Facebook??

[susiestar]

difficult child helped me with moving some furniture today. During the drive to my house he made a comment about facebook.com. apparently you have to have a blog to read someone's blog??

He has had problems with blogs on xanga and myspace. Is not supposed to have them. But by reading his blogs we had some idea of what he was thinking. (Most of it was teen crud, some existentialist why am I here? is the world really real? type stuff)

Does anyone have any info on facebook???

Thanks,

Susie

 

[Marguerite]

My kids are into Gaia in a fairly big way. You use a pseudonym (very good idea anyway) and it's fairly easy to remain anonymous and safe. However, if I am given the passwords (and it's in my kids interests to, so I can go on and get extra credits for them sometimes - being a helpful mum opens doors of information for me) than I can track whatever they're saying. Another option, if you don't have their passwords - shoulder-surf and at least see the name of their avatar (the pseudonym) then join yourself, under your own pseudonym. You can then 'converse' with your own kids, or lurk on the site to monitor their conversations on public boards, even if they're at school and you're at work.
This helped us a lot when easy child 2/difficult child 2's exBF broke up with her then blogged nastily all over Gaia ("she's got the maturity of a 12 year old and the bust size as well"). it gave us the open door to talk to her and counsel her as well as set some ground rules in communicating with tie guy, who is still good friends with difficult child 1. We could be there for her, because we found out about it all. I was able to plan to take her for some retail therapy, we bought a pretty, low-cut blouse and as she looked in the mirror she snorted, "Bust of a 12 year old, indeed! HAH!" And I was able to stop her blogging nastily about HIM, which would not have been healthy, or a good look.

So my suggestion - join the site yourself. Quietly. Then even when he's not with you, you can still keep an eye of sorts on what he's thinking. Because if he mentioned it to you, he's either already doing it or thinking seriously about it. He's 15 - most kids his age have pages like this.

Marg

 

[Nancy]

Facebook is an online social networking group just like myspace. When it originally started it was set up for college students only and you had to have a college email to join. Then they opened it to high school students and you had to be invited to join by a college student. Now anyone and everyone can have a facebook account. It's a little different than myspace in that it attracts a little older crowd, probably because it started with college students, and it isn't quite as trashy. You can post note and comments but most people don't type long blogs about themselves. It's more sophisticated and you have to be someone's friend to be able to see their profile.

Nancy

 

[susiestar]

I know he has one, and that he would not let me see it (shoulder surf or any other way). I have faith that he will put inapprop personal info on it.

husband told me tonight that his co-workers all said they put their pics on it, at least the ones who were recent college grads. Apparently that is part of why it is so "cool".

I think difficult child having a blog that one of us "grown-ups" in his life can see is ok. It IS part of learning the web, part of the culture of kids his age and through college, and it gives the rest of us some idea what he is thinking.

We live in a college town. He is walking distance from the university and can use their computers for free (anyone can). So there is no way to stop him, but he does need to be monitored. While he thinks he is "too smart" to give away info that would "attract a perv" he has done this on each of the other blogs we have seen. Including the address and phone number!!! Better he write them on the bathroom wall at school, literally.

I talked to my mom about this briefly tonight. She had my bro and his daughter over again for dinner. She iwll talk to my dad and they will come up with something.

Susie