With over 400 million active users around the world, Facebook is a phenomenon that has revolutionized almost every aspect of our modern lives – the way we interact, the vocabulary we use, how businesses market themselves, the list can go on and on and on. But perhaps the biggest impact it has had on our social behaviour is how we present ourselves to the online community, and how much we are now willing to reveal to the faceless virtual world.
The reasons for Facebook’s popularity are pretty clear – who doesn’t want to know what they’re friends are up to? Who doesn’t want to share good news with friends and family all at once? And, subconsciously, who doesn’t want to have full control over how others perceive themselves?
This last appeal has special resonance with teens, who are going through a sensitive period of transformation. Peer influence is at its highest, especially for adolescents who are struggling to find their true identity. The opportunity to carefully construct a profile on such a popular method of communication seems a dream come true for some teens. But it can also lead to some very dangerous habits. Some, like author/physician/psychologist Dr. Leonard Sax, think Facebook is even causing a modern crisis for teen girls around the world.
In his book Girls on the Edge: The four factors driving the new crisis for girls , he argues that the “cyberbubble” teen girls create around Facebook and other social networking sites is placing too much focus on the superficial, causing girls to be distracted from developing their personal passions, interests, and identities.
He also raises other concerns about teens’ extensive use of Facebook and the information they’re willing to unleash onto the world wide web. For some reason, Facebook users feel liberated by the facelessness of the Internet to post thoughts and photos they would never share in real life. Sites like YourOpenbook.org highlight this practice by highlighting updates by real Facebook users by searching terms like “don’t tell anyone,” “test and cheated,” and “going to a strip club.” The results are concerning to say the least. Facebook’s privacy settings have been the fuel for debate some time now, coming to a head last summer when the website had to make significant changes to its privacy policies to cooperate with Canadian privacy laws. Nevertheless, Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg is still heating the fires of privacy debates, as recently as last month. Facebook’s current practices are confusing to the average user, which results in a lot of information flowing smoothly from the web to third-parties willing to pay heaps for valuable market research.
There are ways to get around this, but it seems Facebook users have had enough. An initiative to get users to quit Facebook on May 31st is gaining momentum, and reports say more and more people are googling “How to delete Facebook.” But most, of course, will remain in the dark about what the information they post is being used for.
It’s impossible for parents to constantly monitor their children’s access to Facebook, so the best thing way to protect their information is to teach them about how to be a responsible online community member. This includes being restrictive on the personal information they post, the kinds of photos they publish, the comments they make, and the amount of time they spend online. It may be hard for some parents to wrap their heads around it themselves, since Facebook’s influence became so powerful so quickly. But in this digital decade, it’s time face up to Facebook.
[...] on our blog: The Dangers of Fessing Up to Facebook http://www.ourkids.net/blog/index.php/fessing_to_facebook_521/ [...]