Facebook advice

[Welly]

Being a grumpy old bastard I'm never going near facebook and I don't really like some of the stories you hear about social networking etc.

However, even my 14 year old son is turning grumpy and I'm thinking he's probably missing out on a lot of banter and meet-ups out of school via Facebook (he never seems to know what the other kids are up to). I found myself trying to encourage him to give it a go but he's a bit worried that the other kids might start taking the mick out of him (he's sensitive of this).

There's nothing about him to take the mick really, he gets on well at school and is generally one of the popular ones but you know how kids can be if they want....

Anyhoo has anyone got any general advice for a Facebook newbie including any pitfalls or what to watch for? is he likely to sign up and then see negative things written about him? I honestly don't know how it all works.

[Blue406]

The single most important bit of advice I'd offer would be to not publish all his contact details on his profile.
He can also make his profile "friends only" if he is worried about prying eyes spying on him.
That way, only people he adds as friends will be able to see more than just his name and current profile picture.

[eoin27]

I'd recommend your son to get a facebook account. Since FB wasnt in school when I was, Im not sure how schoolkids operate on FB. I hope that there is an environment in his school where people bullying each other through FB is a taboo and not acceptable universally. My advice to your son is to take verbal abuse like that on the chin and give it back as good as you get it. Bullys are usually cowards who cant take a slagging themselves.

edit: Oh, and you can report abuse quite easily on FB

[steve_earwig]

Join Facebook, find lots of friends, try to keep up with all the stuff that's going on, loose interest, give up.

[puggy]

Ditto !!

[teamster1975]

There's no harm in it Welly, as the others say he needs to set his privacy settings carefully and only share personal information & photos with real friends.

[highlander]

you know how kids can be if they want...

Kids can be a**holes, I hated my time in school from Primary 1 right through til I finished high school. They can always find something nasty to say to you that really upsets you, and once they find it they generally don't stop. Saw it happening to other people too, it's so unfair.

The important thing for your son to realize is that there is nothing wrong with him; it's the jerks in the school that have the problem.

Online bullying can be even more horrible than it is in the flesh. Thankfully very few people in my school were on the internet (I was 13 before I got my first 33.6 kbps modem), so I've had no personal experience of this type.

As mentioned before, go through the privacy settings and set up the account in such a way that only people he agrees to be friends with get to see any photos or wall posts. Then ensure he knows not to post anything that he isn't comfortable with everyone knowing (even if you are friends with someone on FB, there's nothing stopping them from copying something you write and pasting it on their own wall just to spite you). Especially photos.

[Welly]

Cheers so far chaps, food for thought. I'll have a chat with him later.......

[trem1]

There's no harm in it Welly, as the others say he needs to set his privacy settings carefully and only share personal information & photos with real friends.

my 13 yr old is always on it just make sure any friend request are from people he know's, also i set up a hotmail account that the notifications go to, that only I have access to that way i get to keep a close eye on what he and his friends are up to,also join yourself and become one of his friends so you get to see what all his friends are saying as well,but prepared to get very bored

[swiss]

^ What these chaps all said ^, especially understanding what the privacy settings do and grabbing an account for yourself.

Oh, and don't let him be friends with me, I recently added a link to "International Everyone Draw The Prophet Mohammed Day"... I'm not a good influence

[supafrisk]

^ What these chaps all said ^, especially understanding what the privacy settings do and grabbing an account for yourself.

Oh, and don't let him be friends with me, I recently added a link to "International Everyone Draw The Prophet Mohammed Day"... I'm not a good influence

Could be worse, I joined boobquake at one point because that taliban geezer blamed the earthquakes on us women being scantily clad.

[highlander]

Could be worse, I joined boobquake at one point because that taliban geezer blamed the earthquakes on us women being scantily clad.

<goes for a lie down>

[teamster1975]

Useful article I just found Welly! There were a few settings I had to change myself!

Setting facebook privacy

[Welly]

Cheers big ears, I haven't done anything with FaceBook yet [read: lack of apparent interest, lethargy or otherwise can't be arsed]