Title: The Parent's Guide to Facebook
Author: Kathryn Rose
Publisher: CreateSpace
Buy Link: Buy The Parent's Guide to Facebook Here!
Rating: You Want to Read
Reviewed By: Janelle
Blurb:
The Parent's Guide to Facebook is a step-by-step guide focusing on using Facebook as another window into your children's life, friends, attitudes and online actions. Facebook is the world's largest social network. To make sure people enjoy connecting with their friends and loved ones while protecting their privacy online, just follow this simple guide. Let the author walk you through the steps from the start of the sign up process all the way through setting up a group, uploading pictures, writing status updates, and do's and don'ts of privacy on Facebook.
Review:
I'll start with a confession: I'm not a parent. I was a Sophomore in college when Facebook first started to get big, and I've had a page since then. So I can see this issue from both sides.
I have to give this book credit for not giving into the fear mongering that inevitably surrounds sites like Facebook. It is easy to blame these site for all the ills of the world, while forgetting that those ills have been around long before even computers were invented. This book instead focuses on using Facebook as safely as possible, while acknowledging that nothing is perfect.
On the down side, there are a lot of places that boarder on paranoid; saying that such things as relationship status should be hidden to prevent bullying by other children. There are also places where the books seems to suggest a parent should change their child's page. This is a major violation of privacy, and is not going to make your child open up to you.
Technically, this book is dry. It is an instruction manual, after all, and unless you are interested in what it has to say, it will probably put you to sleep. Also, there are some rather obvious grammatical and syntax errors. There aren't many, but in a book like this they are quite jarring.
Overall, I have my doubts about the long term viability of this book. Technology changes at incredible speed, and in a year or two, this book will be obsolete.
