Journal of Family Communication ISSN: 1526-7431 (Print) 1532-7698 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hjfc20 Let's Be Facebook Friends: Exploring Parental Facebook Friend Requests from a Communication Privacy Management (CPM) Perspective Jeffrey T. Child & David A. Westermann To cite this article: Jeffrey T. Child & David A. Westermann (2013) Let's Be Facebook Friends: Exploring Parental Facebook Friend Requests from a Communication Privacy Management (CPM) Perspective, Journal of Family Communication, 13:1, 46-59, DOI: 10.1080/15267431.2012.742089 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15267431.2012.742089 Published online: 22 Jan 2013. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 3909 View related articles Citing articles: 14 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=hjfc20 Journal of Family Communication, 13: 46–59, 2013 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1526-7431 print / 1532-7698 online DOI: 10.1080/15267431.2012.742089 Let’s Be Facebook Friends: Exploring Parental Facebook Friend Requests from a Communication Privacy Management (CPM) Perspective Jeffrey T. Child and David A. Westermann School of Communication Studies, Kent State University Young adults may interact on Facebook in ways that makes them feel vulnerable about parental Facebook friend requests. This study utilizes Communication Privacy Management theory as a framework to investigate how young adult Facebook users respond to parental Facebook friend requests. Overall, 235 individuals completed an online survey. Results confirmed that users tend to accept parental Facebook friend requests from both parents and make few restrictive privacy rule adjustments when contemplating the requests. However, request decisions for mothers varied in conjunction with family privacy orientation, parent-child relationship quality, and parent-child trust, but not for fathers. These results suggest that young adults do not experience a privacy dilemma when contemplating parental connections on Facebook. Implications of the study are explored, including how power differentials inherent in the parent-child relationship may be impacting young adults’ perceived ability to decline such requests. Future research examining other familial conversations about social media practices is highlighted. Evidence of the potential for family interaction on Facebook is abundant. Facebook offers a host of third-party applications to connect families. Family applications are intended to provide a place for family members to communicate through Facebook. However, a relative dearth of scholarly attention has examined if family members even wish to connect and interact through social media (Child & Petronio, 2011; Meszaros, 2004). This study adds to this understudied area of research about family communication and Facebook by exploring how young adult Facebook users process and respond to requests received from their parents to be Facebook friends. Facebook allowed parents to create their own page for the first time in 2006. Since the loosening of membership restrictions, the makeup of Facebook has drastically changed (Lenhart, 2009). Parents and older adult users of Facebook in general reflect the fastest growing new demographic to adopt and use the social networking site (Facebook, 2012; Hampton, Goulet, Rainie, & Purcell, 2011; Lenhart, 2009; Nielsen Company, 2011; Qualman, 2009). Across a two-year time span (2008–2010) the number of people using social networking sites doubled with the average age of users shifting from 33 years old to 38 years old (Hampton et al., 2011). The longer an individual maintains a Facebook account the more frequent their usage patterns are for all of the Correspondence should be addressed to Jeffrey T. Child, Kent State University, School of Communication Studies, P. O. Box 5190, Kent, OH 44242. E-mail: jchild@kent.edu PARENTAL FACEBOOK FRIENDS REQUESTS 47 interactive functions offered through the site, including status updates, commenting on content, tagging and liking behaviors, and sending private messages (Hampton, Goulet, Marlow, & Rainie, 2012). Collectively, this evidence suggests that Facebook users are older, more interactive across time, and comfortable integrating Facebook interaction into daily routines. Young adult Facebook users may feel vulnerable about the increased potential to encounter parents on Facebook than has previously been the case (Child & Petronio, 2011). With its start as a college networking site, Facebook first experienced widespread popularity among young adult audiences ages 18–22, who used the application to connect to close friends and engaged in identity exploration with peers (Pempek, Yermolayeva, & Calvert, 2009). Across time, Facebook users increasingly turn to the site to interact with their closest confidants (Hampton et al., 2011), which means they may be disclosing and sharing private information not intended for a parent to read or access (Petronio & Child, 2011). We frame parental Facebook friend request as triggering a possible privacy dilemma for young adults, like researchers have done in other contexts (Petronio & Jones, 2006; Petronio, Jones, & Morr, 2003). Young adult Facebook users may not know how to deal with or effectively respond to incoming requests from parents to be Facebook friends. Possible privacy dilemmas between young adults and their parents have received attention from nonscholarly Internet websites