The Latest Nightmare: Online Social Networks
The days of passing gossip notes in homeroom, making physical threats at recess or keeping personal thoughts in a locked diary have taken on a completely new meaning with the penetration of the Internet in our children’s lives. It’s MySpace (http://www.myspace.com), Xanga (http://www.xanga.com), Friendster (http://www.friendster.com) and other online social sites that have become the medium of choice for today’s teens and preteens to open up their lives to the world.
And as a parent, you need to know about them – now!
Highlighted in a recent cover story in the Philadelphia Inquirer and brought up at a School Board meeting a few months ago by Middle School principal, Alan Fegley, these relatively new free, online websites are attracting literally millions of our children to post their thoughts, pictures, opinions and personal information.
It’s amazingly simple to do. Children can sign up for an account on these sites for free – no credit card or parental permission is required. Then they can keep an online blog (or diary), upload pictures of themselves (as racy as they want them to be), list information about where they live, where they work, who they hang out with, post polls of who the think is cute (or worse), discuss their sexual activities and even worse (if you can imagine).
“It’s a social nightmare” for principals at high schools, middle schools and even elementary schools. While the worst of these sites might not seem like an issue for the youngest of our early cybersurfers in our family, many young children do not understand that what they write or post on their site is open to the entire world to see and read.
So, what can you do as a parent to protect your child yet encourage appropriate use of the Internet at home? Experts agree that the first issue has to do with where you place that computer. Is it in an open area of the house, a place where you walk by regularly and can watch what your child is doing online? Sure you want them to have their privacy and you want to trust them, but what your child does on the Internet – especially on these social websites – are not private and our young children are still learning what is and isn’t appropriate to do on the Internet.
Second, make sure you are regularly reviewing their IM logs (see the November 2005 issue of The Focus for more information on instant messaging) and review the history of sites visited in your computer’s browser to see where they are surfing. If you want to be more proactive, there is software you can install that monitors the Internet traffic on your computer and limit where they can go without your permission. Again, while some may see this as an invasion of privacy, it’s our job as parents to first protect our children as they learn and grow.
Third, ask your child if they have a website and ask to see it. They may be proud to show you what they have built online. While you’re at it, you should ask them for their email address (but keep in mind, they older kids probably have a half dozen email addresses at least) and IM screen name so you can communicate online with them as well as in-person. If they don’t have a website and show an interest, setup a family website. There are very easy ways to do this with a blog account. Check out Blogger.com (http://www.blogger.com) or LiveJournal.com (http://www.livejournal.com) for free services that let you post things going on in your family’s lives. We setup a family website a few months ago to share with friends and family what’s going on with our daughter’s gymnastics and our son’s footbal.
And finally, you should look at this as an opportunity to teach our children what is appropriate. Having a personal website isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it can be a learning opportunity where they can show off their creative talents and increase their writing abilities.