Parenting in the Age of Online Social Networks

*Philippine Panorama
July 22, 2012
Vol. 41, No. 30

A father once wrote on his son’s Facebook wall, “Hi, Danny!  How are you?  Your mom and I are okay.  We miss you.  Please come downstairs.  We’re in the living room.”  This joke illustrates how Facebook and other online social networks have crept into homes, unsettling parents already troubled by digital age contraptions pulling their children away from schoolwork and family.

With one in six people on the planet owning accounts in Facebook and other online social networks and with about one in three Filipinos registered in a social network, it is not surprising if some Filipino children and preadolescents want a social network account as much as they wish for a mobile or gaming console.  The trouble begins here because a federal law called the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) prohibits websites such as Facebook from collecting names and other personal information from users younger than 13 years old without first obtaining "verifiable parental consent."

Facebook and other websites covered by COPPA have set 13 years old as their minimum age limit for all users.  Complying with COPPA would have made the social network theoretically free of underage users.  Reality says that the website had approximately 7.5 million under-13 users in 2011, with some of them joining the site with their parents’ help.  Despite its efforts to kick out 20,000 underage users every day, the banned users’ reentry and young converts to Facebook ensure a steady supply of illegal members to expel from the network.

Seven and a half million users out of Facebook’s more than 900 million users is a minuscule minority, but it refers to children and preteens who are exploring a largely adult world where they are exposed to age-inappropriate material, predators, and bullies.  Parents should not rely on Facebook’s anti-bullying tools because the system is like a police officer reacting to a crime after its commission rather than a thick fence keeping the wolves off the sheep.

Threats to a child’s online privacy and safety should not just be a parent’s major concern when his child is in a social network.  American psychologists have discussed the possible negative effects of online social networking on a child’s behavior.  This can be as mild as increased narcissism to serious disorders such as anxiety, depression, aggressiveness, mania, and antisocial behavior.

Children and preteens active in social networks also do not perform well in school.  On the other hand, adolescents in social networks display more empathy to their online friends while the introverts among them are encouraged to socialize at least online.

Psychologists opine that parents should establish a guideline for their children’s social networking and other online activities instead of imposing restrictions that their young can circumvent anyway.  They should also not be complacent once Facebook implements its proposal to set parental controls on the accounts of its under-13 users.

Most of all, some parents should not have helped their children fool the age restriction set by Facebook and other networks in the first place.  By that act alone, they have already taught their young that dishonesty is permissible in society.


-Prospero Pulma Jr.