such as MyParentsJoinedFacebook.com. The website highlights how young adults can experience tension and conflict with parental use of Facebook, demonstrating the increased attention young adults give to the ramifications of accepting parental Facebook friend requests (Fletcher, 2010; Smith, 2009). The goal of this study is to explore how young adult Facebook users who have received parental Facebook friend requests process and respond to the request sent by a parent to be Facebook friends. We turn to the evidence-based Communication Privacy Management (CPM) theory (Petronio, 2002) for greater insights into potential factors that illuminate how young adults handle the requests. Namely, we examine parental Facebook friend requests and family privacy management orientations (Morr Serewicz & Canary, 2008; Morr Serewicz, Dickson, Morrison, & Poole, 2007; Petronio, 2002) and parent-child relationship quality and trust (Petronio, 1994). COMMUNICATION PRIVACY MANAGEMENT, FAMILY COMMUNICATION, AND FACEBOOK When considering parent-child linkages and social media, Facebook use produces both potentially positive and negative effects for children. For example, the extension of such requests can be seen as a threat when perceived as a parental privacy invasion attempt or an encroachment on autonomy needs (Hawk, Keijsers, Hale, & Meeus, 2009; Petronio, 1994). However, Facebook may also give young adults a convenient way to maintain family ties without much direct effort. Communication Privacy Management theory assists in understanding the different ways users may perceive and process parental Facebook friend requests (Petronio, 1991, 2002). The theory proposes that effective management of private information includes considerations of three main principles, privacy ownership, privacy control, and privacy turbulence (Child, Haridakis, & Petronio, 2012). First, CPM contends that when individuals share private information with others they essentially extend co-ownership rights for the future management and control of that private 48 CHILD AND WESTERMANN information. The theory illustrates this principle of ownership rights through different types of metaphorical privacy boundaries (Petronio, 2002). Information identified as private and protected resides within an individual privacy boundary. Once private information is disclosed to others, it transitions from an individual privacy boundary into a collectively-owned privacy boundary that is managed among authorized co-owners (Petronio & Caughlin, 2006; Petronio & Gaff, 2010). In the case of Facebook, personal information that an individual refuses to share with others on Facebook remains in their individual privacy boundary. An individual’s own page where they post status updates, photos, and allow comments is the collectively managed privacy boundary (Child & Petronio, 2011). When an individual deletes shared private information from their site they either reclaim individual private rights again (in the case of removing their own posted information) or refuse to accept fiduciary responsibility and management obligations for others’ private information on their site (in the case of removing information posted to their site by others) (Child et al., 2012; Child, Petronio, Agyeman-Budu, & Westermann, 2011). Second, CPM establishes that individuals control their privacy and make decisions about what private information to reveal or conceal through the use of privacy rules (Petronio, 2002). Privacy rules function for regulating management of both individual privacy boundaries and collective privacy boundaries (Petronio & Reierson, 2009). At the individual level, people are inclined to share or protect private information more or less as a product of cultural, gendered, motivational, contextual, and risk-benefit ratio criteria (Petronio, 2002). In terms of rules governing collective privacy boundaries, co-owners must consider boundary linkage rules, boundary permeability rules, and boundary ownership rules (Child & Agyeman-Budu, 2010; Child, Pearson, & Petronio, 2009; Child et al., 2011). Managing privacy turbulence or breakdowns is the last step in the privacy management process. Not all privacy management works smoothly; therefore, CPM argues that it is necessary to accommodate this possible outcome. Although often unpleasant, addressing privacy turbulence provides a process for updating, correcting, and recalibrating the adequate functioning of privacy rules (Child et al., 2011; Petronio, 2002). People can experience minor disturbances to full breakdowns in the management of their private information. A parent’s attempt to be a part of their child’s Facebook collective boundary might cause a form of turbulence for the child if the request is seen as a parental privacy invasion by the young adult (Hawk et al., 2009; Petronio, 1994; Petronio et al., 2003). Facebook users can avert breakdowns in the management of their private information through adapting their privacy rules in light of evolving concerns (Child et al., 2011). One way to do this is to reclaim private information and delete previously posted information, essentially asserting greater protection of privacy by reclaiming individual privacy rights (Child et al., 2011, 2012). Most social media users engage in such strategies rather than never deleting previously posted information (Child et al., 2011). Parental Facebook Friend Requests and Young Adult Decisions Facebook users have several different