Mike Andrew Consulting

1 in 3 Parents of Teens Snoop on Facebook

By mike, Jun 28 in blog with 0 comments

One in three (34%) of parents of children age 13-19 have used Facebook to learn more about the parents of their children’s friends, according to data from Retrevo. This makes parents of teens the most likely of all parents of children younger than 20 to snoop on Facebook in this way, followed by parents of children age 6-12 (29%) and children age 0-5 (25%).

Almost Half of Parents Have Snooped by Time Kids Hit Teens

By the time children are teenagers, Retrevo data shows 47% of parents say they have used Facebook to learn about their kid’s friends. However, once kids reach age 20 and typically become more independent, parents seem to lose interest in learning more about their kids’ friends through Facebook (18%).

iPhone Parents Most Likely to Facebook Snoop on Kids’ Dates

Overall, 12% of parents have used Facebook to check out who their kids date. Retrevo found that iPhone owning parents (20%) are almost twice as likely to use Facebook to learn more about who their kids date than the average parent, while Droid parents are one-third less likely (8%). Retrevo also found that dads are 30% more likely to use Facebook to learn more about their kid’s dates(13%) as opposed to moms (10%).

iPhone Parents Have Most Facebook Friends

Generally speaking, iPhone parents have more friends than overall parents or Droid parents. Retrevo found that 13% of iPhone-owning parents had more than 500 Facebook friends as opposed to only 8% of all parents and 10% of Droid parents. Similarly, iPhone parents had a much higher percentage of reporting 50-250 friends (55%) than overall (40%) or Droid (38%) parents.

Only 5% of iPhone parents reported fewer than 50 Facebook friends, about one-quarter the rate of overall (18%) or Droid (20%) parents.

iPhone Parents Most Addicted to SocNets

Retrevo found that 14% of all parents feel nervous or anxious if they don’t check Facebook and/or Twitter, and this number more than doubles when looking at iPhone-owning parents (28%), but is basically the same for Droid-owning parents (15%).

iPhone parents are also almost twice as likely (28%) as overall parents (16%) to sometimes neglect responsibilities because they are on Facebook/Twitter, and about one-and-a-half times as likely (18% compared to 11%) to say they have given up activities they used to enjoy because of time spent on Facebook and Twitter.

Interestingly, while Droid parents had similar responses to overall parents for the previous two questions, both iPhone (19%) and Droid (18%) parents are about 50% more likely than overall parents (12%) to admit they feel like they couldn’t stop using Facebook/Twitter, even if they wanted to.

Pew: SocNet Users Age

Recent Pew data shows a gradual aging of social network users, which may reflect increased usage by consumers of parenting age. Between 2008 and 2010, the percentage of social network users age 23-35 dropped 20%, from 40% to 32%. Meanwhile, the percentage of users age 36-49 rose 18%, from 22% to 26%. Most significantly, the percentage of users age 50-65 more than doubled, from 9% to 20%.
In total, 52% of social network users in 2010 were 36 and up, a 58% increase from 33% in 2008.

About the author

Mike Andrew has been working with the Internet and small business for over 12 years. Mike has been a keynote speaker at conventions and seminars and conducted social media training sessions all over the world. Mike has an extensive media background having worked in electronic media for over 30 years. Mike specialises in social media and Internet marketing strategy, SEO techniques and search engine marketing campaigns. His articles appear on numerous blogs around the web as well as national magazines.