Family Dynamics of Social Media: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The core idea behind social media is that it is a technology used to connect people. As people from all over the world embrace using social media, new and complex dynamics are added that turn social media into much more than a tool used to poke a friend. One of the most complex people groups is the modern family; and when entire families adopt social media, all the weird dynamics of family relationships are now posted for the world to see. We will attempt to analyze these new social media family dynamics, starting with the bad, and then the ugly, and eventually making our way to the good.

The Bad

At this stage in the development of social media, many of us may have bad feelings associated with befriending family members on websites like Facebook. These feelings are perhaps due to the fact that when Facebook was introduced, it was marketed as tool to connect college peers with each other. A few years later, everybody, including parents and grandparents, signed up for Facebook. Most young adults act like two completely different people around their families and their peers. In order to keep up this charade, several young adults have even scrambled to set up different social media accounts for the two groups. Attempting to hide one aspect of your life, on a network designed to broadcast everything about your life, can be a tough balancing act.

The Ugly

It is hard to keep a big secret from a family member, but social media can become downright ugly when the dynamics of a family feud and multiple secrets are brought into the equation. For example, if there is an ugly divorce in the mix, you may anger Mom if you befriend your Dad's new girlfriend; but you may disappoint your Dad if you do not confirm the friend request from his new love interest. If you have befriended all the parties involved in the ugly divorce, then you, and all of your friends, will be able to watch the sparks fly in the comments. Take into account large families with several broken relationships, and social media can be a straight up powder keg.

Families that are less prone to dealing with drama in real life are less prone to have drama in social media. For these lucky families, Facebook can be a very pleasant place where photos are shared and family reunions are planned. In these Leave it to Beaver families, the biggest drama might be in regards to someone bringing the same side dish over to a Sunday brunch; this crisis would be accentuated on social media by several smiley faces :-)

The Good

Social media may currently be a messy place for most families, but this has the potential to change for the better as we look to the future. One of the reasons social media can be such a messy place is because the technology is still relatively new. Facebook, along with the entire internet, is like America's Wild West of the 1800's; there is little regulation and the ability for trolls to mask their identities like robbers hid behind bandanas. Eventually, the Wild West was tamed, and one day the internet and will become a civilized place with social norms. The key to this civilized virtual world lies with future generations who are raised on the internet. As a child uses social media to interact positively with family members, this could lead to social media becoming a good tool used to bring families together.

In the future, families using social media will create new and positive family dynamics, similar to the way previous technologies brought together the families of generations past. Technology bringing parents and kids together has been experienced by every generation within the past 50 years, sometimes to the shock or even disapproval of the previous generation.

Video games are the current technology bringing together the generations. Like social media, the history of video games also had a messy phase. Generation Y grew up with parents viewing video games as a child's plaything, and the issue of violence in video games sometimes pitted family members against one another. Video games are no longer just for kids, they have evolved to keep up with the changing tastes of Generation Y. Gen Y is now a generation of parents who play video games with their kids. Gen Y essentially turned video games into a tool that brings families together. Most parents in the 1980's and 90's would not give a second thought to playing video games with their kids.

Today, both parents and kids are interacting together through social media. It is interesting that we are now seeing kids who are being raised with social media. This will create entirely new family dynamics; in fact, a child using social media is another messy issue that we now face, due to the newness of the technology. Facebook's policy limits any child younger than 13 from having their own account, but according to a Consumer Reports survey from May 2011, this policy is being violated by 7.5 million children under the age of 13.

Very few of us actually started using Facebook when we were 13; most of us were well into our adult years before creating our first social media account. One new family dynamic that we are already seeing is the ability of a child to view a parent's social media account. This allows the child to see a side of their parents that most generations have tried to hide from their kids until they are older. Parents may try to remedy this by editing their timelines or creating different accounts, but a kid who is raised on social media will be technologically savvy and have the ability to track down the real Facebook profile with little effort.

In the future, with kids being raised on social media, they will be able to use Facebook alongside their parents in a way that may actually bring families closer together. This statement may sound odd to our ears in 2013, but keep in mind the journey of video games. For your consideration, we submit to you this one example of how social media can bring the family of the future together. Before a child becomes a teenager, and apparently knows everything, they actually admire their parents. A child might even find their parents to be cool, and want to grow up to be just like them. A 10 year old that looks up to their parents has this regular thought, "What were Mom and Dad like when they were 10?" In the not-too-distant future, the curious little scamp will be able to log onto Facebook, check out their parent's timeline, click the year that corresponds with their own age, and read what Mommy and Daddy were up to as ten year olds. The child might even leave a comment on the post that will make the entire social media world go, "Aw, so cute!"

This scenario is right around the corner. Think about it, Facebook really began to take off around 2006. This is the same time that accounts became available to 13 year olds. The 13 year old who signed up for Facebook in 2006 is now 20, and may even be the parent of a toddler in 2013. If Facebook is still around in 10 years when the toddler will be 13, then this means that in 2023, it will be entirely possible for the 13 year old kid to log onto Facebook, and have the ability to see what their parents were doing when they too were of the same age. This has the potential to happen even sooner if Grandma immediately began posting the happenings of her own kids as soon as she joined Facebook in 2006.

Social media interaction for today's families can be a little good, bad, ugly, and messy. Give this technology some time. Let society get used to using social media and the mess will eventually clean itself up. One day, we will get to the place where using this technology will be natural for all generations. Until we reach that point, we cannot stress enough how important it is to be careful what you post online, because one day your kids will be reading it from inside the hull of a starship.