possible reactions when receiving a parental Facebook friend request. Users may accept, reject, or take no action in response to requests. Once a request decision has been made, as described above, the recipient may reassess the adequacy of their current privacy management rules and disclosure practices as well as make adaptations in response to the request sent by their parent to be Facebook friends. For example, after handling PARENTAL FACEBOOK FRIENDS REQUESTS 49 a parental Facebook friend request a young adult user may find it necessary to delete old posts and/or limit content accessible to a parent or they may find such revisions to their privacy rules are unnecessary. CPM theory contends that an important part of privacy management calculations, and subsequent decision-making practices, includes understanding the existing collective privacy boundary regulation practices (Petronio, 2002). Given the expansion of diverse individuals maintaining relationships on Facebook (Child & Petronio, 2011; Child et al., 2011), the first and second research questions explore how young adult Facebook users handle requests made by each parent to be Facebook friends and to what extent do they adjust their privacy rules for greater protection of private information after responding to parental Facebook friend requests. RQ1 : How do young adult Facebook users handle parental Facebook friend requests (i.e., do they tend to accept, reject, or take no action as a response to the requests)? RQ2 : To what extent do young adult Facebook users adjust their privacy rules for greater protection of private information after responding to parental Facebook friend requests? Family Privacy Orientations and Parental Facebook Friend Requests A powerful force in the socialization of privacy rules is the family unit (Golish & Caughlin, 2002; Petronio, 1991, 2002; Williams, 2003). Families influence members of the group across time by providing orientations for use when interacting both with other family members and individuals external to the family unit (Morr Serewicz & Canary, 2008; Morr Serewicz et al., 2007; Petronio, 2002; Petronio et al., 2003). The interior family privacy orientation is cultivated through both direct communication within the family and the occurrence of such practices among sub-groups within the family as concealing secrets from one another (Caughlin, Golish, Olson, Sargent, Cook, & Petronio, 2000; Golish & Caughlin, 2002). These practices demonstrate the value of open versus closed disclosure practices within the family (Petronio, 2002). The interior family privacy orientation is significantly and positively correlated with family satisfaction (Morr Serewicz et al., 2007). Relational maintenance strategies also mediate the relationship between the permeability level of the internal family privacy orientation and family satisfaction (Morr Serewicz et al., 2007). Furthermore, different types of families (e.g., blended, nuclear, and single-parent families) socialize individual family members with unique values in regards to the type of information suggested as either appropriate or inappropriate to share with other family members (Caughlin et al., 2000). For example, young adults are more likely to avoid discussion of topics with stepparents than with their biological fathers or mothers (Golish & Caughlin, 2002). The current study explores how the current level of privacy management suggested as appropriate for family interaction may be in understanding the types of decisions that young adults make about parental Facebook friend requests. The interior family privacy orientation has primarily been studied in offline settings (Caughlin et al., 2000; Golish & Caughlin, 2002; Morr Serewicz et al., 2007; Petronio, 1991, 2002). However, CPM theory predicts that the privacy management orientations functioning within the family assist individuals in decisions that they may make about managing private information with other family members (Petronio, 2002). As such, we expect that families who suggest family members should always be open with one another will have children who respond to parental Facebook friend requests in different ways than families, which suggests that members of the 50 CHILD AND WESTERMANN family do not need to always share private information with other family members if they do not desire to do so. As such, research question three explores: RQ3 : Do the privacy management orientations functioning within the family help explain the way that young adults respond to parents who have requested to be Facebook friends? Relational Quality, Relational Trust, and Parental Facebook Friend Requests CPM theory asserts that contextual factors also help explain the way that individuals construct privacy rules that help them make privacy management decisions (Petronio, 2002). When examining privacy in the family, many studies explore family satisfaction as an outcome variable (Caughlin et al., 2000; Morr Serewicz et al., 2007; Vangelisti, 1994). Vangelisti (1994) found an inverse relationship between the perceived number of family secrets and family satisfaction. The form, topic, and function of the secret, however, influenced this relationship. Furthermore, the number of family secrets in different family configurations (e.g., blended, nuclear, and single-parent) is consistently related to family satisfaction (Caughlin et al., 2000). Lower levels of parent-child relationship quality exist when adult