We are living in a fast-paced society whereby the technology around us are quite advanced as compared to a decade ago. With the popularity of social networking websites and communities increases significantly, more and more children tend to spend their free time on the these platforms to interact with other people either their peers or a different age group in the world.
Facebook, the world’s most “hot” social networking platform has attracted millions of kids to join the network because it offers many useful features for them to communicate with their friends online. However, there are many downsides and possible dangerous threats for children to use the service.
Facebook has managed to tackle this serious problem by implementing a minimum age of 13 to join the website and people under 18 would not have their profiles appear in search engines’ search listings. Although this has been quite successful in preventing cyber-bully and some other factors, however, I feel that parents should step in and try to find out what their kids are doing on Facebook.
Some parents think that by joining Facebook will intrude their kids’ privacy, just like going into their bedroom and check out what they are doing. This is when Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University helps parents by giving them talks of how to understand Facebook and guide their children of what’s the right thing to do. The folks there has created a website called Facebook for Parents which provides simple but useful tips of how join the social community and search for their children in the website.
Here’s the extract of Five Steps for Parents on Facebook:
#1. Join Facebook.
Yes, you should sign up for Facebook. This service was once just for college students, but today it’s for everyone. Parents need to be part of this world.
#2. “Friend” your kids.
To “friend” someone on Facebook means connecting to them. Your kids will probably complain about you “friending” them. That’s normal. But if your kids are minors, you should “friend” them. That’s our view. If you’re opposed to friending your kids, you should still join Facebook to learn how it works.
#3. Review your kids’ profile pages.
Go to the profile pages for your kids and review the content. At first, you’ll see the “Wall.” But don’t stop there. Click on the tabs for “Info” and “Photos” to see more.
#4. Review who is “friends” with your kids.
On the profile page for your kids, click on the words “See All” in the Friends box. You can then see who is linked to your kids. Seeing who is friends with whom is typical Facebook behavior.
#5. Select “More About” for your kids.
Watch for an item about your kids in your News Feed. Click on that item and select the “More About” option. This tells Facebook to show you more about that person in the future, sort of like turning up the volume. Expert Facebook users do this routinely to tailor their News Feed.