Religion and Theology

Modern technology has a very significant impact to social interaction and relationship building today. The introduction of social networking sites have led to changes on how people relate with each other. Janet Kornblums article for USA Today tackles the developments of parent-children relationship and how it is affected by modernity and technological advancements. Teens to Parents Its our Facebook is an article that tackles the changes brought by sites like Facebook on how parents build relationships with their children. The article is written for both adolescent children and parents with a child actively part of social networking sites. It addresses the major concern on what is the impact of Facebook to the relationship of parents and children and how both parties should address each other on the site.

Kornblums article highlights the implications that social networking sites have on the parent and child. For parents, Facebook and other related sites are opportunities for them to get to know their children better. But for many children, they feel that having their parents on Facebook feels both weird and uncomfortable because they feel like they are being pried on. Also, the generation gap of parents and children are being more emphasized by the technology. At the same time, the article reminds parents that they should also have respect for their childrens domain and encourage an appropriate space between them and their children on the site.

As a whole, the article probably contradicts some part of Scripture by saying that parents have limited control over their children, especially on social networking sites. But Kornblums article also reaffirms the Scripture which encourages respect to privacy and giving children their freedom to grow and associate with others on their own. The probable implication of this article to the ministry would be for it to encourage awareness on how parents should build relationships with their children. Imposing their parental figure on their children in a domain that is made for these adolescents would only risk driving them farther. Therefore, responsible parenting would require knowing how to appropriately act on the Facebook. If parents want to be respected, they should know how to respect their children as well.