children perceive their parents as invading their privacy (Finkenauer, Engels, & Meeus, 2002; Hawk et al., 2009; Morr Serewicz et al., 2007; Petronio, 1994). Longitudinal research also supports a bi-directional positive relationship between the degree of perceived parental privacy invasion behaviors and the amount of conflict that young adults have with their parents (Hawk et al., 2009). In addition to examining relationship quality with each parent, we also explore parent-child relationship trust as a contextual factor important to understanding young adults’ privacy rules and how they may respond to parental Facebook friend requests. Because a parent can gain access to a young adult’s entire Facebook network upon approval of a friend request, issues of trust in that relationship seem to be an important factor in privacy management considerations. King (2002) defines trust as “an individual’s expectations and beliefs about the reliability of others” (p. 642). Sheppard and Sherman (1998) state that trust is the assumption and acceptance of risks associated with the interdependence of a relationship. In particular, Petronio (1994) found that young adult children are likely to question the motives of their parents and have thicker individual privacy boundaries with them if lower levels of parent-child relationship quality and trust characterize the relationship. Because pervious research supports that the parent-child relationship dynamics are associated with the types of privacy rules that they use with them (Hawk et al., 2009; Petronio, 1994), we examine how the type of relationship that young adults have with each parent may also help in understanding the way that they respond to parental Facebook friend requests. We suspect that parent-child relationships which are less satisfying and trusting may also present a situation where the young adult could perceive fewer rewards and perhaps less motivation to establish a Facebook connection with a parent requesting to be Facebook friends (Petronio, 2002). However, given the limited research in this area we pose this inquiry as a research question: RQ4 : Do young adults who have less satisfying and trustful relationships with their parents respond differently to parents requesting to be Facebook friends than do individuals with more satisfying and trusting relationships? PARENTAL FACEBOOK FRIENDS REQUESTS 51 METHOD Participants Two hundred and thirty-five Facebook users with at least one living parent or parental figure who had requested to be their Facebook friend comprised participants of the study. From the sample, 221 Facebook users (94%) completed the study thinking about their biological mother or mother figure and 212 participants (90.2%) of participants completed the study thinking about their biological father or a father figure. If participants indicated they had neither a mother/mother figure nor a father/father figure, they only answered questions pertaining to the parent/parental figure in their life. Sample participants included a greater proportion of women (n = 159, 67.7%) than men (n = 76, 32.3%). Participants were 20 years old on average (M = 20.39, SD = 3.04). The majority of participants (n = 219, 93.2%) accessed their own personal computer at their place of residence. A greater proportion of the sample lived away from their parents on their own (n = 144, 61.3%) versus living at home with them (n = 91, 38.7%). Most participants came from a two-parent household (n = 176, 75%), followed by a single-parent (mother) household (n = 39, 16.6%), a single-parent (father) household (n = 13, 5.5%), and finally a nonparent household (n = 7, 3%). Users spent an average of just over four hours a day on the Internet (M = 4.18, SD = 3.29), spent close to two and a half hours of that time each day actively using Facebook (M = 2.43, SD = 3.55), and logged onto Facebook approximately 23 times a week (M = 22.8, SD = 33.05). Procedures The current study was part of a larger investigation where the only requirement for participation in the overall study was having a Facebook account and at least one living parent/parental figure. In the overall study, a series of initial question sorted participants into different groups based on if a parent had ever requested to be Facebook friends or not. Initial questions in the study impacted framing of the rest of the survey. The only data utilized and analyzed in the current study reflects participants who had actually received a parental Facebook friend request from either one or both of their parents/parental figures. Participants were recruited for participation in the study through use of an undergraduate introductory course in human communication. The course was an option for fulfilling a liberal educational requirement at a large Midwestern university and included students from a variety of majors and areas of study across the university campus. The study was one of several ways that students could fulfill the minimal research participation requirement associated with the course. Potential participants were also solicited directly on Facebook through the creation and dissemination of a group page about the study. Participants were directed to a website for the survey (hosted on Qualtrics.com) where they provided consent and participated in the online survey. Survey respondents were recruited to participate in the study for approximately one month. After the survey had closed, two participants were randomly selected to receive $10 Amazon.com gift cards. 