According to a recent survey of parents using social media, 55% say they’re only on Facebook and Twitter to monitor their children’s online activities, with another 5% admitting they’d do the same–if they knew how.
Eleven percent of parents polled set up their Facebook accounts purely to “snoop” on Jim and Jane, 15-percent have tried to Friend their children (Thanks Mom), with 4-percent of those requests being rejected. Not surprisingly, 13-percent have resorted to logging onto friends accounts in order to check up on their children.
When asked to explain their behavior, 36-percent blamed their “overprotective” parental instincts, where as 14-percent said they were just being “nosey”. A sad 24-percent confessed that Facebook was the only way they could find out what their sons and daughters were up to, while 6-percent found that the social networking site allowed them to avoid having “awkward conversations” with their offspring.
The last statistic is perhaps the most revealing and unfortunate; as much as I’d have hated my Mom friending me on Facebook while I was still in high school, I’d hate even more to have a Mom who stalked me online to avoid talking to me.