When Mark Zuckerberg was named person of the year for 2010 by Time magazine, it reflected the impact that Facebook is having on our society.
As a 19-year-old sophomore at Harvard, Zuckerberg started a web service that was billed as ‘an online directory that connects people through social networks at colleges’. The idea was to reflect the kinds of interactions students may have with one another. In 2010, one out of every dozen people on the planet had a Facebook account.
So what? Why worry about it, and whether our teenagers are on the site or not? Is this not something that teenagers do, and that will go away as they grow up?
Dangers of Facebook
While there are benefits to Facebook, there are also real dangers. Let me suggest a few:
Permanence. What is posted on Facebook can be seen by others, and may be there for a very long time. Even President Obama, in a September 2009 televised address to American schools, advised them to ‘be careful what you post on Facebook. Whatever you do, it will be pulled up later in your life’.
Perhaps all of us as teenagers did things that would now embarrass us. The difference, however, is that the consequences of these things are almost certainly long gone. The same cannot be said of Facebook, whose records may linger far longer than we might imagine. Employers, college admission tutors and others now check Facebook. What happens when they come across that picture, or that comment that was posted by our children in a moment of folly?
Intrusion. Would you not want to know about your child’s friends if they were visiting the home? With Facebook, you are essentially inviting them into your home and onto your children’s computer, cell phone or other device. You are allowing them in, and giving them the capacity to share in your children’s everyday lives, as well as your family life, since at any moment teenagers may well post information about what is happening in the family circle.
Obsession. Facebook can easily become addictive! That is the genius of the site. Why it is addictive is another matter, and one that psychologists can argue about.
Identity theft. Teenagers are particularly prone to be uncaring about self-disclosure and what kind or how much information they share. In a 2009 study, researchers developed a tool to score the information disclosed on Facebook. What they found was that, as age increases, less personal information is disclosed. In other words, older people are more cautious when disclosing personal information. We should be concerned that teenagers are getting roped into revealing most of their identities. The most common and important danger is identity theft; many fake profiles have been created based on live information from real people’s profiles.
Entrapment. The following news report of a trial that took place in Manchester helps us to understand the dangers: ‘A paedophile terrorised a schoolgirl on the social networking website Facebook after duping her into accepting him as a “friend”. Robert Sumner stalked the teenager online and bombarded her with texts demanding she meet him. When she refused he told her he knew where she lived — and threatened to rape her … Judge Iain Hamilton said the girl’s mother had “wrongly” allowed her daughter access to the social networking site and said the case highlighted the dangers of youngsters using them’.
Creating a false existence. One commentator explains: ‘At university, I knew students who spent hours cultivating their Facebook pages every day. They had to look popular and busy on the website, because on some level they thought it would translate into real life. But, strangely, it was always those with hundreds of Facebook “friends” who seemed to be the most lonely’.
What’s it all about?
One of the things that we need to realise is that Facebook is not an altruistic, innocent venture. It’s all about money! Even if its creator Mark Zuckerberg is said to be indifferent about his fortune, Facebook backers are not, and the fact that it is worth over $50b is important to them.
How does Facebook make its money? Through advertising. This is its genius. Advertising on television may be somewhat indiscriminate. Online advertising with Google is somewhat more discriminate as it requires someone to click on a link, with the assumption that the pundit is interested in what he has clicked on. With Facebook, however, advertisers can be targeted by interest, gender, age and a host of other things. Advertisers can see what friends like or do not like. We live in a world where 1 in 10 people are connected through a single social network and advertisers love this! The holy grail of advertising is getting friends to recommend products to others. This is exactly what Facebook can provide. Making money is not necessarily a bad thing, but we need to be aware of what motivates sites like Facebook.
There are indeed benefits. To some it is simply an innocent and relaxing pastime, connecting with friends and family, some of which may live in another country altogether. In an article in the Journal of Adolescent Research, one researcher concluded that ‘benefits of online interaction for teens outweighed the dangers’.
For the Christian church family it can provide the opportunity to stay in touch with missionaries, for example, who might otherwise feel very isolated. Some use Facebook as an opportunity to post Bible verses and other helpful quotations. For others, it can help provide real insight into the emotional state of a friend and then to provide support and help.
What should parents do?
This is a decision that needs to be made individually, and as a matter of conscience. Some parents have decided that Facebook should not be part of their family life. Others have limited time on the site, and some have an open policy. Whatever decision is made, however, it must be made after carefully considering the potential dangers and benefits, all weighed up in the light of our understanding of our own children. What we must avoid is a tendency to either completely ignore or exonerate Facebook of any potential danger, or to blame Facebook for all our woes. Sin is from within, though we must also be wise in exposing our children to harm. For some, banning Facebook will work, but for many it will not, as teenagers will probably find a way to create and maintain a Facebook presence anyway.
Some common sense advice may help, however. We should:
* Ask our teenagers how much personal information have they revealed. We should check their security settings on Facebook with them, to make sure that they are only sharing information with friends.
* Explain that they should be wary of revealing information such as age, sex, location, height, weight, measurements, address, and school location for online strangers to see.
* Ask them to stop and think before posting any information online.
* Insist that they never post photos that could be embarrassing in the future. The rule should always be — if in doubt, don’t post it!
* We need to remind them not to believe everything they see on the internet.
* We should not be afraid of talking to them about Facebook. In fact, one of the best ways of doing this may be to open a Facebook account ourselves and use it in a constructive way — such as getting in touch with missionaries.
* We need also to be consistent. It’s no good getting annoyed with our teenagers for spending too much time on Facebook if we are equally obsessed by anything else — be it television, sport, or a myriad of other distractions. For example, some have adopted a ‘phones on the fridge’ while at home for every member of the family. This may stop our teenagers texting too much, but would be hypocritical if we were unable to avoid the temptation to check our BlackBerry for that important email we have been waiting for! Let’s be consistent.
Above all, let’s be involved. Teenagers by nature want to push against the boundaries, explore everything and lack self-control. But they also want to know that there are boundaries! Raising children is a hugely difficult undertaking. But in a church family, there are usually others who have been though what we are experiencing. We should not be afraid to ask for their advice and prayerful support (Titus 2.4-8).
David Clark is a technology consultant and an active member of his local evangelical and Reformed church.