52 CHILD AND WESTERMANN Measures Parental Facebook friend request decisions To explore parental Facebook friend request decisions, participants answered a series of categorical questions. First, participants responded to whether each parent/parental figure had sent a request to them to be approved as a Facebook friend (yes/no). Only those responding yes to this initial question for each parent were included in the analysis. Next, for participants indicating they have been asked by a parent to be Facebook friends they responded to how they handled the request (accept, ignore/take no action, or reject the request). Finally, participants were asked if they made any restrictive modifications to their privacy settings (yes/no) or if they made any deletions to profile content or postings (yes/no) during the decision-making process about the request. Privacy rule adjustments occurred if participants responded yes to either of the questions related to making restrictive modifications or deletions when making decisions about parental Facebook friend requests. Interior family privacy orientation Participants completed a 6-item interior family privacy orientation measure (Morr, 2002; Morr Serewicz et al., 2007). Responses to questions were on a 7-point Likert-type scale from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” Sample statements include “family members are very open with each other” and “family members do not discuss private information with one another.” Previous research demonstrates the validity and reliability of the measure (Morr Serewicz et al., 2007; Morr Serewicz & Canary, 2008). Among current participants, the scale maintained adequate reliability (Cronbach’s α = .72, M = 4.62, SD = 1.22). Parent-child relationship quality Participants completed Petronio’s (1994) eight-item parent-child relationship quality measure for each parent/parental figure. Responses to questions were on a 7-point Likert-type scale from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” Sample statements include “I frequently feel satisfied about the relationship with my mother/father” and “I frequently feel that nothing goes right in the relationship with my mother/father.” The measure demonstrates excellent reliability in previous research (Petronio, 1994). In the current study, the measure displayed excellent reliability for both mothers (Cronbach’s α = .92, M = 5.81, SD = 1.26) and fathers (Cronbach’s α = .92, M = 5.51, SD = 1.54). Parent-child relationship trust Participants also completed Petronio’s (1994) six-item parent-child relationship trust measure for each parent/parental figure. Responses to questions were on a 7-point Likert-type scale from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” Sample items include “I trust my mother/father” and “My mother/father does not show much consideration.” The measure demonstrates excellent reliability in previous research (Petronio, 1994). In the current study, the measure displayed PARENTAL FACEBOOK FRIENDS REQUESTS 53 high reliability levels for both mothers (Cronbach’s α = .88, M = 6.06, SD = 1.11) and fathers (Cronbach’s α = .95, M = 5.93, SD = 1.37). RESULTS Research question one explores how young adult Facebook users handle parents who request to be approved as a Facebook friend. When considering mothers who had extended the requests, significant differences existed (expected P = .33) in how Facebook users handled the requests, χ 2 (2, N = 193) = 275.36, p < .001, ES = .71. The effect size indicates a large difference in the distributions from the expected values. The most common response was to accept Facebook friend request from mothers (n = 173, P = .90), versus either leaving them unanswered/in limbo (n = 9, P = .05) or outright rejecting the requests (n = 11, P = .06). When considering fathers who had extended the requests, significant differences also existed (expected P = .33) in how Facebook users handled the requests, χ 2 (2, N = 108) = 170.72, p < .001, ES = .79. The effect size indicates a large difference in the distributions from the expected values. The most common response among sample participants was to accept Facebook friend request from fathers (n = 100, P = .93), versus either leaving them unanswered/in limbo (n = 3, P = .03) or outright rejecting the requests (n = 5, P = .05). These results for each parent indicate that the majority of Facebook users in this sample allowed their parents some type of access to their Facebook interactions. To answer research question two, chi-square tests explored the extent to which young adult Facebook users adjusted their privacy rules for greater protection of private information when their parents requested to be their Facebook friends. An individual user was noted as having made such privacy adjustments if they made any restrictions to available content on their Facebook page or deleted posts when their parent requested to be Facebook friends. Among mothers who had requested parental Facebook friend status, users were significantly more likely (χ 2 [1, N = 193] = 29.15, p < .001, ES = .15) not to not make any restrictive privacy rule adjustments in conjunction with the request (n = 134, P = .69) versus those individuals who did make restrictive privacy rule adjustments because of the request (n = 50, P = .31) to be their mother’s Facebook friend. Among fathers who had requested parental Facebook friend status, users were