JFTR, I’m the father.
Thanks to all here for having this discussion. As I mentioned, I’d like for kaylasmom and I to be able to make our decisions on the issue from a perspective of being informed, rather than ignorant, and you’re all being quite helpful in this regard.
I’ll be interested to hear how it works out with deleting the account (since it’s proving to be such a PITA).
Into IMHO territory, for things we’ve thought of when our kids push this issue (feel free to ignore, as these truly aren’t GQ stuff):
Our daughter is 12 and a half and will want an account at some point. I believe Facebook’s terms of service include a minimum age of 13 (I could be wrong about that though, I may be misremembering something I heard about Myspace), so my thinking is that we’ll let her, but she has to allow her father and me as friends.
In the future, at such time as you do give her permission to have an account, I’d recommend telling her NOT to let it have access to her email address book - while (as far as I know) Facebook doesn’t spam the contacts, I wouldn’t put it past them.
Another thing I don’t like about Facebook is that it keeps offering friend suggestions that are people I’ve never heard of. This is (I think) an artifact of other people opening up their whole address book, and/or friends of friends of friends. You’ll also want to counsel her on not simply trying to friend people that way.
The apps are also scary. Well, I’ve never seen anything truly harmful but there’s so much CRAP, and the occasional virus / phishing thing. That’s a big part of why I’m not especially eager to set my kids loose there.
I don’t know if these details have much bearing on the situation overall, but you can certainly get a conversation (or even debates) going on Facebook. Between wall-to-walls, comments (involving any number of people), chat and PMs, it’s not much different from any other IM or communication medium.
Besides, shouldn’t the greater concern be the source and content of those messages, not the number of participants?
I’ll have to admit though that I doubt Facebook will last much longer. It seems as soon as the older folks start catching on, the popularity dies. It’s why Myspace is no longer #1 and Facebook took over… Although I was a bit surprised to get a Facebook friend request from my grandmother. It’s only a matter of time before the social network herd moves on to the next best thing.
Its not like here where convo goes on for days and weeks. A status that gets 15 posts that aren’t “LOL” is going crazy gangbusters on Facebook.
You would think so but the read the OP, it states specifically,
I prefer that the conversations be specific to her and her interlocutor, and to the point. I’m not comfortable with conversations that she hasn’t joined being on her facebook page, or with the idea of uninvolved people reading the conversations that she is participating in.
What difference does it make? Dangerous people and conversations can exist on either. Certainly the general atmosphere of the SDMB is different from Ye Olde Facebook Spamwall, but if you’re saying that Facebook cannot be a medium for conversations, that’s just not true.
Sorry, I should’ve directed that at the OP and not you.
ok, it would have been more accurate that it is impossible to use Facebook solely as the OP describes - for one on one conversations where other people don’t see what you’re talking about with others.
Yes, you can use their chat or PM features, but if you only use those, that’s like saying you are “using the SDMB” if you only use the PM feature. Technically accurate but not the point of the thing. And I would stand by the statement that extended discussion is not how most people regularly use Facebook.
I think this sentence of yours nails it.
You didn’t ask for off the wall advice but: I’m an old fart. I have grandchildren from ages 12 through 19 using Facebook on a regular basis. I have an account myself and it’s very handy for communication purposes. It’s an easy way to keep up with relatives and friends.
You may want to discipline her for not keeping you informed, but the danger in Facebook, if any, is very minimal. As mentioned above, check her security settings and review her “friends” list. If her safety is your main concern, that should handle things very nicely. If you want to punish her, then by all means delete if you think deleting the program is appropriate.
I concur with Reply. Why are you so concerned about this stuff happening"in your house"?
Strong emphasis on “if nothing else,” here. **All **you are going to do is prevent her from accessing Facebook at your house, in a way you can monitor her activity and help her be safe and sensible.
When you’re nine, sex is mystical, gross, embarassing, interesting, and confusing. If you want to know what it really looks like, you are **not **going to ask your parents about it. When I was that age, my cousin found some porno mags in the dumpster for the apartment building by her house, and we kept them in a bucket by the creek behind her place and would look at them. This was two pre-pubescent girls, mind you. And you bet your ass neither of us told our parents about it.
This is one of the single smartest things a parent can do. I don’t think you have to be in the room the whole time, but having it in a public area should be enough of a restraint to keep them from doing anything too crazy. Both of my parents had the family computers in the dining room (both dining rooms opened into the respective living rooms through a wide arch with no door).
You’d think the name would be a tipoff…
AFAIK, they screen apps for stuff like that. You might get a **poorly designed **ap that will break your profile layout, but it **won’t **infect your computer with anything, and you can fix your profile by removing the app.
I suspect they do, but there is still the occasional phishing thing that sends out messages to all your friends - a friend of mine got bitten by that a few months ago.
Example: More Facebook Phishing Trouble - The New York Times
Reading the article, I don’t see anything related to the alleged phishing apps, though.