Nearly half of parents friend their kids on Facebook

A recent survey found that 48% of parents friends their kids on Facebook, Mashable reports, and 56% of the parents surveyed said 16+ was the appropriate age for kids to use the social site. Twenty-six percent of parents said “over 18,” 30% said ages 16-18, 30% ages 13-15, and 8% said under 13. Among findings about other social technologies, 36% of parents of teens say they ban texting at the dinner table, and 12% say they bar their kids from social media as a form of punishment. The study was done by Retrevo, a consumer electronics retail site, which says the study was conducted by an independent panel surveying a sample of more than 1,000 Americans “distributed across gender, age, income and location.” [See also “Soft power works better: Parenting social Web users.”]