As teens embrace blogs, schools sound an alarm

Teens are among the most avid users of online journals and personal Web pages, but recent incidents at North Carolina State University and other schools should give them and their parents pause.

Nine underage students at N.C. State are facing charges of violating the school's alcohol policy after a residential adviser visited one of their profiles on Facebook and found links to pictures of them drinking. Facebook, which lets students create and share personal profiles, is enormously popular on campuses nationwide.

Parental guidance suggested

Despite efforts by schools to discipline students and train them in safe and sound Net usage, parents need to get involved. Some tips:

Be there. When you can, use the Net with your children. While you're spending time with them, you can help them be safe online. You may also want to role-play on IM to help them practice safe behavior.

Info a no-no. Teach kids never to give their personal data, such as where they go to school or live, to people they meet online.

Meeting adjourned. Instruct kids never to plan a face-to-face meeting with an online acquaintance, and to notify you if they're approached for a meeting. If a meeting is arranged, it should be in a public spot.

Make rules... Establish clear ground rules for family Net use. Consider signing a contract with your kids that reflects those rules.

...consider tools. Learn about parental-control tools and protective software and decide which, if any, to use.

Trusting red flags. Tell your children not to respond if they receive offensive or dangerous e-mail, chat requests or other communications, and to leave if they go to a Web site that makes them uncomfortable. Also, tell them to show you anything they receive that makes them uncomfortable.

Get help. If you're worried that your child or any child is in danger, don't hesitate to contact the police.

Source: Safekids.com and the Internet Education Foundation's GetNetWise.com

Though some parents might be reassured to know that schools are keeping an eye on their children's behavior, the case makes it clear that teens can be reckless when it comes to posting personal information online.

"In their own minds, they're sitting in their dorm room or at home, and they have a sense of privacy--and they really don't have it at all," said Pam Lepley, a spokeswoman for Virginia Commonwealth University, one of numerous schools that, with the advent of blogs and other such tools, are re-examining the way students use the Web.

Carelessness with personal data may be nothing new, but it's become more relevant than ever as a greater number of teens not only surf the Net but also populate it with Web logs and personal profiles. Already, close to one in five online teens between the ages of 12 and 17--about 4 million people--has created a blog, a study by Pew Internet and American Life Project recently indicated. A slightly higher number report having a personal Web page--a trend no doubt fueled by the availability of free, easy-to-use services like Facebook and News Corp.'s MySpace.

The Pew survey, conducted about a year ago and released this month, mainly highlights the positive effect these services can have on teens. Blogging can help them connect with friends, exercise their creativity and share their views. "Bloggers, and to a lesser extent teens who read blogs, are Internet omnivores who explore, play with, utilize and generally inhabit the Internet with a greater abandon than their less blog-savvy counterparts," the study said.

But there can be a down side. Teens are doing more than just pouring their hearts out in these online forums; many are posting provocative pictures, discussing real or imagined sex lives, berating and threatening one another, and recounting drinking and drug use. And that can get them in trouble with stalkers, authority figures and even future employers, experts say.

"Kids are doing outrageous things to get attention," said Parry Aftab, a privacy lawyer and executive director of WiredSafety.org, a Web site dedicated to online child safety. "They are looking for their day in the sun, 15 minutes of fame, something to show how they are special."

[Dead Soulman]

Surprisingly True

That's the thing I really don't understand. I visit mySpace to promote a band's profile and find myself surprised to see the kind of information some people put on their profiles. There's one type of common profile that I guess it may use a form for the users to fill in. This form posts information that could be easily used for identity theft or blackmailing. I'm not trying to be paranoid, but I'm not naive either. There are a lot of perverts, cons, and criminals out there looking for victims. And I think some young surfers are just opening their front door to sickos.

Let's hope they wake up and change their information.

[ParryAftab]

Education is crucial here

WiredSafety.org is the world's largest Internet safety and help group. We are comprised entirely of unpaid volunteers working from their computers around the world, and I am an Internet privacy and security lawyer and also donate my time in running the group.

