The Collegian

Issue date: 10/2/08 Section: Beyond

For most, college releases students from their parents's reign and puts them in control of their own lives - unless, of course, their parents are on Facebook.

Some say their parents' accounts interfere with their privacy.

"When your friends put up pictures of you getting wasted, it shows up on their homepage," sophomore Bob Lochner said. "I can't think of a reason I wouldn't want my parents to see my page, but that is just me."

While explicitly saying that he had no reason to fear a family Facebook situation, he felt for those whose parents do have accounts.

"I think it must suck," Lochner said.
Sophomore Alex Green, whose father has a Facebook account, said it initially did just that.

"I thought that Facebook wasn't meant for parents," Green said. "I disapproved, just because it's social utility and it seemed sort of…almost inappropriate to have parents on there."

Green and his father initially refused to be friends, although Green said he has now gotten over it.

It is logical to assume that, even if there are no particularly incriminating pictures on a student's profile, there must be something on their profile that student would not want his parents to see.

"My parents were pretty mad when they saw my 'Hannah Montana Day' pictures," sophomore Scott Heneveld said, referring to a few photos of him and a several friends squeezing into the young starlet's line of clothing.

"They freaked out, and called me gay: 'You are losing your morals,' they said," Heneveld said. Heneveld wasn't "losing his morals,"- his Facebook "Interested In" status clearly states "women." If his parents had examined his entire profile, they may have found less reason for worry.

However, if Facebook stays on its current path, the networks connecting people at the same high school or college may give way to networks connecting nursing homes and senior citizen centers.

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