“[My mom] stalks me on Instagram, but I blocked her,” freshman Austin Williams said.
Like many teens, Williams feels awkward when his mother comments on his posts; he does not like it and feels the need to block her.
“[My mom] stares at my photos and just likes them,” Williams said.
Unlike Williams’ mother, senior Cali Powell says her parents are not able to properly work social media, and they make common mistakes.
“My mom tries to zoom in on Instagram,” Powell said.
However, some parents are more tech-savy than oth- ers. Some can use technology well enough to embarrass their children with comments such as, “My baby boy all grown up!” This was a comment from Williams’ mother on his Instagram account.
Not every parent is on social media to embarrass their teens; some of them are just joining websites to connect with distant friends.
“My dad mainly just got [a Facebook] to talk to friends that are far away,” senior Rory O’Dell said.
O’Dell is not concerned that her father is on social media to stalk her or embarrass her. She finds it intrigu- ing when her father questions, “Why do [they] post that? You can just message someone; why is it so public?”
Some teens like to keep their posts private from their parents and would rather not have them know what’s go- ing on in their lives. Senior Kaitlyn Wheeler likes to have
her life on a “low profile.”
“I think it’s weird that they know what I’m doing,”
Wheeler said.
Wheeler likes to keep her life and the things she
posts private from her parents. However, she found herself in a situation where she posted a picture and her aunt got very upset.
“My aunt is a really [religious] person. I posted this picture of [myself] in a bathing suit, and she was like, ‘Take that down; that is not appropriate,” Wheeler said.
For other students, keeping social media accounts private from their parents isn’t as easy. Freshman Connor Lewis feels that even if he tried to keep it on the low, his mother would find a way to track and see what he’s doing. His parents do not use social media the same way he does.
“[My parents] are just lame and like random things,” Lewis said. “[They will] be like, ‘Oh, cat photos!’”
Lewis feels annoyed and suffocated by this. He thinks that his parents use social media way too often. Previ- ously, they were becoming friends with his school friends on Facebook.
“I gladly stopped that,” Lewis said.
Lewis’ parents also like to embarrass him with “dumb” baby pictures.
“It’s one of their favorite things,” Lewis said. All in all, parents are constantly making common mistakes and embarrassing their kids with posts and
comments. Although social media lets teens grow more independent from their parents, as this independence grows, parents gain more opportunities to jump onto the bandwagon.
– By Jennifer Cervantes