By: Sabrina Ren

Our parents taught us how to walk, how to talk, and perhaps, how to Facebook stalk. The adults in our lives have moved their binoculars online, and of course, we are the targets.

Some of us may be completely with fine with befriending our teachers and parents; Amila Samarakoon can easily list off 10 teachers he has on his list. Some of us may have been forced into befriending our parents (and yes, they do stalk). Madhuri Pai, a grad, caught her mom scrolling down her profile page with one hand and holding a bagel in the other. It’s a routine thing for parents, since they “care” about us. My dad still insists on befriending me online, even though he regularly talks about how inappropriate my cousin’s statuses are, gets automatic newsfeed updates sent to his 3G phone, and of course, “just wants to know how I’m doing”.

For teens that are under surveillance, most have started paying more attention to what they do online. Yukiko Suzuki, who has a few teachers on her list, says, “I’ve stopped swearing and started paying attention to grammar…” Even if your parents are as cool as 40-year-olds can be, I’m sure photographic evidence of a few drunken parties would be an overshare. And of course there are the suggestive “hugs”, math ISU answer “sharing”, and offhand comments about how your teacher is a complete “unreasonable human being”.

Why go through all the hassle? Sure, we love our parents and we might need help from our teachers, but personally, I like my privacy a little more. What you did last night will inevitably show up on one of your teacher’s home pages. But don’t worry, you can always put them under limited profile, and there’s always the delete button. Or, you can be the top contributor on another FML spinoff, myparentsjoinedfacebok.com. There’s a reason you were denied an extension and your allowance last week.