significantly more likely (χ 2 [1, N = 108] = 23.15, p < .001, ES = .21) to also not make any restrictive privacy rule adjustments in conjunction with the request (n = 79, P = .73) versus those individuals who did make restrictive privacy rule adjustments because of the request (n = 29, P = .27) to be their father’s Facebook friend. Because adjusting privacy rules is an important part of understanding users’ overall privacy management (Child et al., 2011), we explore privacy rule adjustments that occurred with individuals who accepted parental Facebook friend requests in the rest of the analyses. We did not differentiate making restrictive privacy rule adjustments in the categories of ignore or reject the request because of the low overall frequencies of young adult Facebook users who even made these decisions. Therefore, the four categories of accept without privacy rule adjustment, accept with privacy rule adjustment, ignore, or reject the request are examined for research questions three and four. To address research question three, two one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests were conducted. The two tests considered if the privacy management orientations functioning within the family helped explain the way that young adults responded to parents requesting to be Facebook friends. Among users who had received requests from their mothers, the handling of 54 CHILD AND WESTERMANN the request reflected differences in the interior family privacy orientation, F(3, 189) = 3.73, p < .05, η2 = .06. Tukey post-hoc tests confirmed that individuals who accepted requests from their mothers without restrictive privacy rule adjustments came from families where sharing private information within the family was more common (M = 4.88; SD = 1.12; n = 121) than individuals who accepted the request but made restrictive privacy rule adjustments (M = 4.33; SD = 1.12; n = 52). The remaining pairwise comparisons of the interior family privacy orientation and responses were not significant as main effects. Among users who had received a request from their fathers (n = 108), the privacy management orientations functioning within the family did not help to explain the way that young adults responded to the request, F(3, 189) = 3.73, p = .11. Research question four examined if young adults who had less satisfying and trustful relationships with their parents responded differently to parents requesting to be Facebook friends than did individuals with more satisfying and trusting relationships. ANOVA tests allowed exploration of this research question. Among users who had received friend requests from their mothers (n = 193), the handling of the request reflected differences in relationship quality with the mother, F(3, 182) = 4.94, p < .01, η2 = .08. Tukey post-hoc tests confirmed that individuals who accepted requests from their mothers without making restrictive privacy rule adjustments had a significantly higher overall level of relational quality with their mothers (M = 6.07; SD = 1.10; n = 117) than did individuals who ignored the requests from their mothers (M = 4.77; SD = 1.36; n = 9). The remaining pairwise comparisons of the relationship quality with mother and user responses were not significant as main effects. The handling of the request also reflected differences in relational trust levels with mother, F(3, 175) = 2.67, p < .05, η2 = .04. Tukey post-hoc tests confirmed that individuals who accepted requests from their mothers without making restrictive privacy rule adjustments had a significantly higher overall level of relational trust with their mothers (M = 6.19; SD = 1.03; n = 110) than did individuals who accepted the requests but also made restrictive adjustments to their privacy rules (M = 5.77; SD = 1.16; n = 50). The remaining pairwise comparisons examining relationship trust with mother and user responses were not significant as main effects. The results of the ANOVA analysis for users’ responses to their fathers and the same parentchild relationship dynamics reflected different findings to those of mothers. Among users who had received a parental Facebook friend request from their fathers, the handling of the request did not reflect differences in relationship quality with the father, F(3, 102) = 0.71, p = .05. The handling of the request did not reflect differences in relational trust levels with fathers either, F(3, 100) = 0.34, p = .80. Thus, relational characteristics did not help explain how young adults responded to their fathers’ requests to be Facebook friends in the same ways that it did for mothers. DISCUSSION The current study examines parental Facebook friend requests and if young adults feel vulnerable about allowing their parents to interact with them on Facebook. The study set out to examine if a parent requesting to be their child’s Facebook friend triggers a privacy dilemma for young adults, since they may be leery of parents wanting to interact with them on Facebook. Furthermore, young adults may also not have fully considered how to deal with an incoming request made by one of their parent’s to be Facebook friends (Child & Petronio, 2011). PARENTAL FACEBOOK FRIENDS REQUESTS 55 We utilized Communication Privacy Management (CPM) theory (Petronio, 2002) as a framework for considering other variables that could possibly illuminate variation in how young adults handled the requests. Our results confirmed when young adult Facebook users receive parental