Family Intimacy on Facebook

Family Intimacy on Facebook

Ali Cresap
Melissa Flores
Stephanie Lewis
Cynthia Lopez


For many college students, the routine is the same when accessing the Internet. If checking your Facebook profile isn’t the first priority, it is safe to say it is the second priority next to email. However, as the popular social networking site continues to evolve, new issues arise for its users. Originally targeted toward college campuses, Facebook attracted thousands of students as a means to connect with their peers and create an online identity. Two years after its creation, Facebook opened its network to anyone over the age of thirteen with an email address. This greatly impacted the dynamics of Facebook; not only could a college peer ask to be your friend but so could your professor. An even more controversial friend request is one coming from your parent, a common phenomenon with the growth of older users. As Facebook evolved into an open social networking site, it has raised issues of identity and intimacy for users who have parents using Facebook.
Inspired by a book of headshots with basic biographical data distributed at Harvard every year, ambitious undergraduate Mark Zuckerberg created the social network site ““Facebook”” in his dorm room in February of 2004. Initially open to Harvard undergraduates, Facebook spread like wild fire: “within a day it had signed up 1,200 students; within a month half of the undergraduate population…by September 2005, Facebook was claiming that 85% of all students at the 882 colleges it supported had Facebook profiles, 60% of whom logged in daily” (Grimmelmann 2008:6). Facebook was an undeniable hit among college students. As students registered for a Facebook profile they uploaded heaps of personal information and pictures. In this way students created an online identity. In addition to creating their own identity, students were able to explore the identities of their friends or others in their school’s network. Facebook was the “way students found out what everyone around them was like and what he or she was doing” (Thompson 2006). In this way, through the database of online depictions of oneself Facebook began to form an intimate community of users. As Facebook evolved, the mini-feed was created in September of 2006. This altered Facebook in a way that allowed users more recent information about their friends without need to search for it as it was displayed on the user’s homepage. In his article, “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy,” author Clive Thompson illustrates how such immediate, personal, incessant online contact has created “ambient awareness.” Ambient awareness is described as the feeling of being physically near someone and the ability to pick up on their current mood, while not being physically near them at all. As the mini-feed altered the intimacy of the networking site, another change sparked who one could be intimate with on Facebook.
Simultaneous with the creation of the mini-feed was Facebook’s movement in September 2006: registration for anyone. This created the opportunity for parents and their college children to become friends on Facebook. As youth, members of the digital generation, join social networking sites they are “coming of age and struggling
for autonomy and identity as did their predecessors, but they are doing so amid reconfigured contexts for communication, friendship, play, and self-expression” (Mimi Ito et al. 2008:5). Social networking sites for younger generations create an opportunity to create an identity online and socialize with increased intimacy of ambient awareness. However, the tables turn with the possibility that your mother and father can view this online identity. Where do parents find their place within the social networking site? Why are they interested in it? And how do they feel about viewing their child’s personal information if allowed to? With 175 million users on Facebook and the fasting growing demographic being users over 30, issues of intimacy and identity within nuclear family members are continuing to occur. This paper will attempt to outline the way in which parents and children interact on Facebook. It will demonstrate how the expansion of Facebook to a network that allows anyone to register alters issues of identity and intimacy between children and their parents.
Within this research paper are the outlined methods we used to gather our data. These methods led us to results which could be categorized into three groups: parents who rejected their parent’s friendship request on Facebook, children who left their parent’s friend requests pending, and children who accepted their parent’s occasionally modifying their profile. It should be noted that within this research paper the term “child” or “children” does not refer to users in their adolescence rather users who are out of high school who have parents on the social networking site.

