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Private vs. public parenting (& a Pew study)

November 26, 2012 By Anne 9 Comments

Did you know that we parents are pretty darn engaged with the young social media users at our houses? To our credit, I feel, most of us are folding social media into our parenting, the Pew Internet researchers report. For example – although high school student Jake tells his friend that he’s “probably the only kid in the world with their mom on Facebook” in this engaging YouTube dramatization by Harvard’s Berkman Center – he’s a bit off the mark:

  • 69% of mothers of 12-to-17-year-olds use social network sites and…
  • 63% of dads of 12-to-17-year-olds use social sites.
  • So a full two-thirds (66%) of all parents of people 12-17 use social sites now, up from 58% in 2011.

Then there’s the conversation between Jake and his friend about parental monitoring – after Jake’s mom tells him to accept her friend request on, um, what was that site, “MyFace”? Jake says he’s not going to be like their friend Marcie, who has a profile with 8 friends her mom knows about and one with 800 friends her mom doesn’t know about. To his credit, Jake says that “seems sneaky and desperate,” and he won’t do that. I have a feeling he’s in the majority, even though half of parental social media users have commented on something posted to their children’s profile, Pew found. (In their next study, I hope they can find out how many teens have gone underground on their parents and, if so, whether that’s because of parents commenting on their “walls,” profiles, or “timelines.”)

[Canada’s premier media-literacy organization, MediaSmarts, found recently that our kids are remarkably accepting of the unprecedented monitoring social media has afforded parents and other adults. They feel that, with the Internet, “parents, teachers and corporations keep them under constant surveillance,” so they now see monitoring as “the price of admission” for being able to use connected media and devices (see this).]

Public parenting benefits who?

But the video ends with a pained look on Jake’s face after he gets home, checks his Facebook profile and confronts his mom about a baby photo of him she has posted on FB – after she tells him she’s working on a whole album of his baby photos to post. Now, I know you would not do that, dear readers, but please help spread the word that, if parents don’t want their kids to go into stealth mode online, they need to consider using the kind of discretion they want their kids to use in their use of social media.

If it’s hard to imagine how embarrassing being parented in public is to our kids, then imagine…

  • How it reflects on us. It probably only looks good to Facebook friends who are either firm believers in helicopter parenting or otherwise oblivious to young people’s perspectives
  • How easy it is for our kids to avoid the embarrassment just by moving on to other sites or social tools we’ve never heard of or by using strategies like Marcie’s in Facebook and
  • How many opportunities for casual, non-confrontational communication are lost if our kids go underground
  • How satisfying, productive and protective parenting can be when communication lines are open but private and mutually respectful.

Or maybe we can remember how we felt growing up when our parents went obliviously public with criticism or affection or other private “family stuff.” Or forget the adolescent piece altogether. Isn’t it respectful of any human being to consider his/her feelings in an interaction, especially when it’s happening in public and could be hard to erase?

Related links

  • Pew had a lot of other findings too: e.g., the study’s lead author, Mary Madden, said they were struck by “the degree to which concerns about advertisers’ data collection outweighed other concerns, such as interaction with strangers online. Parents of younger teens (ages 12-13) are more sensitive to the issue of advertiser tracking.”
  • “Does tracking our kids’ every move make them safer?”
  • “Peering thoughtfully into this window into our kids lives”
  • “81% of teens use privacy settings”
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Filed Under: Literacy & Citizenship, Parenting, Privacy, Research Tagged With: Berkman Center, Parenting, parents, Pew Internet, Privacy

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. serwer gry says

    August 30, 2013 at 8:45 am

    Tremendous issues here. I’m very satisfied to peer your article.
    Thanks a lot and I’m looking forward to touch you. Will you please drop me a mail?

    Reply
  2. Kris Gowen says

    November 30, 2012 at 6:11 pm

    I posted on the problems of youth going “underground” too — before I read your post:
    http://virtualmysterytour.wordpress.com/2012/11/27/parental-monitoring/

    I think this is a HUGE issue and love the fact that the video shows how it’s not just young people who may be disclosing too much on SN sites.

    Reply
    • Anne says

      December 1, 2012 at 5:15 pm

      Thanks for the link, Kris – great post!

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. TMI for parents in social media - for now, anyway | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    February 25, 2014 at 4:42 pm

    […] “Private vs. public parenting (& a new Pew study)” […]

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  2. TMI: Parents and Social Media says:
    August 22, 2013 at 2:50 pm

    […] “Private vs. public parenting (& a new Pew study)” […]

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  3. Bullying: How an 'authoritative' parenting style can help | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    April 19, 2013 at 10:46 pm

    […] “Private vs. public parenting (& a new Pew study)” […]

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  4. Mining Minecraft, Part 3: Safety & citizenship in games (do try this at home!) | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    December 14, 2012 at 6:44 pm

    […] “Private vs. public parenting (& a Pew study)” Permalink Post a comment — Trackback URI RSS 2.0 feed for these comments This entry (permalink) was posted on Friday, December 14, 2012, at 6:37 pm by Anne. Filed in citizenship, education technology, Literacy & Citizenship, online safety, Parenting, Risk & Safety, Safety, School & Tech and tagged digital environments, education technology, elementary school, Elisabeth Morrow School, games, learning, Marianne Malmstrom, MineCraft, Parenting, parents, students, teaching. […]

    Reply
  5. Parenting or (digital) public humiliation? | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    December 4, 2012 at 8:15 am

    […] Mistakes” – which touches on monitoring as well as the issue of parenting in public that I wrote about recently too. We definitely resonate, but Lynn is a scholar, writing a more neutral piece that describes […]

    Reply
  6. The trust factor in parenting online kids | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    December 3, 2012 at 9:23 pm

    […] “Private vs. public parenting (& a Pew study)” Permalink Post a comment — Trackback URI RSS 2.0 feed for these comments This entry (permalink) was posted on Monday, December 3, 2012, at 5:56 pm by Anne. Filed in Filtering, monitoring, etc., monitoring, parental controls, Parenting, tech parenting and tagged "The Online Generation Gap", FOSI, monitoring, Parenting, relationships, spying, Trust. […]

    Reply

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Our (DIGITAL) PARENTING BASICS: Safety + Social
NAMLE, the National Association for Media Literacy Education
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Center for Democracy & Technology
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Childnet International
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Control Shift: a pivotal book for Internet safety
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Cyber Civil Rights Initiative's Revenge Porn Crisis Line
Cyberwise.org
danah boyd's blog and book about networked youth
Disconnected, Carrie James's book on digital ethics
FOSI.org's Good Digital Parenting
The research of Global Kids Online
The Good Project at Harvard's School of Education
If you watch nothing else: "Parenting in a Digital Age" TED Talk by Prof. Sonia Livingstone
The International Bullying Prevention Association
Let Grow Foundation
Making Caring Common
Raising Digital Natives, author Devorah Heitner's site
Renee Hobbs at the Media Education Lab
MediaSmarts.ca
The New Media Literacies
Report of the Aspen Task Force on Learning & the Internet and our guide to Creating Trusted Learning Environments
The Ruler Approach to social-emotional learning (Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence)
Sources of Strength
"Young & Online: Perspectives on life in a digital age" from young people in 26 countries (via UNICEF)
"Youth Safety on a Living Internet": 2010 report of the Online Safety & Technology Working Group (and my post about it)

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