Facebook and Bebo - should I let my daughter have an account?

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summerdays

Cycling in the sun
Location
Bristol
My daughter (nearly age 13) has been sent invites from one of her friends (age nearly 12) from both sites. I know very little about them, but hubby definately isn't convinced by her having an account with either. Does anyone on here use it and can tell me more?

For example can you limit it to only people you know?

Is there anything to watch out for?

Tried looking around Bebo abit but found it confusing without having my own account - seemed to be a lot of people who were in their late teens/twentys.

She has been quite grown up about it, in that she hasn't automatically clicked on the email link but instead asked us whether she can.
 
OP
OP
summerdays

summerdays

Cycling in the sun
Location
Bristol
I am really not up with present all the information and photos of yourself to the world stuff, ... so these kids put information on their page and then link to a friend and the stuff appears on the friends page?

My daughter's friend, has a friend who last time I had anything to do with her had no internet sense ... on MSN (we used that to keep in touch with a friend doing a year in India), and this child (aged about 8 or 9 at the time) would be online at 10 pm at night and try and strike up conversations with me... I refused on the grounds I didn't know her and thought that she shouldn't be talking to people she doesn't know. She is the sort that sends those emails saying the world will end unless you send this message to everyone in your address book. I would not want her to be able to access my daughters account from the liberal way she spreads herself around the internet.

(After all who lets their 8/9 yo on the internet unsupervised at 10pm at night).
 

Melvil

Guest
I know this is a bit para, but I find social networking sites very very insidious and am generally against the whole hidden ethos of web 2.0 - i.e. User Generated Content - meaning us poor saps divulge all our personal information which is then harvested and used by cynical marketing w**kboys and the government for whatever purpose they want with us having no say about it.

And before you raise the obvious, I realise the irony of posting the above comment on a site like this!
 

yenrod

Guest
The stupid thing is about these 'NETWORKING' sites...is that all they do is put people in contact with each other...

These things are weird and truly geeky in my pointofview/mind !

I personally think they are for losers and are totally sad !
 

fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
Make sure that only information is available to her 'permitted' friends - i.e. she has to allow don't go public... - I'd also check on what's being posted and that you have an account to check - i.e. she has to let you see...

Explain what can happen and you aren't going to snoop, but she needs to let you know what's going on..... just be open...

It's frightening as you have to be a few steps ahead of the kids with IT these days..... my two are 7 and 4 so it's not too bad but I've already told my neice and nephew that PC access will go if they misuse their connection (PC from granddad and the loan of a mobile connection too whilst he doesn't use it) - both good kids, but come summer, he'll need his wireless laptop card back... my sis in law will need to get up to date asap....
 

4F

Active member of Helmets Are Sh*t Lobby
Location
Suffolk.
yenrod said:
The stupid thing is about these 'NETWORKING' sites...is that all they do is put people in contact with each other...

These things are weird and truly geeky in my pointofview/mind !

I personally think they are for losers and are totally sad !

+1 I agree with you totally.
 

tdr1nka

Taking the biscuit
Summerdays,

If you do decide to let your daughter join a networking site, pick one or the other most certainly not both. Be transparent at the start and expect to know passwords and be able to monitor her site for a probationary period.

I am going thru a nightmare with my estranged 16 year old 'Emo' daughter in which a large part was played out on her My(or Me, Me, Me!)Space site.

http://cyclechat.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=7330

From the experience I have gained thru recent events I know now that when my younger daughter thinks she's ready to start 'social networking' I will offer her the alternatives of either, a mobile phone but no Networking sites or one Networking site and no mobile. Simple as.

T x

P.S. Anyone who forwards messages saying 'every scrap of love and compassion will be scoured from the face of the earth unless you forward this message to 1,000 friends', should just be quietly dissapeared CIA style.
 
OP
OP
summerdays

summerdays

Cycling in the sun
Location
Bristol
She has a phone already (has to travel by bus which can be delayed in the worst case by 2 hrs), but she has to pay for the phone out of her own meagre pocket money so doesn't use it for chit chat.

I did follow that other thread with interest and sympathy, but luckily we haven't reached that age (YET). I am sure its all yet to come.

Am I right in thinking you have to sign upto these sites with your real name rather than this site where I'm summerdays?
 

domtyler

Über Member
My philosophy is to give as much responsibility as possible. This is qualified by the fact that mine is only fourteen months old though! But I would allow her the account on the proviso that she sticks to a set of rules determined by you and your other half. Any breaking of the rules would see the suspension of the privilege for a period of time.
 

ChrisKH

Guru
Location
Essex
I must be getting old but I can't see the point. If you want to interact with friends then you meet them face to face and socialise surely? I have enough problems keeping my two young'uns off their computer/Wii/Playstation without the added complication of websites as well. I just can't see how they add value to anything. I'll probably be bullied into it in a few years, but as others have said I would rather they went out but took a mobile.

Having said that, I think if they want to, they will and only yesterday my 8 year old came home with three website addresses on a piece of paper left in his pocket. At least I won't have to worry about him bringing home porn when he's older, he'll just use the internet. ;)

Computer and electronic games are taking away their playtime IMO which is why I place importance on activities outside home such as orchestra, cubs, cycling club, sports, etc.
 

Fnaar

Smutmaster General
Location
Thumberland
Mine have got bebo sites, incl youngest who is 9. Strict rules though about time spent doing it, content etc, I look at them regularly and also (pretty much on a monthly basis) remind them that they can only add their real friends (most of whom I know), and any approaches from people they don't know (they haven't actually had any) are to be refused and they should tell me. They're all happy with it, and they just put on snaps taken on mobiles and youtube clips of their fave bands, and spend time choosing funky backgrounds. I see it as a kind of modern equivalent of writing your fave bands' names/logos on your rough-book at school, or having a scrap book....
Mind you, the've started asking why I keep going to this site, who I'm 'talking' to, etc. 'Do you know them? Are they strangers? and so on! Wait till I get the feckin' T-shirt! :biggrin:
 

LLB

Guest
There was an article in the paper linking these websites to a rash of teenage suicides in Bridgend. Something about teenagers thinking its cool to kill yourself :biggrin:
 

tdr1nka

Taking the biscuit
summerdays said:
She has a phone already (has to travel by bus which can be delayed in the worst case by 2 hrs), but she has to pay for the phone out of her own meagre pocket money so doesn't use it for chit chat.

I did follow that other thread with interest and sympathy, but luckily we haven't reached that age (YET). I am sure its all yet to come.

Am I right in thinking you have to sign upto these sites with your real name rather than this site where I'm summerdays?


Hiya Summerdays,

I fully appreciate the need for your daughter to have a mobile, especially when her commute to/from school can be so protracted.

As for signing up under her real name, this need only be for the setting up in which case you could even use your or your Husbands details and let her use a nicname on her page.

All Myspace setup and account details can be set to private and her profile restricted to only the friends she has 'accepted', this means that if someone from outside her circle were to view her page it will not show her full page.
Look for the settings re: Extended Network and Privacy.

In fact it might be a good idea to set up your own account in order to get familiar with the processes involved?

There is no reason for your daughter not to have her own profile on a networking site, and as has been said elsewhere in this thread, allowing her some responsability and trust is certainly not a bad lesson/example to set for a young lady of her age.

Best wishes,

T x
 
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