Would you accept a family Facebook friend request?

It's a simple enough question, but would you?

It's a problem I have not had to concern myself personally, but many students have their friends, work colleagues from local shops and outlets on their friends list, but also family members. In some cases, rarely admittedly, some people have their parents listed as family on their Facebook profile.

Many parents reading will know that they do not nor would they want to know everything about their kids, especially when they have 'freedom' at college or university. But then again as a primary communications utility for keeping in touch with anyone and everyone, it could serve as a simple and of course free platform.

On the other hand, as the BBC point out, the psychology of having a son or daughter on your own Facebook from a parents perspective could offer a window into the lives of their children they did not necessarily know about.

Yet a voice conversation either through a Google Voice London-style phone booth on campus or Skype would offer a much better solution to keeping in touch with relatives, without the necessary breach of boundaries from both sides.

Personally, I am happy being real-life friends and not Facebook friends with my parents. But I could never add my parents to my Facebook friends list or profile, and equally they wouldn't either.

Would you add a family member to your Facebook friends list?