Methods

The foundation for the methods was rooted in two Facebook groups called Facebook and family and Have your parents friended you on Facebook? Group invites were sent to all of our friends but specifically targeted those who we felt might be able to contribute to our research, i.e., friends who have accepted relatives. A message was sent with the group invite asking people politely not to delete or reject our invite without first reading it. In the basic info section of the group page we specified that we were UCI students conducting research on social networking sites, specifically Facebook, and the effects it had on family relationships. We also specified that all posts made on the group wall or discussion board could be used in our research project unless they specifically asked us not to use the information they provided. Group members were also encouraged to notify us if they had any questions or concerns.
To get a discussion going, we posted a set of questions on the wall of each group. The questions were straightforward and kept simple to encourage group members to participate:
Facebook and family
1. Have you been friend requested by relatives, e.g., mom, dad, child, grandparents, aunts, uncle, etc.? Did you add them? Why or why not?2. Was there any hesitation in adding relatives to your Facebook accounts?3. Have you modified your Facebook so that they only have access to certain things on your account?
Have your parents friended you on Facebook?
Student survey:
1) Have your parents/family members “friended” you on Facebook? Did you add them right away or are they still pending? Why?2) Did you block any part of your profile page in order to hide information from your parents? Why?3) Why do you think your parents have a Facebook page? Do you think they want to spy on you? Do you think they have it just to network and communicate with their friends?4) If they are still pending or you denied them, do you think it hurts their feelings?5) Do you think parents should be allowed to have a Facebook?
Parent Survey:
1) What motivated you to create a Facebook profile?2) Do you use it to keep in touch with your kids or to network and communicate with friends and co-workers?3) Do you feel you are spying on your kids/checking up on them? Why or why not?4) If you have not been accepted as a friend yet or your child denied you, did it hurt your feelings?5) Do you feel that you know your child better after seeing their profiles and pictures? Did you become closer?6) How do you think your children feel about you having a Facebook?
During our fieldwork, we found that we had to modify our methods for gaining information on more than one occasion. People were not as compliant as we had hoped, or expected them to be. Our strategy of forming a group that our friends could join was off to a great start. However, we found that although people were adding to the groups, many were not participating in the discussions, and the ones who were kept their answers pretty concise. We modified the questions a few times and sent out messages to our friends asking them to please help us out, reminding them that this was an actual assignment. Of course the majority said they would participate, but not many of them did. We did get a few great responses that contributed to our findings but we felt we needed to try a different strategy to obtain better results. We turned to interviews and online chatting. We found this method to be more useful, as people were more open and elaborated on their answers in a one on one conversation. In addition to the online groups and interviews, research through literature about social networking sites and family relations were found through article databases like Jstor, new websites, (specifically The Washington Post), and Facebook groups who protested parents accounts.

Results

As previously mentioned, the results our methods uncovered were placed into three categories: parents and children who decided not to be friends on Facebook, children who left their parents pending, and children who accepted the friend request and sometimes modified their profile while doing so. Through the results it became apparent that when asked to be a friend by their parent on Facebook the issue of their online identity was questioned. This is interesting given the fact that most often a parent is a relationship considered more intimate than some of the friends users add.

Parents and Children who are not friends on Facebook

This category of results describes parents and their children who both have Facebook accounts but have chosen not to be friends. Of the research we collected through our Facebook group there were two sets of parents and children who had chosen to not be friends. One set of participants in this category was a mom and a daughter, the daughter stating, “I wouldn’t want my mom to see my partying pictures, my account is personal, kind of like a diary, it’s for the world to see but not my mom.” The mom made no comment in response to her daughter rejecting the friend request. The daughters opinion of strangers being able to see her profile is illustrated by the fact that, “approximately 80% of one college’s Facebook using sample indicated that total strangers on their own campus view their Facebook profiles, and nearly 40% believe that total strangers from other universities view their profiles as well” (Walther et al. 2008:31). While the daughter was comfortable with strangers seeing her online identity, that relationship with her mother was unacceptable. The second set of participants in this category was a mother and a son. The son commented that, “I rejected my mom because I feel like she’s too old to be on Facebook…I told her she’s not allowed to add any of my friends either.” In response to her son’s rejected friend request the mom stated that, “I wasn’t sure if he would add me but I didn’t realize he would be so weirded out by it.” While both children were uncomfortable with the invasion of privacy, an interesting point can be made about the second participant’s desire for his mom not to add his friends. As illustrated in the article, “The Role of Friends’ Appearance and Behavior on Evaluations of Individuals on Facebook: Are We Known by the Company We Keep?“ users on Facebook can use other user’s profiles to seek information about a third party. Further information gained on another’s site is, “considered more reliable than self-disclosed claims of the same nature. Thus, in a Facebook profile, things that others say about a target may be more compelling than things an individual says about his- or herself.” Attempting to keep his online identity private from his mother, the son was smart in asking his mom not to add his friends, as they could lead to more valid information of the son’s online characteristics.
Further data on this category was collected through the news website Washington Post and Facebook groups protesting parent’s access. As demonstrated in a Washington Post article, “When Mom or Dad Asks To Be a Facebook Friend” many children who rejected their parent’s friend requests did so because they felt it was an invasion of privacy. However, Facebook groups banning parents were a bit more ruthless. Such group opinions varied from it being hilarious, to parents being too old, to it being nosy, intrusive and outrageous. As illustrated the main point within this results category was the fact that it was an invasion of privacy, users didn’t feel their parents needed to see the life they conducted online.

