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Here’s some excerpt from a fascinating article about the perception many kids have about adults they know entering their world of Facebook, MySpace, and social networking:

Gary Rudman, a California-based
youth market researcher, has heard the complaints. He regularly
interviews young people who think it’s “creepy” when an older person —
we’re talking someone they know — asks to join their social network as
a “friend.” It means, among other things, that they can view each
others’ profiles and what they and their friends post.

“It would be like a 40-year-old attending the prom or a frat party,” Rudman says. “It just doesn’t work.”

Better yet, how about this:

Lauren Auster-Gussman, a freshman at Juniata College in Pennsylvania,
says it’s particularly awkward when one of her parents’ friends asks to
join her social network. She thinks Facebook should only be used by
people younger than, say, 40.

“I mean, I’m in college,” she says. “There are bound to be at least
a few drunken pictures of me on Facebook, and I don’t need my parents’
friends seeing them.”

The question becomes how do we handle it?  Like this?:

Sue Frownfelter, a 46-year-old mom in Flint, Mich.,
thinks it’s less of an issue for parents who discover technology with —
or even before — their children. Among other things, she has a blog,
uses Twitter and has a Chumby, a personal Internet device that displays anything from news and weather to photos and eBay auctions.

Her children, ages 9 and 11, begged her to allow them to have a MySpace page, because she does. Instead, she suggested Imbee.com, a social networking site for kids that allows parental monitoring.

It’s a tough area with no clear answers.  As I’ve posted before, it’s all about building the trusting relationship between your children and you and finding the happy medium that works for both.  I have a Facebook account and I am on my daughters account as a friend and she is on mine.  It was part of our original agreement of her being able to sign up for Facebook.  While I can use it to see what she has posted and what she’s sharing, the purpose is more to show a mutual respect of watching out for each other.

Youth vs. adults in gadget wars - Yahoo! News