Teenagers and the digital age

When I was a teenager we passed notes back and forth in class that we would have been horrified if they had been made public. Then texting came along and I'm sure it was the same thing for the kids that came along after us. To have your phone grabbed by a teacher....or a text forwarded to someone else...was probably your worst nightmare. Now kids get to make those same horrifying mistakes but on a much more public stage. Enter Facebook. Yep, as great as it is it is just one way in this digital age where you can get into horrible trouble in front of hundreds of your closest "friends".

The thing about Facebook is that you get a false sense of community. When I post something I think I know who is going to see it because those are the people that show up on my News Feed. I know that Tracy, Erica, Holly, Sheri, Ricky, Kelley, etc will be seeing my comments because I always see the ones that they post. Then there are people like my husband who is what they call a lurker. He signs into his Facebook account to see what his friends are up to but he never posts anything about himself on the page. It's easy to forget that you've "friended" someone who is a lurker. Then there are people you "friend" but hide their updates from your news feed because they're on there 600 times a day and you really don't care that they just went to the bathroom or that they're having a peanut butter sandwich for lunch.

What I'm trying to say is even though you think 15 or 20 people are going to see your comment it could really be 200 people seeing your comment that you forget exist in your Facebook world.
I try to keep that in mind and I don't usually publish anything too crazy. I never bitch about work. My last post was about going out to dinner with Lincoln for our anniversary. The one before that was about something funny that Jake had said the other night. Nothing that I would be embarrassed about if it made the headline news.

Why am I getting into all this? Because of what happened this weekend with a 17-year old in my group of family and friends. Apparently he posted a comment on his girlfriend's Facebook page that was not something he needed to share with the world. Yes he crossed a line by making the comment in such a public forum but nothing was said that isn't joked about by every teenager through the ages. The difference is we just said it on paper notes when we were kids that you would then tear up and throw away. Unfortunately you can't do that when you've just posted it where her 650+ friends will see it. His argument was that they posted it (yes, they posted it together) as a joke for their close friends to see. Unfortunately, buried in those 650+ friends was the mother of another student who brought it to the attention of the girlfriend's parents who brought to the attention of the boy's parents.

And that is what sparked my "Thank GOD I didn't grow up with the internet" moment this morning. I can now only fear for what we will have to deal with in the future as Hannah and Jake get older.