Two thirds of teens OK with parents being Facebook friends

According to a study reported by Reuters, two-thirds of teenagers are comfortable with accepting their parents as Facebook friends. What the study did not tell was how many of those teenagers had set separate privacy settings for their parents!

“Facebook … continues to be the new frontier in the ever evolving relationship between parent and child,” said Kristen Campbell, of Kaplan Test Prep. The company questioned 2,313 students, aged about 16 to 18, about social networking trends. 65 percent said they were comfortable having their parents on their friends list, while 38 percent said they ignore any such dangerous approaches from their parents. A 16 percent chunk of surveyed students said that being friends with their parents was a condition for joining website like Facebook in the first place.

“Even though parents are very involved and very active, Facebook allows young people to exert their independence,” she explained. “They want part of their lives to be private.”

Kampbell describes Facebook as a natural step for parents in being connected to a generation who grew up with a Facebook address first and a birth certificate later.

“This is a generation that’s communicating electronically and now the lines of communication are open in new ways.”

Source: Reuters.