Those ungrateful little
schmucks.
After all they've done for them -- changing their diapers, feeding and clothing them, driving them to movie dates at the mall, pretending not to notice porn URLs in the browser
history -- this is how they repay them? This is how they treat their own parents? The world today, I tell you.
Maybe I should back up and explain myself. It all goes back to the ever-present
concern about keeping kids safe online. A new survey from AOL and Nielsen found that three out of four parents said they insisted on being their child's Facebook friend with the purpose of monitoring
their activity on the social network. For the most part this means checking out their other "friends" as well as wall comments, status updates, and other content to make sure they're not being
approached by shady characters (or doing something egregiously stupid all by themselves).
One out of five parents said they have asked their child to "unfriend" someone because they weren't
comfortable with the connection; on half of these occasions, the parent objected to inappropriate content on the person's Facebook page. However, many parents said they agreed not to comment on their
children's pages -- an important concession averting potential online mortification.
Nonetheless, 30% of teens said they would like to "unfriend" their parents, given the option. Apparently
unappreciative of hours spent in labor and years spent slaving over the hot stove, teens were twice as likely to want to "unfriend" their mothers as fathers -- perhaps because mothers are more likely
to violate the "no comment" rule, according to Regina Lewis, AOL's consumer advisor.
This is the second survey suggesting that heartless, hurtful rejection of loving, dutiful parents is
widespread among teens. In April, a ROI World surveyed 600 teens about their use of online social networks via OTX's Online Sample Community, and found that 19% of teens who created a Facebook profile
said they are spending less time on the site than they did a year ago, or have stopped visiting it altogether. 16% of respondents who left Facebook or use it less said they did so because their
parents joined, while 14% said they did so because there are "too many adults/older people."