Post by Nick Grant, Street Marketing Coordinator

New friend request? Awesome! Mom! Friend request denied. Log out. This was my immediate reaction, as I’m sure has been many others, to my beloved mother’s joining of Facebook. My pictures from Friday after class, wall comments from friends, and privacy have all been compromised. Is it spying or does she just want keep in touch with her “shnook-ems”?

What was once considered the new online student hangout has become a virtual hub for any mother or father to connect interactively with wayward children.  According to a Pew Research Center analysis, 35% of adult internet users now have a profile on at least one social networking site.  Comscore reported the number of users over age 25 increased 279% on Facebook.  Depending on your point of view, MySpace and Facebook are slowly deteriorating from places where the youth of America connected and into a public forum of parental monitoring.  They are the new remote baby monitors and now Mom and Dad can find out what really happened on the Jamaican Spring Break.

The same social networking website where I received “pokes” from the girl I met at the coffee house has been invaded by my mother.  Parents are in the trenches of online capabilities with us.  Each one word answer to Mom’s question increases her “need to know” instinct and her social networking literacy.  She’s even uploaded her own photo.  As long as I have the deny button, I can keep Facebook a Mom-free zone.