Blogs and any public postings can be dangerous if too much information is shared publicly, and if anyone communicates with strangers online (especially young people communicating with adults) there are serious risks as well.

These didn't begin and will not end with social-netowrking sites, blogs or profile pages. These same risks exist anytime anyone uses a free web-service that permits you to share information about yourself, and doesn't use authenication to find out who you really are in "rl" (real life). We have been educating young people, schools, law enforcement and parents about this risk since 1995. The technology may change, but the risks don't.

While I fully support an K-12 educational institution blocking access to any non-educational website from school computers, I fear that their attempts (as in the Catholic school in NJ) to regulate a student's behavior from their home computer, after hours, when they are under their parents' supervision and not the school's is a problem. I also fear that shcool that over-reach (although understandably seeking solutions) will find themselves answering in court for their activities.

the answer has to come from education. Teaching kids, teens and college students how to enjoy the benefits of blogging and social-networking without putting themselves at risk, teaching them to morph photos so they can not be misused and teaching them how to handle communications from strangers. They need to understand where and how to report abuses. And the sites need to be educated too. They need to understand how to respond to law enforcement enquiries and maintain records and data that might be essential to finding and prosecuting cybercriminals. They need ot understand how people abuse anonymous online services, and especially how young people do. They need to recognize that privacy settings are crucial to their users' safety and have to create them and let their users know what security features exist and how to use them.

If you click on the "safety" tab on myspace.com's front page and shortly on Facebook.com's front page, you will see our safety guide and parents guide. Our volunteers are wiredsafety.org are there ot help with case of abuse, and I am pleased to report that the administration and leadership at MySpace.com and Facebook.com are both incredibly responsive to our suggestions and supprtove of the safety effort.

We have a video being produced on social-networking safety, workshops for parents and for students, a college safety guide, a teenangels guide to myspace (anbd shortly facebook), and speak at conferences around the world on these issues. Our new school risk management guide will be available on our site over the new few weeks as well.

And a new Marvel comic, starring Spider-Man, his daughter Spider-Girl, The Incredible Hulk and Fantastic Four and our teen volunteers, will be released within 6 weeks. This comic teaches safe, private and responsible technology use.

We have the programs and the materials. We need to make sure that everyone knows that and where to find them. And anyone who wants to donate their time to help is welcomed as well.

Let's not panic, but let's stay safer.

Parry Aftab,
Executive Director
WiredSafety.org

[alek_nedic]

Teenagers and privacy don't mix eh?

That is not the worst thing that can happen - Just imagine
teens listening to the copyrighted mp3s or watching
bitTorrent movies...
http://www.analogstereo.com/cassete_deck_pioneer_deh_p8000r.htm

[routinely called]

Reading a blog = invasion of privacy?

Lenhart and Aftab are way off base when comparing a child's diary to a blog or online profile, and giving your child a few days notice before reading. Reading a blog is an "invasion of privacy"? Stalkers, school officials, employers aren't giving anyone notice before accessing the information. Diaries are kept in the drawer, not posted on the world-wide web. Like giving Wal-Mart notice of an upcoming labor inspection, giving your child notice before reading what they have posted for the world to see is counter-productive to the intent of the act itself: to find out what they are telling everyone except you.

If it's online, it's already public. Find out what's really there and then talk to your child about it. Don't wait until after they have a chance to clean it up for "mommy's approval."

[larbox]

Use common sense

I'm a myspace user, and this article fails realize that you can limit who exactly can read your posted blogs via allowing only those you've tagged as Friends or a user-created Preferred List.

As for the rest, I don't understand posting what kind of music I like really is deemed as a threat to my safety.. Use common sense people.

[Mutex]

The difference is...

Yes a blog is written in a public space so it's obviously going to be read by some people, but those people will probably be the people you gave a link to. A kid isn't going to give the link to their parents and probably write stuff in their blog they don't want their parents to see. Even without using access control to limit who can see it, posting in a blog isn't like shouting about your personal life through a megaphone in the town square.

