ASK MICAH "Facebook Fool"

Dear Micah,

               My son Facebook's everything. It's ridiculous. I have a Facebook account myself and I was looking on his page and saw all kinds of things that should be kept private. He told everyone where he was going to be on specific days. He talked about breaking up with his girlfriend when his father and I didn't even know about it. One night my husband and I were arguing over a credit card bill and he even made mention of how we were fighting over finances on Facebook! My sister-in-law called me the next day to see if we were all right. It was so embarrassing. Do you know how I can get him off Facebook so much and to stop telling everything to a bunch of strangers?

Cyber Son's mom

Dear Mom,

               I know exactly what you are talking about. Sometimes I have seen Facebook posts that I can't believe and it always shocks me that these kids don't realize that their parents, or someone who will tell their parents, are going to view these posts. This problem goes far beyond just writing, "MyMom is getting on my freakin' nerves". Or pissing off your teacher by saying, "Mrs. Gregson's class is a snooze." I have seen posts from junior high girls saying, "I think I wanna be a slut today." I actually know of one specific girl who at 14 was having a lengthy dialogue on a social networking page that went into detail about her levels of sexual experience. She also divulged what she hadn't yet done, but wanted to--if she could find the right partner. Now anyone could see this! It was pretty risqué for a 14 year old. Someone told her mom and the page was quickly erased, but the damage was done. Now everyone knew her to be the slut she was or at least the one she wanted to be. Your son has to learn that once an idea, image, or revelation is put out there, it's there forever. Even if he erases it, someone else read it, knows it, or copied it--it's never truly gone. Furthermore he also needs to learn a little respect for other people's privacy. He may feel completely uninhibited to post, "Already spent my allowance and now I am flat broke." But it's another thing altogether to write, "Dad lost his job and they came to turn our water off today. Mom called him a loser and threw a footstool at his head." He has no right to tell other people's secrets or to discuss their woes with the world. Your son also needs to learn a little about the dangers of revealing his whereabouts to the world. The most obvious place our minds rush to is child predators. You don't want them knowing that you'll be at the park by yourself at three o'clock, but there are other concerns too. There have been cases of burglaries where the thieves chose the homes to rob based on homeowner's Facebook posts where they revealed that they would be away from home for a while. Employees have lost jobs before because they called in sick and then posted pictures of themselves enjoying their day off on MySpace or Facebook. It's great to live life openly and confidently, but your son should learn that he doesn't have to share all aspects of his life with the outside world. PRIVACY isn't a very important concept to his generation. They blog their feelings to the world, they text away their secrets, and some kids send nude photos of themselves through cell phones. They leave trails of all of their actions all over the internet. Privacy doesn't matter to them until some nefarious person takes their words, images, or private thoughts and uses them against them. By that time it's too late to do anything about it. Your son needs to be schooled on these dangers. He also needs to understand that he can, and should, come to his parents first with his problems. If I were you, the first thing I'd want to know is why he didn't come to you or your husband with his breakup? Does he have difficulty discussing emotions on a human to human, face to face basis or is he only comfortable opening up when it's just to a cyber audience? If that's the case then ya'll need to work on that before anything else. Your son shouldn't have to turn to a cold cyber world to express his emotions.

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