One day a couple of months ago, these friends pulled a prank. They tied a student to a chair and used a mobile phone to record their mischief. A teacher was present during at least part of the incident and there was a lot of laughter in the room that day. A few weeks later, no one was laughing.

The students had posted images of the incident to Facebook. The father of the student who had been tied to the chair branded it as bullying — even though the student himself swore it wasn’t. That parent demanded that the students be disciplined and they were. They are finishing the school year by distance learning and new schools must be found for them for the next academic year. This is a difficult task since they can’t get a referral letter from the school they are presently attending and will most likely have to be placed in schools outside Saudi Arabia. Chances are that the incident will also impact their futures, since it is time for them to be trying to find an acceptance to a university. The owner of the school stated that the Ministry of Education wanted even tougher measures taken against the students. The Facebook posting was a reference for finding the boys guilty. What might have once been considered the misguided actions of a group of teenagers, took on greater significance because they publicized their misdeed and gloated about it online.

Considerable research from noted institutes around the world has found that teenagers will make mistakes and can have poor behavior because the portion of the brain that controls judgment is not yet fully developed. Publicizing such stupidity simply magnifies the actions and then serious consequences result. What is funny to a teenager is often not amusing to an adult.

Facebook started out as a site that targeted college students. Now Facebook welcomes teens as young as 13, and many even younger children circumvent the rules and join. Kids don’t need a computer to share on Facebook. Many cell phones can connect to the Internet and enable online sharing.

Parents tell me that they monitor their children’s activities at Facebook by “friending” them. Parents believe that this lets them view what their little darlings are sharing with others. Unfortunately, this is not true. Facebook’s privacy settings let users control who can see the items that are posted. These settings also limit who can post on a Facebook wall and who can see posts made by friends. Share settings can refine privacy further — keeping specific posts out of view. Such settings specify which friends can see individual posts. This means that kids can block their parents from seeing posts that they know their mothers and fathers would consider inappropriate. Parents wouldn’t have a clue that they’ve been blocked. And be advised that the print screen option on any computer coupled with e-mail will allow a friend to share a post or comment with others — even if those people aren’t part of the teen’s network.

Deciding whether to allow teens to use Facebook requires that families discuss the risks and that teens are willing to abide by decisions made in limiting their postings. The truth is that if it wouldn’t be good for the whole world to see a posting, it doesn’t belong on Facebook.