It’s quickly becoming the classic tale of 2012: parents or teachers mention Facebook and the whole room shudders.

I know in the past if my parents ever mentioned setting themselves up a Facebook page, I would have cringed and quickly moved onto the next subject. Fast forward to last year and I was the one making my Mum her own Facebook page.

The fact is, I love having one of my parents on Facebook. Granted, we’ve always had a close relationship, but having my Mum on my list of Facebook friends has become a blessing in disguise. I now have the majority of my family added as friends, including family friends as young as thirteen.

I’ve been told countless times in school or, more recently, at university, that we all need to make a conscious effort to censor our Facebook pages. I was even surprised to hear from one lecturer that past students on my course who had been interviewed for certain jobs were required to display their Facebook page as part of the interview. Whether this is an invasion of privacy or perfectly within the employer’s rights is a completely different story, but it certainly got me thinking.

I’m not telling Facebook users my age to become saints overnight. After all, what would a university experience be without a few questionable photos? But perhaps there’s a lot to be said for the ‘Remove Tag’ button on Facebook. There have been countless stories in the media over employees being fired as a result of careless postings on their profiles. Social media is a wonderful thing but only when used sensibly.

I know that if I were to be asked to display my Facebook page in an interview I would have no qualms in doing so. I always tend to abide by a general rule when it comes to ‘Facebook etiquette’: if you don’t want your mother to see it, don’t put it on Facebook!