[ThatAdamGuy]

COMMON SENSE?!?

COMMON SENSE? Are you kidding? THINK OF THE CHILDREN! Oh. My. God. We must micromanage and completely 100% protect all of our kiddiepoos from ANY sort of threat, real or imaginary. I mean, the fact that our kids are far more likely to be molested or otherwise physically or emotionally abused by someone they know rather than a stranger... that shouldn't have any affect on our kneejerk reaction to childrens' safety. Next thing you know, they'll be listening to ELVIS, and that's Satan's music!!!!!!!!1

[Bennet_McGovern]

My Thoughts Exactly

People today are way to protective of their kids, sure teach them not to talk to strangers, and other stranger danger things, also maybe explaining what is ok to post.

I is in the public arena, and so therefore parents and schools are allowed to read it. My problem is that this school seems to be overstepping its area of control....schools alchahol policy, unless they were drinking in uniform, or on school property or during a school even or time, what business is it of the schools. i dont know about america, but here in Australia, it is totally legal to drink at any age if you are in a private residence, so unless they are in a park or something, then there is nothing anyone can do.

Please people, let your kids go out, get dirty, get hurt, make mistakes, so stupid things. That is how everyone else grew up untill recently. that is the problem with public liability, when these people grew up they were allowed out untill dark and hurt themselves, and their parents never sued anyone, so why do they do it.

Greed, i know this is off topic, but i feel it is similar, kids need to make mistakes, and learn from them, they need to be kids. kids do things like experiment with drugs and drink while the are underaged, the only reason it seems like it is a big thing now is that people know about it. It has always been a problem, and it will always be a problem. Support, understanding and letting them get into trouble is what kids need. Not to live in a bubble

[WDS2]

MySpace and others

They are practically shopping malls for child molesters! Just put in their favorite ages and the local area and get a nice list along with all kinds of "seed" personal information. Very scarey stuff people.

[Valkyr]

A Young Adult Blogger's View

As a user of facebook I know that my pictures are only viewable by friends, friends of friends, or fellow school-mates. If you tried to get to my profile by a direct link, you would be asked to log in first. And to even use college facebook you must have a valid school address (e.g. [e-mail]).

MySpace would certainly be something more to worry about because there just about anyone with a free profile can view your pictures.

However as an avid blogger through my high school and college years, I feel no sense of violation by strangers reading and seeing my life. I think if parents are suprised by the material they find in their kid's blogs then they obviously don't have a healthy relationship with their kid. I encourage my parents to read my blog, and while yes it contains some escapades I probably wouldn't want them to know about, they also understand that I'm in college, am an adult, and they trust me. I recently found that my father checked my MySpace profile to find that where I had listed "Heroes" I put "My Dad", something I hadn't had the chance to share with him, and he enjoyed that.

Now obviously my parental relationship isn't the norm, but I certainly think that kids need a place to vent some of their frustrations, and a blog offer their voices to be heard by friends. I think it's completely absurd for a university to penalize its students based on pictures they found on a website they didn't own. THAT is the invasion of privacy. Obviously college kids and teens for that matter are going to drink and thinking otherwise is just plain ignorant.

Bottom line, LIGHTEN UP! If you're going to educate kids on blog usage just tell em not to be too specific, like listing addresses or unique personal information, basically a lot of what Parry Aftab of WiredSafety.org said below. Other than that, I say let em share their lives! We've transformed into such a fear driven society close to absolute paranoia that I think its healthy to share your life with the world! Sure there are risks involved but you're in greater danger of dieing from a car crash than being violated based on blog information. Are you going to stop driving? No? Then don't stop bloggin!

