Teens Are Moving to Twitter to Avoid Parents' Prying Eyes
Teens are always seeking the best place to express themselves privately.
You thought you knew everything you needed to know about your kids from Facebook. But guess what? Some of them are leaving Facebook and heading to Twitter just so you can’t see what they’re up to.
A new phenomenon finds teens increasingly adopting Twitter, despite conventional wisdom that most users of the social network are older adults. The Associated Press reports that a Pew survey taken last year found that, “…16 percent of young people, ages 12 to 17, said they used Twitter. Two years earlier, that percentage was just 8 percent.” Pew researchers believe the number is even higher now and likely to keep growing exponentially.
According to the Associated Press, here are some reasons why teens are switching to Twitter:
- Because their parents don’t have Twitter accounts.
- Because they can use Twitter handles that are not their real names.
- Because they can lock their Twitter accounts so that their tweets are only seen by a chosen few and are not public.
- Because they can open multiple Twitter accounts.
Teens feel so many of their parents became Facebook savvy that they could no longer have a private conversation among friends. Add to that their frustration at having too many “friends” on Facebook that aren’t really friends, and some have taken to adopting Twitter as their new home for social networking.
So mom and dad, if you don’t even understand what Twitter is, now’s the time to start educating yourself. You’ll have to know how to use both Twitter and Facebook if you want some idea of what your teenagers are doing. Meantime let’s hope they don’t invent yet another social network for us to keep up with …
Photo credit: Stock.xchng/lusi
Um, more like try Tumblr….none of my kids Tweet- I’m the only one who does….
oh yes…I know this all too well. LOTS of the students in the high school where I teach are on twitter…and have found me. However they quickly bore of my tweets about poopy diapers and lesson planning, so they unfollow.
But yup. They are there.
Mocospace, myspace, tumblr, twitter, aol, yahoo,facebook their are a ton, and i do mean a ton of ways children can get around their parents monitoring, plus delete the history, and the parents don’t even know what site you went too, also inprivate browsing, which is on every computer now, you just click that and no history is saved, nor can be tracked….cell phones message boards, 4chan…..also children don’t even have to be at home to use a computer now, they can go to the library, the school library, a friends house, a internet cafe…. another way is going into games that have it’s own chat set up, when you leave the game, the previous chat is gone. best way to monitor your child is through their email account…not that they can’t set up multiples. , but having multiple accounts they might have it written down somewhere for reference.whether on paper, or on a piece of furniture….having five children of my own, I look into all aspects not just the next new thing.
Just as long as none of em twitter on my dadgum lawn.
Kids in our hood are all about Google+, the more so now that the TOS have changed and they’re not sneaking.