When Parents Were Left Pending

When someone is “friended” they must either accept the request or deny it, otherwise the request is left pending. In analyzing the relationship between parents and children on Facebook, we wanted to uncover how many students hesitated before adding or denying their parents, and the reasons for doing so. A few informants left their parents pending for a few days before deciding to add them, while another child left his mom pending indefinitely and with no intention of accepting her request. The majority had the same reason for hesitation: they needed to modify their profiles first. One informant elaborated on this fact in the student survey by stating, “Yes, my mom did friend me and no I did not accept it right away. There are a lot of pictures that I felt she would not like to see. I don’t hide anything from her and she knows that I’m a little bit of a wild child, but there’s a difference from knowing and then actually seeing. So I actually added her to my limited profile!” Another informant similarly mentioned that she “blocked any drunken pictures, etc.” from her mom. Surprisingly, one child did not have any embarrassing pictures to hide. His reasoning for leaving his mother pending was strictly a matter of privacy: “I’d rather her not view my pics/comments. She trusts me and all but I don’t like it when she asks me questions about my personal life; it kind of weirds me out.” He felt that leaving her pending was not as harsh or extreme as completely rejecting her friend request, but did not plan on ever accepting the request.
For the most part, children left their parents pending in order to hide pictures that might get them into trouble, but this decision also had to do with profile comments. Facebook allows users to control every aspect of their profiles in terms of what other users are allowed to see, but it is impossible to control what comments are written. These comments or “wall posts” as they are referred to on Facebook, can be just as incriminating as photos depending on what people write. “Postings by other people on one’s own profile reflect the character of the individuals who made the postings, [but] it is also possible that observers’ reactions of those others may affect perceptions of the target profile maker as well, even though the profile maker his- or herself did not initiate or condone the postings” (Walther et al. 2008:29). In other words, comments contribute to the overall image of the Facebook user. The male informant previously mentioned did not want his mother scrutinizing the comments posted on his profile for two reasons: he could not control their content and they could be easily misunderstood. Facebook does allow users to privatize the entire “wall,” but in his case it was easier to leave his mother pending, thereby keeping his profile unchanged and inaccessible. As members in this group also felt the need to protect their privacy they also unveiled the need to hide the way others create their online identity from the intimate real life relationship with their parent.

People Who Accepted and Sometimes Modified Profiles for Parents

Much to our surprise we found that the majority of people that had accepted relatives as friends didn’t modify their profiles. Of the 20 responses we used for this part of our research, 14 responded as having nothing to hide from their family. Some of the responses were:
“I’m not forced to put anything I don’t want to on Facebook or MySpace. I can choose to put whatever I want on my profile, if there was something I felt was better left unknown by certain people, I would leave it out all together. Why risk the chance of information you don’t want people to know getting out.”
“I didn’t find a need to modify. It’s a great way to keep in touch.”
“I keep no secrets from my mom, she’s my best friend. I have no problem giving her access to my college life. But she has mentioned that there are some things she wishes she hadn’t seen, like pictures of me wasted with a drawing of big cock on my face that my buddy drew. That was a crazy night.”
“I know my parents use Facebook to keep tabs on me and I am ok with that. I think it’s cute. I don’t restrict them from anything. I figure they might as well know what I’m doing…which sadly isn’t much.”
“None of my relatives on Facebook have limited access to my info. Most of them are cousins, around my age so we have this unwritten rule that we don’t rat each other out.”
The remaining six responses stated that they had modified their profiles a bit but gave different reasons why:
“Initially I had gave my mom open access to my profile so that she could feel as close to me as possible being that she’s in Chile. But that changed quickly after she began punishing me for things she would see on my Facebook profile, specifically my pictures. She would leave comments in caps followed by exclamation points under certain pictures. She was doing it so much that I became nervous when I’d log on. I put a stop to that quick style. I felt bad because my dad’s cool but I had to restrict him because my mom would over power him.”
“Haha yesss! I have her on my limited profile that way her and I can still chat amongst one another, but also so she doesn’t see my whole life at school.”
“I’m trying to get my sister to join Facebook; she lives in Honduras with my mom. Once she joins I will probably modify some things on my profile. Mainly my pictures just because I don’t want my mom to worry about me or the things I do.”
From our research we found that most of the students who had relatives on Facebook didn’t modify their profiles. A popular response among them was that they felt it was a great way to keep in touch with family. They saw Facebook as a great way to share their experiences with relatives who may be spread out across the globe. From the users who did modify, we found that the main feature they were keeping their relatives from was their photo albums. Most of these users felt that their pictures said more to their relatives than anything they could write on their profiles. A fundamental aspect of identity in a social networking site is, “the mutability of our self-representation in online environments” (Yee & Bailenson 2007:272). The ability to change your identity in an online environment and as a result change your behavior is described as the Proteus Effect. This is useful in understanding why children might modify their profile when allowing an intimate relative like a parent to view it. Since the parent knows their identity in the real world, the online identity might not match up and for this reason might create the need for modification. Some said they modified out of respect for their parents while others said that their parents didn’t need to know everything about them. As for who were the relatives who were restricted to limited access, in our small sample we found parents to be the ones who were the most restricted. Most of the users felt comfortable with aunts, uncles, cousins and siblings having unlimited access but not parents.

