Monday, March 10, 2008
What do I do if they break up? You could make a contemporary episode of Seinfeld out of this.
*Who seems to be, by the way, a very together and friendly teen.
8 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon Mar 10, 09:49:00 PM:
Dear Mr. Robinson,
Run don't walk from this!!!!
Very truly yours,
Roman Polansky
By 
Yishai, at
Mon Mar 10, 09:56:00 PM:
I have a good justification for this without sounding creepy - you will be able to better keep an eye on your son's facebook friends and his activities (I don't know what your policies are, though)
By TigerHawk, at
Mon Mar 10, 10:09:00 PM:
Bizarrely, I have had the same request from some of my daughter's many friends. I think there are people out there who are just trying to rack up bigger "totals," so they invite a lot of people. No harm, no foul. And Yishai gives another good reason.
By Sara (Pal2Pal), at
Mon Mar 10, 10:35:00 PM:
Strange timing this. Today my young teenaged "Granddaughter linked a music DEMO she just made to my MySpace page, which I only put up for her to begin with. Within minutes, like less than 10 minutes, I had 8 emails linked to me thru her page. These were all guys, all open invitations, and they ranged in age from 16 to 51. Since I'm a Granny, you can guess that I'm not in the age ranges for dating or online encounters with all but the 51 year old and even that would be pushing it from my perspective. My page clearly states my age right next to my name and picture, so it isn't as if I'm trying to trick someone about my age.
I've left all of them unanswered, but it does give me pause.
By , at
Mon Mar 10, 11:53:00 PM:
Better question: why do you have a Facebook account?
It's just playing with fire...
By , at
Tue Mar 11, 01:41:00 AM:
Avoid the appearance of impropriety.
By TigerHawk, at
Tue Mar 11, 06:44:00 AM:
"Why do you have a Facebook account?"
Speaking for myself, it started with blogging -- a bunch of bloggers from Pajamas Media sent me invitations. But then I found myself being contacted by long lost friends and acquaintances, plus my teenageers invited me (one sua sponte -- the boy -- and one under orders) to be friends, so now I have a bit of a window into their online activities. I'm not much for the goofy applications, but my children do not respond to email nearly as fast as a message through Facebook. And then there is the ever lingering threat that I might write something on their Wall, which would be excrutiating, I'm sure, for them.
By Brad Rourke, at
Wed Mar 12, 10:22:00 AM:
As a dad of a middle schooler, I say go ahead and accept the friend request. "Friending" is the currency of Facebook et al. and unless there is a reason to decline it is a little rude to do so. This person has basically said, "Hey, you're pretty cool."
My daughter's friends have friended my on MySpace (they do not have FB accounts) and I am totally happy they did so. It provides me a window into their world that they themselves have opened. Meanwhile, it is totally transparent -- your friend list is there for all to see.
Anyone who is an "online person" who does not, by now, have a Facebook account that they are actively using, is missing out, in my view.
Lest anyone think that I am a starry-eyed New World oddball . . . I am not. I see big downsides for a lot of new technologies, especially when it comes to parenting. But in this case, I am all for it.
Oh, almost forgot: Hey, friend me on Facebook!
