Social media and privacy: why you should be glad your mum is on Facebook

Have you ever been glad that your mum’s* on Facebook? My guess is you haven’t — at best you’ve been amused (or snarky, like these people), at worst you’ve been downright angry (like this lot).

Over the past couple of years, there’s been fairly regular news coverage (in The Washington Post, on the ABC News Web site and on NPR, among other places) of the increasing number of older people on Facebook and the ‘problems’ that’s causing for people who don’t want their mums to see what they say and do online.

The way I see it though, your mum being on Facebook isn’t a problem at all; it’s a good thing — and not just in the “your mother gave you life, the least you can give her is a phone call” sense, either.

Image courtesy of Melanie Milan

Instead, your mum’s presence on Facebook is a good thing in a “there’s no such thing as privacy in social media” sense. It encourages you to think twice before you post an inappropriate status update, drunken photos from a frat party, or a link to a questionable video. It serves as a reminder that anything you put online is going to be seen by lots more people than the 20 or so friends you had in mind when you posted.

Depending on your privacy settings, anything you put on facebook could be seen be at least your 200+ other friends (which could easily include your professors, employers or future employers), and might well be seen by hundreds of other people too.

In a world where employers apparently reject candidates because of their inappropriate Facebook photos or status updates, and where it’s possible to calculate 8 digits of someone’s Social Security Number using just her birth date and hometown, anything that reminds you that your online private life might not be as private as you’d like can only be good thing.

So I think we should all be glad that our mums are on Facebook, (but maybe start managing their access to our profiles, too).

Incidentally, my mum is my most avid (only?) reader on this blog – anything you’d like to add, Ma? :)

*Sorry AP Stylebook, but this is an international blog, and I can’t bring myself to use ‘mom.’ I just can’t.