Facebook/Social Networking tragedies.

I have had this blog post meandering in my brain for the past week and have neglected to execute it due to how I wanted to go about it. I guess I should start by conveying how much I despair for the youth of today. I’m not even trying to be funny, I truly mean it.

A couple of days ago I logged in to my facebook account and had a message from one of my friends. She asked me to take a little look at the page of a younger mutual friend of whom is 13. Firstly, the facebook age limit is 15+ (in my opinion this is still far too young) the 13 year old’s page was filled with utter filth. The friend and I had been discussing this a little over the past 8 months since this young one opened her account… At first it was a little bit funny to see the kinds of silly status updates – we were laughing at how innocent and dramatic they were. After awhile, with the raising friend count (its around 300+ to date, I bet you only a very small handful of these people does she know in ‘real life’) the status updates became more intense. They were filled with expletives and mild cases of cyber bullying from – I assume, girls that go to her school or girls who go to schools surrounding her own.

The language that they use on her page makes even myself cringe. I think of how I spoke at 13, and believe me, I was no angel – but there are expressions and words that quite frankly, I didn’t even know about at that age. My parents knew where I was at all times, I was not allowed for sleep overs at boys houses, I was forbidden to stay out later than 5pm on a school night (and even then, I wasn’t allowed to leave my cul-de-sac street) and by God, if I ever got caught using those kinds of words, my Dad would have marched me straight to the bathroom and literally washed my mouth out with cake soap … and even worse, solvo, if there was any. I am not even kidding.

This friend boasted the other day about her 16 yr old boyfriend, and sleeping over with him – she talked about where she went for the next day in detail (as in specific locations), among other things. And it makes me wonder, her Mum is someone I know quite well, who is also added to her page as a friend. Has she not seen this? Does she not care?

No, wait… it gets better.

Two days later I logged in to facebook to see she had uploaded some new photos. She’s a pretty girl and looks older than 13, to be sure. However, the photos made me worry. Her bra is exposed from her top and she is doing the very typical “strategic angle pose” which allows the viewers to get a worldly view of her cleavage. Nice. And then another photo, altered slightly with a monochrome filter – although not so much that you can’t see her figure clearly. In this photo her legs are open and she is wearing a tiny pair of shorts.

I could have heaved. She went on to ask a friend that if she was as beautiful as someone had complimented her, why she was not in a relationship (said 16yr old dumped her according to fb) and it made me momentarily sad for her that that is how a thirteen year old girl is to define herself.

Why don’t parents keep a close eye on what their children are doing on the internet? She has so many facebook friends, I for one would be culling that for starters. She would be deleting every single person that she does not know personally (as a mother I’d be culling it to the friends of my daughter or son that I knew personally) I would be setting that profile to private (this is by the way, all hypothetically assuming I got drugged and plied with alcohol and allowed my child under duress to even create a profile to begin with… I’d rather pour gasoline on myself and set myself on friggin’ fire than let a child under 18 parade their lives around online) and I would be privvy to the password and I would be checking in every second day to make sure that it is being used for the right reasons.

I am a facebook user, yes. In fact, I post a lot of private things on it. However, I make great use of the friend lists. I have a list for family and relatives and best friends. I have a list for Michael Jackson fan-friends. I then have a list for acquaintences. I do not allow anyone of whom I do not know see those private things. I do not post smutty photos of myself. I love facebook because it caters to exactly what it should in my life. I use it to keep in touch with the friends I have made through traveling through the past 10 years – and it allows me to keep in contact with my family and the friends that I left behind in Sydney.

It is NOT a substitute for real life friendships. I do not desire to really communicate with my “real life” friends through it – or substitute facebook for communication via phone or face-to-face.

I wonder when parents are going to start doing their jobs. It’s all well and good to think that you can trust your kids, but really, the internet is a big, dangerous place. I find it crazy when I hear / see some of the stuff on there. And really, no one is to blame but the parents.

Gosh…