Conclusion

In the opinion of many undergraduates, it may seem unreal to imagine parents having any kind of social life. Some assume the reason behind a parent creating a Facebook account is simply for the spying privileges that they will receive. This fact may be true in some cases but does not seem to be proving true in all. Among the many that were interviewed, most parents admitted to liking Facebook as a social network and using it for the same reasons students stated. As is the slogan on the homepage of the Facebook network, “Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.” Parents can use Facebook as a great way to advertise for business, create awareness of a problem, and reconnect with old friends and classmates. Indeed Facebook has an eager and growing community in the 30-year-old and older user. One interviewee remarked, “Yea, my dad and his co-worker were having a bet to see who could have the most friends on here. My dad’s winning so far.” Overall it has become apparent that parents enjoy Facebook for the same reasons that their children are attracted to it: to connect socially. A contrast noticed within the research was the students desire to branch out to find new friends and acquaintances, especially within a college environment for which the site was originally created. It is important here to note that although the patterns of the parents and their kids may differ slightly, the idea is still the same, and both choose to utilize the site in similar ways.
A last detail to mention is the fact that a lot of parents do create Facebook accounts in order to become friends with their children, but it’s not for the reason many kids assume. With a lot of child-parent relationships now being separated and strained by the rigors of college life, Facebook provides a quick and easy way for parents and their children to stay connected. One parent wrote, “Sometimes seeing what pics or videos or quotes they choose to post helps me feel I know them better. Being able to post quick updates sometimes brings our far flung kids and me closer.” It is in this sense that we again see the reality of ‘ambient awareness’ in the fact that while parents may not necessarily be in physical proximity to their kids they can still keep updated and maintain close ties, as well as kids staying updated about what’s going on in their parent’s lives. However while parents seek to maintain this close relationship with their children, children are presented with the task to allow or reject their parents from their online identity.
In the end this study yielded many fascinating results and brings up even more questions for future studies. If this study were to be redone some things that may have been overlooked would be brought to light. One of the corrections we would choose to make is changing our methods of research, more importantly our interviewing techniques. While we found the Facebook groups that were created to be very helpful, one thing we would have changed was the fact that both parents and their kids were invited to the same group. A separate group for each would have been more helpful in getting honest answers from each party. The way in which the questions were set up allowed both the parents and kids to view each others’ answers. Also we would have liked to do more face-to-face interviews and collect a broader scope of both parents and their kids to interview. The results of our findings showed that there were many different responses to parents and kids “friending” each other. We found responses such as flat out rejection, holding an invitation as “pending”, the alteration or limitation of profiles, as well as genuine friend acceptance. Through all the varying responses we found that in some way or another, the relationship between a parent and child did play an important role, especially in relation to the child’s online identity created through their pictures, “about me” and wall. Further research has pointed out the different uses that parents and their kids have on social networking sites, but when it comes to Facebook, children and parents have a lot more in common than they think.

Bibliography

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