I don't want to get off on a rant here...

I came very close to deleting my Facebook account last week.

Let me state that I didn’t, and for the most part Facebook has been a positive experience for me – I check it daily because it keeps me up to date on what is going on in my friends’ and family members’ lives. Since the day of the mass email is gone, it seems to be the place where my friends announce pregnancies or engagements, job changes and moves. I enjoy seeing pictures of my graduate school roommate’s children, and reading about the funny predicaments my former co-workers children’s have gotten themselves into. Overall, it is a fun site for me to visit.

But I am now working at a high school and had the chance to sit in on an administrative meeting last week. It’s a meeting where we discuss students who are having difficulties in school. After a few minutes of talking about the usual high school issues – truancy, drinking, drugs – stuff that is not great but nonetheless common occurrences at any large public high school in this country, the rest of the meeting focused around Facebook.

I am not a naïve person. I know that I am not a spring chicken, but I keep up with what is going on in the world. I was SHOCKED at the level of immaturity, bullying, and discord that occurs on FB with these high school students. And I’m not talking about the burnouts, the druggies, the “mean girls,” etc. – I’m talking about ALL of them – “good” kids included. It seems like they are all living their lives online and it is not, for the most part, a happy life. The things that posted on walls are appalling. The vice principals get numerous calls EACH DAY from parents who are dealing with an inconsolable child after a FB “altercation.” And you know what? This isn’t standard graffiti, folks. This isn’t the same as someone writing “For a good time call ___” on the bathroom wall. A bathroom wall can be repainted. These words and pictures are out there for everyone to see and they can never really be erased. Most of the time, the VPs tell the parents, “Um, don’t let your son/daughter have a FB account.” It’s good advice, and many parents take it. But apparently when you are 16 not having a FB account is akin to social suicide, so the kids just sign up again. Or they can still find out about what is going on because their friends still have an account.

But perhaps what is most disturbing is that these kids have NO IDEA how to interact with someone face-to-face. Put two kids in an office together who have just had mud-slinging fest on FB and they don’t even know what to say to each other. Nor do they seem to hate each other with the venom and passion that they displayed online Their online personas are so different than their real life personalities. And for the most part their online personas are meaner, snarkier, ruder, and uglier than in person. I have to wonder if all of this “social networking” is making these kids LESS social, LESS able to socialize, and LESS networked. As adults, we didn’t grow up with this stuff. We had to learn how to read body language, how to moderate our tone to convey meaning in a conversation, how to HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH ANOTHER PERSON.

I know that social networking isn’t going away. What I would like to see is the age limit raised to 18 to join any of these social networking sites. If anything it is to protect these kids from each other AND themselves. I know when I was a teenager I did and said things that I am not proud of. But these thing, for the most part, were able to disappear. Negatives can be shredded, letters ripped up. Kids today don’t have that luxury. They make one mistake, and that mistake may have the potential to live online forever.