Reyna Latch knows that her seventeen-year-old daughter Niki has a MySpace profile. “She’s on MySpace all the time. She says she doesn’t even use email anymore. If she isn’t texting her friends, she’s sending or receiving messages to and from them on MySpace.”
But is Reyna concerned that Niki could be coming in contact with some less-than-savory people on the social networking site?
“I don’t use MySpace myself,” says Reyna, “so I’m not really sure how it works. I think she just gives her information to her friends; I don’t think she talks to people she doesn’t know. But to be honest with you, I’m ashamed to say I am not certain.”
The truth of the matter is that many kids use MySpace as not only a way to maintain relationships but also to meet new people. If your child says he or she is over fifteen and does not have their account set to private, anybody can visit their profile. Users can browse profiles by criteria such as age, gender, relationship status and whether or not they have photos posted. And “lurking” is a common pastime for MySpace users. A lurker is someone who views profiles of users they may or may not know, without leaving comments or other evidence that they were there.
According to one report, over fifty million free MySpace accounts have been created since the website’s inception in 2003. The bulk of those profiles belong to users under eighteen years of age. MySpace doesn’t allow users under the age of fourteen to sign up for an account. Profiles for users under the age of fifteen are automatically set to private, meaning that people lurking profiles cannot access them. However, if a twelve-year-old wants to create a profile or a fourteen-year-old desires a public profile, all he or she needs to do is give a fake age.
If the idea of a twelve or thirteen-year-old pretending to be sixteen or seventeen does not alarm you, what about a man in his thirties or forties portraying a teen? According to a Volkswagen/GfK Roper Poll, many adults are not who they say they are online. Of one thousand votes polled, 62% of Americans believe that people should not have to use their real names on internet social networking sites.
In July of 2007, the Associated Press reported that MySpace had found over 29,000 registered sex offenders with profiles on the site. Just over a year ago a twenty-nine-year-old man attempted to kidnap a thirteen-year-old girl from Florida; they met on MySpace. There have been numerous accounts of sexual assault stemming from underage youth meeting adults on MySpace.
David Kent Jones is the president and founder of Computer Parenting, which is an organization dedicated to giving parents the tools and information they need to protect their children on the computer. David has also raised two teen daughters through what he refers to as the Internet Age.
“‘Is MySpace a Good Space?’ is like asking is a park in the middle of a large city a good space? Well, sure, as long as the experience is properly supervised,” says David. “Kids can interact with each other, have fun, express their creativity and learn communication skills. Could there be bullies, drug dealers, perverts, sexual predators and criminals in the area? Absolutely,” he continues. “Many parents feel that the Internet is a video game that they can use as a babysitter for their kids. They leave them alone to face the tens of thousands of sexual predators that are targeting children every minute online.”
That being said, what steps should parents take?
“My advice? First, learn about the dangers so you can deal with them and teach your kids to deal with them,” David says. “One good resource is OnlineTeenDangers.com where parents can download a free eBook on the five greatest dangers that teens and tweens face online and what they can do about them.
“Second, supervise your kids’ online experience. This can be done by placing the home computer in a public place where you can walk by any time and see what they are doing. It is important to periodically read what they are typing and see what their ‘friends’ are typing and posting. For working parents that cannot be there every minute their kids are online, I suggest getting a computer monitoring solution like ComputerParenting.com where the home can be monitored live from work with a browser or cell phone.”
If you are so led, you might even consider pulling the plug on your home PC. Lonna Corder, professional parenting coach and mom to a teen, shares her insights. “The answer is simple; turn the computer off and get your child involved in real life, real people, [and] real relationships,” says Lonna. “In college, kids want to keep in touch, friends move to other states. [But] why does a teen need a social network to keep in touch with kids she sees everyday? No reason other than to be inappropriate, boastful and thus unintentionally attract predators.”
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Perhaps you might feel that getting rid of the computer altogether is too severe, and you just want to find a happy medium. There are some MySpace alternatives that might be more appropriate for your kids.
BeaconStreetGirls.com is an online community for preteen girls based on a contemporary book series. According to Bobbie Carlton, Director of Marketing for Beacon Street Girls, the books and the website are designed to provide positive media and healthy role models for preteen girls, while they have fun.
“This is a real option for parents who are concerned about sites like MySpace,” says Bobbie. “We focus on tweens, even though we do have a number of older kids on the site currently, too. The Beacon Street Girls website allows girls to safely post comments on a wide variety of topics. We have thousands of comments from these girls, which are all reviewed prior to being posted.”
GodTube.com is another great alternative to MySpace. According to the site’s mission statement: “GodTube is a video-driven social network that enables people to connect and share with friends, family, co-workers and ministries. The community of Christian and non-Christian people use GodTube to upload, imbed and share videos, upload and share photos, create their own blogs and forums, seek answers and explore their faith.” GodTube pre-approves every video prior to uploading to the site, and users can flag inappropriate messages for the site’s administrators.
Finally, the most important factor is the dialog you continually have with your child. Ask them why they use MySpace and how they represent themselves. Have your child show you his or her profile periodically to make sure there is nothing inappropriate posted, or let them know that you are creating your own profile and will be scanning theirs periodically. Explain that the site is public, and why they should never post any personal information such as address or phone number, or even the school they attend, as this could lead a predator right to him or her. Reiterate to your child never to meet someone in public without clearing it with you. It is not being overprotective when your child’s safety is at stake!
© 2008 Good News Tucson™