Facebook friend requests from either parent or both parents, they tended to welcome and accept the requests. However, differences in decision-making practices occurred among mothers who requested to be Facebook friends in association with family privacy orientations, parent-child relationship quality, and parent-child trust (Morr Serewicz et al., 2007). In particular, individuals in the study who tended to outright accept requests from their moms without making restrictive privacy rule adjustments came from families where sharing private information within the family unit was more common than individuals who also ultimately accepted the requests but before doing so returned to their Facebook pages and adapted their privacy rules toward greater protection of private information. Such individuals reclaimed greater protection of privacy before allowing the parental linkage by deleting posts and/or only providing limited access of their Facebook site to their mothers (Child et al., 2011, 2012). The same associations were not supported among fathers. Finally, higher quality and more trusting mother-child relationships were also associated with the same type of outright acceptance among young adult Facebook users in the study than was the case for individuals who either ignored the requests from their moms or made privacy rule adjustments before allowing the parental Facebook connection to be made. These same relational variables did not support associations among fathers and young adults’ Facebook decision-making practices either. Family interaction on Facebook reflects one of many possible types of relational connections that may be facilitated through Facebook. The fact that young adult Facebook users in this sample were more willing than reluctant to accept requests from their parents on Facebook may mean that they had already adapted their privacy management practices, knowing that parents and other types of individuals (such as future employers) may be trying to find more private information about them on Facebook. Facebook has become a critical place to engage in proactive privacy management because of its increased access and use by many segments of the population (Child et al., 2011, 2012; Child & Petronio, 2011). Child et al. (2011) examined how social media users’ privacy management practices frequently include returning to previously posted information and removing potentially vulnerable information for a variety of motivations. The reasons provided by participants included making deletions in order to effectively manage impressions with diverse audiences; to more fully protect personal identity and reduce safety risks; to appease important relational connections like friends, partners, and family members; and to prevent vulnerability of encountering a legal or disciplinary problem. Less common was the individual who said they would post something on their own social media site and leave it forever unchanged. These individuals who never made restrictive adjustments to their privacy rules indicated doing so because they either were overly cautious in the first place or were high risk takers and did not care what others might come to think about them because of what they post (Child et al., 2011). These findings may be one reason why young adults are willing to allow their parents to be Facebook friends when requested, because young adult social media users frequently monitor what people contribute to their collective boundary and they eliminate any posts or content that may result in a potentially dilemmatic situations before minor privacy mis-steps evolve into more dramatic forms of privacy turbulence (Child et al., 2012; Petronio, 2002). Proactive privacy management can lead to fewer situations experiencing distress over private information that 56 CHILD AND WESTERMANN has moved into a more public space because of faulty privacy rules (Child et al., 2009). This may explain the lack of concern in the study over an individual parental linkage because a user can utilizing multiple strategies to manage their privacy online and ultimately focus more on the disclosures in the collective boundary rather than the linkages (Child & Agyeman-Budu, 2010). Such diverse privacy regulation practices with decisions deserve greater investigation in future research. This study confirms that family privacy orientations among study participants were associated with the way that individual family members responded to parental Facebook friend requests. These orientations, developed by the family over time (Petronio, 2002), illuminated differences in how families communicated on Facebook. Therefore, family relational ties were related to individual behaviors among participants when considering whether or not to allow a parental connection through social media. Young adults in families that valued openness and transparency were more likely to connect with their mothers on Facebook than families who valued less openness and transparency within the family unit. This finding is valuable as it begins to answer questions about family characteristics associated with individuals’ social media use. Previously, family privacy orientations had not been examined in this particular context (Morr Serewicz et al., 2007). Relational indicators with mothers among sample participants were associated with the decisions that young adults’ made about allowing Facebook site access. However, the discrepancy in results between