Boarding Schools for Girls

The social networking site Facebook boasts more 500 million active users. The users vary widely in age, but teenagers have staked their claim. For parents, the Facebook dilemma centers around whether or not they should “friend” their kids.

“The friending issue is a delicate balancing act between children thriving for more independence and their parents’ desire to see what is going on to make sure their children are safe. In nearly half of all cases, children said they would prefer to be friends with their parents privately on the web without their parents having the ability to post comments.” [Source: Reuters]

A recent Nielsen survey asked 1,024 parents and 500 teens about parental friending. Surprisingly, 70 percent of teens said they’re friends with their parents on Facebook. Though friending is a good way to keep track of your child’s online activity, it isn’t the only way. Keep a family computer in a common area of the house, rather than letting your child have one in her room. And ask her to occasionally let you see her Facebook page and friends list.
 

Labels: parenting, communication, internet, social networking

Posted By: Stefanie Hamilton 1 Comment

Parents whose daughters are obsessed with Facebook and other online social networking sites may want to take a closer look at their daughter's self-esteem. College students who constantly update their Facebook pages and who publish "self-promoting" pictures of themselves on their profiles suffer from narcissism or low self-esteem, according to a new study from York University.

• Soraya Mehdizadeh studied the online habits and personalities of 100 York students who used the social network website, Facebook.
• Those who engaged in self-promotion by posting pictures of themselves in glamorous settings or ones that were enhanced by computer software and those who bragged about themselves in their "about me" sections were more likely to be either narcissistic or insecure.

"They are updating their status every five minutes and the photos they post are carefully construed," she said. "The question is, are these really accurate representations of the individual or are they merely a projection of who the individual wants to be?"

This study appears in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking.

Labels: self-esteem, online, social networking

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 3 Comments