July 7, 2011

Parents Rummage through Facebook for Inside Dope

Parents use social networks to gain intel on their kids' friends and on those kids' parents. Larry Greenemeier reports

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Used to be, if parents wanted to know what their kids were up to, they’d just rummage through their dresser drawers. But now parents take advantage of social network spying solutions.

A recent study of 1,000 U.S. parents found that half have used Facebook to learn more about their kids' friends. More than a third with teenagers use Facebook to check on their kids' friends' parents. However, only about 12 percent use Facebook to learn more about their kids' dates. Maybe they'd rather not know. The study was done by consumer electronics research and review site Retrevo.

The nosiest group of "iParents"? iPhone users, naturally. Retrevo found that parents with iPhones are almost twice as likely as the average parent to use Facebook to learn more about their kids' dates. The survey also revealed that iPhone parents are more likely than Google Android-using parents to get anxious if they don't check Facebook or Twitter, to sometimes neglect responsibilities because of those social networks and to give up activities they used to enjoy because they spend so much time on those sites. What would Ward and June Cleaver think?

—Larry Greenemeier

[The above text is an exact transcript of this podcast.]

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