mothers and fathers may be explained by the roles each parent tends to play. Mothers are often socialized to be caregivers. As a result, they tend to show more warmth and experience closer relationships with children than fathers (Hosley & Montemayor, 1997; Phares, 1999; Tein, Roosa, & Michaels, 1994). Mothers often serve as the family’s nexus of communication (Lye, 1996) and are seen as being more open to communication than fathers (Holmbeck, Paikoff, & Brooks-Gunn, 1995). During the late adolescent years in particular, fathers are more likely than mothers to be authoritarian in nature; their role is often characterized as the disciplinarian (Conrade & Ho, 2001; McKinney & Renk, 2008). Young adults who experienced closer, more trusting relationships with their mothers were more likely to accept their friend requests than those Facebook users who experienced less trusting relationships with their mothers. When it came to fathers, closeness and trust were not important factors in young adults’ Facebook friend request decisions. Perhaps young adult Facebook users in the sample were concerned about how their fathers might bring typical role-based interactions to what they read and experience on their Facebook sites. FUTURE RESEARCH, LIMITATIONS, AND CONCLUSION The power differential inherent in parent/child relationships represents another possible explanation for the factors related to young adults’ decisions about whether or not to accept parental friend requests. Young adults may experience a lack of ability to decline friend requests from either parent because of the inherent power issues associated with the parent-child relationship. The repercussions of declining such requests may cause too much privacy turbulence for young adults in the relationships they maintain with their parents (Petronio, 2002). Young adults may feel an obligation to allow parents into their Facebook space simply because the request came PARENTAL FACEBOOK FRIENDS REQUESTS 57 from an authority figure. Future research might explore a power-based analysis of social media interactions and decision-making practices with parents. Another aspect of parent-child communication and Facebook includes exploring parents who have been chronicling and noting the development of their children from infancy on Facebook, both in terms of the photos uploaded and the commentary provided about their children. CPM theory (Petronio, 2002) highlights how young adults start out with limited privacy boundaries and parents who largely make privacy management decisions for them. However, as kids mature and go through adolescence they also reclaim greater desire for control over their own privacy management decisions and expect their parents to relinquish control over their privacy management decisions. How will these youth feel when they discover a rich online identity has already been developed for them, which may be hard to reclaim given the nature of digital footprints (Child & Petronio, 2011)? Such a study would be an additional way to explore privacy turbulence between parents and their children related to social media practices. The intricacies involved in studying parent/child communication on Facebook reflect the complexities of studying family communication in face-to-face settings. It can be difficult to examine communication between isolated members without considering the remaining family members or all of the ways those individuals interact with one another as an entire integrated system. This study captures parent/child communication on Facebook but cannot account for face-toface communication between other family members, who might also factor into young adults’ decisions regarding parental Facebook friend requests. For example, an adult child may decide to allow their parent access and instead of changing their privacy management rules for the Facebook space they may respond to the request by establishing new rules for their parents and negotiating with their parents face-to-face the types of appropriate and inappropriate interactions that they expect to occur and be avoided as a new member of their privileged online Facebook community (Child & Petronio, 2011). One limitation of this study is the reliance on perceptual data for understanding young adults’ experiences on Facebook. Even though participants were only allowed to proceed with the study if they had been the recipient of a parental Facebook friend request, rather than the initiator of such a request, participants may have misrepresented their actual experiences. However, recent research suggests that self-reported survey results about Facebook practices and actual activity log analysis supports that people’s perceptions match up rather closely with analysis of the logs (Hampton et al., 2012). This study does not address how people would have responded if they were the ones who asked to be included on their parent’s Facebook page. An additional research project could focus on who initiated the link, subsequent decision-making and privacy regulation practices, and the connection of data from multiple family members. Such complex analysis allows for a more realistic understanding of family interaction systems. Finally, the results demonstrate the usefulness of variables and factors associated with CPM theory and research in other contexts (Petronio, 2002) in understanding responses to parental Facebook friend requests. 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