WEST PALM BEACH, FL-- It was just six years ago when Facebook was launched from a Harvard student's dorm and it changed the online landscape as we know it.Now many parents are joining Facebook, using it as another way to communicate with their children.
Whether you're a parent concerned about your teen's safety or a teen worried about sharing too much information with your mom and dad, the experts have important information that every age group needs to pay close attention to.
There are more than 350 million people that are a part of the social networking site.
" I am addicted to it," says Jessica Cornett.
Social networking has not only changed the way we communicate, but it has also altered relationships.
"I have two daughters and it looked like it would be a lot of fun," says Linda Barnette.
Barnette is now friends with her daughters, and two of their friends.
During the years when most parents feel shut out of their teen's lives, Facebook has been able to open doors and break down barriers.
"If you have a really good relationship with your parents then it's fine, sometimes it is really funny to me when my mom writes stuff on my page," says Max Manfriedas.
For Linda Barnette it is an opportunity to interact with her daughters.
"They told me how many times I was on their page and I came up number two," says Barnette. "I don't know who was visiting her more than me," she says.
This mom may have been "accepted" into the social media scene by her teen, but being Facebook friends with your son or daughter doesn't always mean you are seeing every single status update or post on their page. You could be "blocked" from certain things and not even know it.
"Teens have the ability to make just about everything they do private," explains social media consultant," Jody Underhill with the social media consulting firm, Upsidedown Iceberg.
Underhill points out that you can go in and change your settings so that just one of your friends can see your posts or all of them.
In December new privacy settings took effect and they are relatively difficult to navigate through.
"Before you had to go and set all of your posts to private and now you have an option to make them private or a mass post," adds Underhill.
The youngsters may know the technology, but it's the parents who know the dangers of too much information being posted.
"Today if you have a Facebook account, everyone has access to your name, to your profile picture, to the region of the country you're in, who your friends are and the pages that you're a fan of," says Underhill.
So when you take a seat in front of your p.c. and update your status or post a picture, just remember you may be sharing it with hundreds of millions of your closest friends.
