Facebookers, Sometimes No Comment Is Best

Today we'll cover a tip from our "learning from the mistakes of others" department with regards to online shenanigans. Let us say, hypothetically, that you use Facebook. Let us say that someone that you are related to uses Facebook as well, for example your teenage child.

Now, it's an established fact that teenagers have an amazing way of doing dumb things. It's not their fault. They're young. They don't know better. I myself was a teenager once, and I did enough dumb things to fill volumes. I would tell you about them, but I was also once an unsuccessful college student, so I don't remember most of them anymore.

Anyway, the difference between the dumb things I did when I was a teenager and the dumb things teenagers do now is that the teenagers today compound the levels of dumb by allowing themselves to be photographed while doing these dumb things. This becomes worse when these bits of evidence invariably find their way onto the internet, where they are shared by God knows how many people. This may seem tragic, but the fact is that there are a lot of pictures of people doing dumb things on the internet, so the odds are whatever your teenager is doing in their picture is probably overshadowed by some celebrity flashing her goods while kicking a homeless person and will thus be largely ignored.

Which brings us back to Facebook, and our lesson for the day. These (purely theoretical) pictures may very well find their way onto the Facebook pages of your child's gooby little friends, whereby you may stumble upon them. Once the initial rage/shock/embarrassment/gagging has ceased, you will feel inclined to say something to both the child and probably the gooby little friend who put the picture up in the first place. Your immediate urge may very well be to comment on the photo itself, thus letting everyone who sees it how you feel about it.

Do not do this.

Here's why I say that: when you put a comment on a photo, all of your Facebook friends get a little notification that you have commented on it, along with the photo itself. As such, all of us who would ordinarily not have seen whatever debauchery your child is engaged in will be directly notified of it. Oh sure, we'll get the disapproving note as well, letting us know how you feel about it, but really, wouldn't it have been better to send a threatening/guilt ridden/litigating letter directly to the offending parties?

Of course, those who disagree might like my idea for a new regular feature here: One Degree of Fail - Friends of Friends Embarrassing Themselves on the Internet.