Teens with their own FaceBook pages--concerns/cautions?

[Sunny Side Up]

Okay, I know I'm a Wilma Flintstone living in a Jane Jetson world. But I really am trying to catch up & keep up with the new technology. I communicate a lot through email and as you see, on online forums like this.

The whole MySpace thing passed me by without a pause in my frame of reference. But now it seems that many people are using FaceBook as a primary means of communication. And I am still very much in the dark about it. I have people sending me invitations to
"be their friend" on FaceBook, but I don't often reply to them. And during the few times I've had time to go look on other people's FaceBook pages leaves me a bit confused. It's like opening a door to a big room with lots of conversations going on between people, lots of things to see, both personal pictures and commercial advertisements. I don't stay long because I really don't know the etiquette.

Now my 16-year-old son is asking for his own FaceBook page. He'd have to set up his own email account for that, and promises to not use it for sending/receiving emails, just to have the FaceBook page. Now I know the concerns & cautions about having teens online, but what about on FaceBook?

Please let me know how I should instruct my son for his own protection before he opens his own door to the world on FaceBook. Or am I just being overly cautious?

 

[texasgal]

Quote:
Both of my girls have facebook pages .. so do I .. and I "stalk" both of them online .. LOL. In fact, my DD19 told me that I'm her number 5 follower on facebook .. *grin*

Facebook is what you make it .. If your kid is going to misbehave, he/she'll do it with or without facebook .. they find a way.

I was always just open with my girls and let them know that I was going to be their friend on facebook and if it's something that I don't need to see, don't post it.

jmho

 

[GaNewChick]

I see nothing wrong with him having a FB page either. I've connected with people from elementary school. Its been fun. All my nieces/nephews have them too.

*The biggest thing is to tell him not to accept friends if he doesn't know them* Some people it seems are on there to see how many friends they can get.

 

[pbjmaker]

My 16 year old has a facebook page. Just make sure they set all the settings to friends only. My husband sent me an e-mail he received at work about how to secure it from giving out the location you are logging in from too. He works for the military and they are concerned with soldiers that log in and it shares their exact location. A lot of them use facebook as a way to communicate with family when they are deployed and my oldest daughter (20) used it as a way to talk to us the two times she went to Japan in high school.

You can chose to make him give you his password as part of the deal. I don't have my daughter's but she has accidently left hers up at times and the stuff she talks about with her friends is basic harmless 16 year old stuff. (what boy likes who and who broke up with who etc.) She tells me most that stuff anyway.

A child younger than 16 I would probably definately get the password to make sure the things they were doing were appropriate.

Make sure he doesn't click on any of the "groups". It says things like "click to be a fan of _______" a lot of those are ways to open up your computer to viruses.

Also I was told that a lot of times (not always) when people are posting youtube videos there are viruses imbedded in them. If there is a youtube video posted I often just go to the youtube site and look it up.

 

[NonnasBabies]

My 14 yo has had one for a long while now!! Matter of fact we all do. I don't see anything wrong with facebook!! Like someone already mentioned that you have to watch out for some of the stuff that are sent because they have viruses!!

 

[Rozzie]

My son has had his own email account since he was 10. At that age, I had a copy of the password. He's a mature 16 year old now (unusually so for a 16 year old) so I no longer mandate access to his account. Technically, our rule is that I'm supposed to have a copy of all passwords, but that I will not snoop. I don't really enforce it anymore, though.

He's had a FB account for a couple of years, too. He has to have me on as a "Friend" and cannot set privacy restrictions that would block me from seeing things. That's our one rule about it. He is free to hide my posts & I am free to block him from seeing my posts. Trust me, he hides my posts, ROFL. I use FB more than he does. He uses the chat function because many of his friends are in different states.

 

[pamperedpoultry]

I have a facebook most of my family and friends do as well. I'm some what addicted its a "have to" check a few times a day. Just make sure when he opens his account to set everything to private so only people he wants to see his info can.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

This is great information, please continue to add more. I'm more concerned about things that could happen TO him, to his reputation, or to our computer, than mischief he would do. And since I'm so unfamiliar with this system, I didn't know what to look out for.

Okay, so far I now know:

>tell him not to accept friends if he doesn't know them
>set all the settings to friends only
>secure it from giving out the location you are logging in from
>make him give you his password as part of the deal
>Make sure he doesn't click on any of the "groups".
>a lot of times (not always) when people are posting youtube videos there are viruses imbedded in them. If there is a youtube video posted I often just go to the youtube site and look it up
>He has to have me on as a "Friend" and cannot set privacy restrictions that would block me from seeing things.
>set everything to private so only people he wants to see his info can.

Anything else that Wilma should know?

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

Quote:
What is wrong with Email? If you have issue with emall you will have big issues with facebook. Don't see the issue my self at that age.

 

[Rozzie]

Most of the groups are fine. There is just an occasional strange one -- and they do look strange -- that are virus/malware problems. Usually, the ones to avoid are the ones that send a message to your account telling you to JOIN HERE to view X. It's perfectly fine to click on the groups for things like musicians, actors, etc. I have at least 40 or 50 of them on my account, and have had a lot of others with no problems.

A couple of thoughts:

Use reasonable ettiquette. Don't annoy your friends with a message every few minutes. Your child needs to learn to set up groups of friends in LISTS and send messages of that sort only to his/her teenage friends.

For example, relatives who are adults probably don't want a message every 5 or 10 minutes like "I'm listening to Justin Beiber [or insert female name of choice] on the radio! Ohhh he's SOOOOOOOOOO dreamy!" Yes, I know dreamy is not the word of choice these days. Keeping it G here. However, since all the other teens are posting this crap to each other every few minutes, who cares if your kid does the same...so long as it's using a setting that ONLY sends it to the other teens, ROFL.

I have a young cousin who I have "hidden" as a result of this garbage. Sometimes I get 10-20 messages an hour from his account...many times a day. I finally had to hit HIDE because it was such an annoyance.