(p.s. I know my argument has flaws, so if you feel inclined to poin them out, please try to do so respectfully)

[H Deez]

Facebook is the best thing that has ever happened to me

I think that colleges and schools need to get out of kids business on facebook. It is ridiculous that schools are taking the time to look through students facebooks for the purpose of trying to get students in trouble. NC State is not the best school in North Carolina so maybe the administration should be working on making their lessons being taught instead of spending their time getting students in trouble. Facebook reunites old friends together and is a good way of communication. If people give out to much information that is their own damn fault and shouldn't be setting themselves up as a target.

RE: Facebook is the best thing that has ever happened to me

You need to get out more -- away from the computer.

[alex_for_chat]

I don't think so, facebook, myspace and other social networking sites take a lot of work time of my company. I've deployed some <a href="www.workexaminer.com ">internet monitoring software</a> to keep my employees in the work and let them visit these websites in the out of work time only.

[gundeephora]

Parents, Kids and Schools

Are schools going overboard? Yes, but only with high schools. If majority of your high school is 16 or above, let them do whatever they want outside the school; if they want to get arrested then so be it. But for Middle School, I think schools are doing a great thing by protecting younger kids that don't yet have a sense of responsibility or maybe between what's right and wrong.

As one of the "genious" posters said to let kids make mistakes and let them grow up on their own is the most stupid thing I've heard in a while. I don't know what goes on in Australia or Europe (nor am I interested), but you better be involved in your kids' life if you want them to stay sober and lead a successful life (by successful I don't necessairly mean they have to grow up and make tons of money; the thought of their kids living after them is usually good for many parents).

I happen to live in a rather expensive area in the U.S. and one of our local high schools did a mini research that was only made available to the county and state officials as a survey and they found out that kids who were screwed up said that their parents were "cool" and didn't cared what they did outside of school.

Now, on the other hand, kids who were making good grades and had good behavior found out that their parents asked them what their kids did and were actively involved in their kids lives, so there's definitely a correlation between parents involvement in their kids life vs. no parental involvement.

So, asking parents to let kids do whatever they want is pure trash. I certainly hope you don't have any kids, if you think like that.

Now I'm not saying that your "good" kids will like it when you ask them where they are going and whatnot, but the key thing is to always win over your kids. Don't let your kids take charge of you or the household; if you let them do that, then you have lost the battle. Moreover, this is more like conditioning. If you care for your kids right from the start and are actively involved in their lives, then when they get older they probably won't even care you asking them so many questions because they are already used to it. But if you ignore them for the first 15 years of their lives and then start getting involved when they turn 16, then they'll see it as being invasion of privacy.

Parenthood is an overtime thing, not something you can do in a matter of weeks or months.

[208774626618253979477959487856]

Parents watch up!

http://www.analogstereo.com/cassette_deck_aiwa_cdc_r227.htm

[Hyperion Flux]

In defense of the teen blogging community

If anyone kept up with the case Taylor Behl, while they haven't correlated her internet activities with the actual happening, it's interesting to note that she apparently owned a Livejournal. Her Livejournal username was allegedly 'tiablaij'-- which to the unobservant is 'jailbait' spelt backwards. While I mean no disrespect in part of the victim's family, doesn't that seem like a red-flag?

MySpace also has many, many options that people seem to willingly fill out, such as income, location, etc.

Facebook has the option to let only friends view your profile.

I concede that some kids probably do have to be monitored online. But on the other hand, the kids who do exercise common sense and keep personal information private,etc.etc. are going to have their freedom curtailed by paranoid parents because of the few kids that seem to have a lacking in common sense.

[tobiegirl]

hello to all

hi to all .. im a new one so i just wanted to say Hello to all. i hope i will be a good friend to all and i hope we can chat with all friends.

[camille411]

It is very alarming that children at a younger age engage in drinking alcohol and been posted on their account on facebook. The world Wide Web could do many things from good to bad. People do use it for personal or just merely for fun. But there are abusive on using the Web. Most of them are send to a boarding school for parents to get them on a right path of life. Doing good and able to learn their faults and lacking of self-discipline.
http://www.militaryschools411.com/military-schools/is-a-military-boarding-school-the-right-option-for-your-teen.html