Parents and Facebook

There were at least 14 books written in 2007-2008 about protecting children in regards to social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

In reviewing these books, Zheng Yan writes,

"public concern is enormous, the entire scientific community, including governmental and private funding agencies, theoretical and applied researchers, and journal editors and reviewers, appear to have fallen behind rather than lead the communities of parents, publishers, and policy makers in responding to the growing use of SNSs among adolescents and the accompanying concerns about their safety on these sites" (J. of Applied Developmental Psychology, 2008, 29, 473).

In the same journal Subrahmanyam and Greenfield (2008) write,

"For researchers who study young people's use of the Internet, one of the biggest challenges is the constantly changing virtual world. Online communication forms are in a state of flux, and many operate like a fad. By the time researchers become aware of a popular online application or site, identify the research issues, design a well thought-out study, and get IRB approval, the population of interest has moved on to the next new application" (p. 417).

As information and communication technologies continue to change the social environment we will increasingly be pressed to move more rapidly in understanding and adapting to these changes.