Friending your parent? Some say forget about it on Facebook

By Matthew Lohrey
Are you “Facebook friends” with your parents?
“No,” said Piscataway High senior Robert Ha, a senior at Piscataway High School.
“I get a friend request from my mom almost once a week,” Ha said.
Each time, he said, he always denies the request because of the pictures on his profile. “It is just the pictures of me with alcohol that worry me,” said Ha.
Ha said he is friends with some of his older cousins but no aunts, uncles, or older family friends. “Pretty much anyone over the age 30, I’m not friends with,” said Ha.
Facebook is one of the largest social networking sites and parents have joined the community in hopes of keeping some control over increasingly independent children.
These parents are now creating accounts and “friend requesting” their kids to take parenting to the digital age. According to the Pew Research report “Social Networks Grow: Friending Mom and Dad,” the share of adult Internet users who have a profile on a social networking site has more than quadrupled in the past four years from 8 percent in 2005 to 35 percent.
“Parents will always try to observe their child’s actions,” said Dr. Gary Lubisco, a professor of sociology at William Patterson University.
Lubisco said the digital era has brought many different mediums for parents to monitor their children. He said Facebook is just one of the newest of these mediums and it is very popular with parents due to the amount of pictures posted online.
Lubisco said the number of underage people posting incriminating pictures of themselves and friends drinking is a concern.
“In my opinion, this is what worries parents the most,” Lubisco said.
Johan Dominguez, a junior at Northeastern University, is friends with both of his parents. “I am also friends with all my aunts and some of my friend’s parents,” said Dominguez.
He said he has an open relationship with his parents and lets them know what he is doing anyway.
“They rarely comment on my profile or pictures and so far there have been no problems,” said Dominguez.
He said he understands why some of his friends don’t accept any friend request from parents. He said a lot of people are doing illegal things and there are pictures of it all over their Facebook profiles. “It so dumb to even have pictures like that online,” Dominguez said.
Dominguez remembers getting friend requests from fake accounts, also. He said his local police department made a fake account and friend requested all the high school students to try and catch them doing something illegal.
“Two students were suspended for a picture of them in school after it was closed,” said Dominguez.
He said students need to be smart and whether it’s your parents or law enforcement you are always being monitored.
“People need to avoid posting intimate details and photos,” said Jon Hall Jr., 22, a senior at Brookdale College.
Hall who is “friends” with his parents, said, some potential employers check Facebook before hiring and if there are pictures of you passed out drunk that is not going to bode well.
“It comes down to what personal information you’re comfortable enough with to disclose to a public audience,” said Hall’s father. The elder Hall said he went through his son’s Facebook to remove any “suspicious” information that could affect potential job opportunities.