eliminate a parental oversight or investigation.  This fact should have been the entirety of the article as it would alert those users who are Facebook-dumb to their mighty sword of public protection and let the parents know that they have no chance in hell of actually using Facebook to effectively spy on their kids unless they happen to be hackers.

In the end, if Facebook is going to go the way of myspace and opening its doors to unlimited users then issues such as parents seeing you at college holding a red cup in your profile are going to arise. It will always be true that parents care about you very much and they will try many ways to spy on you. This of course means you will try very hard to thwart their efforts. 

I feel in order to avoid having your parents forced to get a Facebook to feel connected to you, just give them a call or send and email once and a while and they wont feel the need to spy so much. Plus if you are really that embarrassed about your parents seeing you in "compromising" positions maybe you should rethink your extra curricular activities. And I will need to read one less lame article before my breakfast comics in the future.