The fifteen year old daughter (A) of a friend (Z) is on Facebook, and has been for some time. I’m Facebook connected to A as well as Z. Yesterday I checked A’s latest feed and for no particular reason, I checked her profile. Her year of birth is listed as 1990, making her 20. Sent separate emails to A and her mom asking “What’s up with the age thing?”
Z sent an email back saying “Hmmm. I just asked her about that. She said that she did it because she doesn’t want people to know she’s fifteen because she could get a stalker and that would be creepy. What do you think about that. It makes some sense. I thought what you thought at first but she said it with such ease. Of course she could always get a stalker at 20 but a stalker of a 20yr old would lose interest if he found out she was 15.”
Z asked me to ask Dopers what they thought. A is going to be a sophomore in high school, she has a boyfriend (about to be a junior) of about 5 months, is a cheerleader (with lots of pics on Facebook) and AFAIK is a good kid. Comments from her friends read like high schoolers, not like adults. Pics look like high schoolers to me, but they may look older with the ton of makeup they all wear.
I want to emphasize A has never given her mom any reason to worry. She’s a good kid, the boyfriend meets everyone’s approval, and the cheerleaders are a tight-knit but friendly group in her school (and she needs to maintain a B average to cheer).
Is this something to worry about? Does Facebook offer any effective protection for minors? Is A smart to protect herself like this or would she have been better to trust Facebook’s protections?
I’d say it would be better for her to have her real age. I don’t think her rationale makes much sense for avoiding stalkers. There are privacy settings she can set to not reveal as much to strangers, and additionally the default privacy settings are more stringent for people under 18:
Regardless, her privacy settings should be set quite high to avoid both stalkers and applications which scrape data. She should be aware of the type of data she should make public, such as her photos, school, and where she lives. Photos should only ever be visible to friends, and not friends of friends or everyone - as should nearly everything else in your profile, and also any status updates should only be visible to friends.
She should not play games on facebook, or add any facebook apps unless they come from reputable companies, with a privacy policy that the company actually follows.
Teenagers, both boys & girls - like to feel more mature. That is the more likely reason for her to put her age as 20.
Lying to appear older might send the wrong message. If her photos reveal her real age but she’s saying she’s 20, some guy might think it’s because she doesn’t want people to know she’s jailbait. To some, that’s an invitation.
She should do what lexi said, adjust her privacy settings.
I don’t have an opinion, but I know several minors (yeah, they’re on my friends list) who use fake birthdays–but not 20. One says 32, and another says 50. I asked one of the parents about it, and was told pretty much what you were told.
Most likely her profile lists her high school and her expected graduating class, i.e. [Anywhere High School (2013)] Any smart stalker could tell she was a high schooler.
With regard to her birthdate, Facebook has the option to keep your birth year private and only list the month and day.
A is either not strong on her Facebook Fu or she his purposefully trying to mislead people into thinking she’s older than she is.
How long has she been using facebook? The minimum age is 13. If she has had an account for 3 years, then she would have had to lie about her age initially and may have never changed it.
I know my 12 year old had his account set up by his dad, and he chose to use his brother’s birth year rather than just 1 year older … so his says he is 15. I am sure he won’t bother fixing it next year.
And yeah, I know, he really shouldn’t have an account yet. We made his older brother wait until he was 13 (and he had it set up ON his birthday) but realistically almost all of his friends (all born in 1998) are also on facebook, and most social things are set up that way. So I am not going to play the big bad mum and rat him out to the facebook police (as they DO shut down those who are not yet 13) I do monitor his account regularly to make sure he is using it appropriately.
She should think of tightening her privacy settings and/or eliminating her birth date. Her friends will know when her birthday is, and why should anyone else?
Also, half the people I know have phony birthdates, schools, and hometowns. Maybe it’s because I teach junior high. I am not friends with any of my students, but see them on other people’s pages. Most of them need to tighten up their privacy settings.
Facebook has great security settings, if she’s willing to use them. And as a parent, you should make her “willing.” i.e., it’s not an option. If she’s on FB, she uses the tight security settings, has the right age.
Watch out for her having two accounts… it’s becoming more and more common these days. **Pai325 **is right.
It’s not even a security setting. It’s under Edit Profile > Birthday > Show only month & day in my profile or Don’t show my birthday in my profile instead of Show my full birthday in my profile
And finding a second account is pretty easy, since they always use their real name, location, and school. Plus, it’s quite likely that the parents only one will be hardly used, even though they are on Facebook 24/7 with their phone.
I don’t know what’s more surprising that kids are still lying about their age, or parents still believing their weak excuses. What’s really sad is this kid’s parents probably lied to their parents about the same stuff.
If the kid is really worried about being stalked, yeah I’ll have to remember that one.
The old privacy settings automatically limited the amount of info non-friends could see on minors’ pages. Some adults* lied about their ages to hide their info, and some minors lied about their ages to show it.
*mostly college-aged girls trying to keep random guys from messaging them.
