I found myself intrigued with this week’s reading of danah boyd’s It’s Complicated: the Social Lives of Networked Teens. I feel like she has taken the time to truly understand this community online and has brought to light real issues that I, being fresh out of my teenage years, can say really happen. One of these issues is the disagreement between adults and teens about personal privacy online. “Although many adults believe that they have the right to consume any teen content that is functionally accessible, many teens disagree” (58). As a teen, my mom had a rule that I couldn’t have a Facebook account unless she was my friend. She was open and honest with me, saying that she wanted to help me learn how to navigate having a social presence online. She did a great job at teaching me what was acceptable and unacceptable to post online, and I am definitely grateful for that. But I still never really got comfortable with the idea that she could read my posts. Like boyd was able to identify in many teens, it wasn’t that I had content I felt the need to hide from my mom. It was just that I wasn’t comfortable with her having full access to my posts directed towards my friends; it felt like she had a lens into my social life and therefore had the right to analyze it. I overheard her talking with my dad a few times about my online activity, whether she was speculating if I liked the boy who was in a picture I posted or if she was judging the online content posted by my friends that she was curious about. While I learned to shrug it off, knowing that this helicopter-parenting would end once I got older, I am starting to wonder if it is a permanently established norm now since I am an adult and she is still pouring over my social media accounts. When I got an Instagram last year, she made one just to follow my sisters and me (I accepted her follow request only after a few weeks of her complaining about how I hadn’t yet). Now I write for an online magazine for college women called Her Campus (http://www.hercampus.com), and I feel so uncomfortable every time my mom tells me that she read my latest work. It’s a website for college students, so a lot of the content has to do with dating, fashion, partying, etc. It’s meant for a specific audience, and that is the audience I have in mind when I write for it; not my mother. I feel like my freedom of expression is gone now that I have to filter what I write knowing my mother reads my work and shares it with her friends. I love my mom, and I agree that parents should be involved (to a certain degree of course) with their teenager’s social media presence, but when do we draw the line for online surveillance between parents and young adults?
3 thoughts on “My Mother is My Biggest Fan on Social Media. Yay?”
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As an active online user and also ‘friends’ with my mom online, I totally feel you in your uneasiness. I went 4 years online without adding her as a friend, and honestly it didn’t change a whole lot of how I behaved online. In addition to my mom, my past campers, and camp directors are also friends with me on facebook or follow on instagram. I have personally made the choice to accept this as a continued responsibility to be some sort of a role model during the year. If I am my “best-self” in front of the kids over summer, why neglect that over the year? I just means I abandon any sort of controversial material from entering my online life. Maybe it’s a good thing, because I am now very aware of what is posted or tagged in and this leaves me with a comfortable image of myself online for future employers who may look me up.
Hey 🙂
I liked your story and the link to the page you write for, but I think you’re supposed to draw on another outside source like another article, ad or idea. I feel like I can’t say much except I agree and that privacy in a public world is important for young people to find.
Parents fear for us and want to be there and we just have to tell them it’s okay. It some way maybe being friends with your parents encourages a positive relationship with them (though I do post some things as private) it does get a little strange when extended family and people you dont talk to as much feel like they have to chime in on everything.
For me, the virtual nature of online media does not warrant a new set of conditions for parental surveillance. We’re all social creatures, and can easily learn what appropriate social media etiquette is (either that, or we mostly get away with being annoying). My dad is my Facebook friend but not my mom- just because I feel like he adopts more hands off approach and hardly mentions anything I post on social media. This makes me feel more willing to be open about my online life and to give him access to it. He also does not speculate, interrogate me, or comment on my posts. Maybe he just doesn’t care for Facebook, but I like to think that he respects my space and expects the same from me- simply by acknowledging the way he wants to be treated and doing others that favor.