A word about MySpace.com

Does you child have a profile on MySpace.com? Don't know? If they are pre-teens or teens They probably do. If you child is spending time on MySpace, you need to check it out and talk with them about it.

Don't panic. MySpace is really very cool. It is a fascinating social phenomenon that has a lot of good points. But there are risks, so you really want to know what your child and their friends are up to.

MySpace is of particular interest for a few reasons.

• It is wildly popular. It hosts roughly 27 million profiles and has grown by %400 in the past year. Every teen, it seems, has a profile on the site.
• It is intended for older teens and adults, but no attempt is made to verify any of the publicly shared profile information. Your 12 year old can easily set up a profile. Mine did, along with most of her friends.
• It can be a serious time drain. Kids can spend a whole lot of time writing journals, emailing, instant messaging, and browsing on MySpace.
• Most MySpace profiles include photos. You want to know what pictures your child is sharing, and what their 'friends' are sharing too.
• CyberBullying is a web-wide problem, and MySpace is fertile ground for it.

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I don't want to spend too much time here talking about on-line safety. There is a lot of information out there on the subject. It is up to you, the parent, to do the research to understand the risks. And it is up to you to establish the rules and parameters for on-line use based on your own personal values.

The key point is that you don't want your child to be posting identifying information on-line. Names, phone numbers, pictures, and other personal info needs to be guarded carefully. There are predators on-line, and both parents and kids need to know about them and know how they operate.

To understand your child's use of MySpace the first thing to do is ask you child if they have a MySpace profile. If they do, ask to review it with them. My daughter never made any secret of her profile. It took me a long time to realize what she was up to. When I did, I asked (actually demanded) to have her show me around. Check out what they write about themselves in their public profiles, and check out their friends. Of course, check out the photos. In my daughter's case, that was all I needed to do. She willingly showed me around, and she made it clear that she understood the risks and knew how to take care of herself. Some of the photos gave me pause, so I pointed one out and we talked about it. Mostly I bit my tongue and tried to not freak out about my daughter turning into a teenager. Later that night I talked with my wife about it and after she had a chance to review her profile we decided the photos were not a problem. They are still there. And now my daughter knows we'll be watching what she shares on her profile.

Of course, I'm not satisfied that she really is as wise as she thinks she is, but I am not so worried about MySpace after talking with her and checking it out for myself. I'll keep my eye out, and we will keep having this conversation over the years. But I at least know that right now, she is spending her time on MySpace just having innocent fun with a whole lot of her classmates.

If you have doubts about your child's MySpace habits, you can check up on his or her profile using the MySpace search engine. Just go to MySpace.com, search for their email address and see what comes up. Does you kid have more than one email account? Search for them all. They may also have multiple MySpace pages. Search for other kids in their school too -- you can search using the school name as the search criteria. You might find your child, or you might find his or her friends.

There are other ways of snooping on your family's web surfing, from reviewing browser history to installing tools like firewalls, loggers, and filters. All of these techniques can be used to monitor MySpace usage. Some of these techniques are too intrusive for me. But I do not have any qualms about investigating my child's on-line habits, with or without their permission. Ultimately, it is a safety issue and my parental responsibility to know what my child is doing.

In theory MySpace "requires" that members be at least 14 years old. But there is no way for them to verify anyone's personal info, so many younger kids are signing up. If you have a problem with your under-age child's MySpace presence and you cannot resolve it with them, you can report the problem to MySpace. But that is unlikely to be effective. If the child is at all web savvy, he or she will be able to set up new profiles easily.

I do not want to alarm anyone unnecessarily. MySpace is so popular because it offers people a very rich on-line social network with many popular features found on other on-line communities rolled into one. It is also a phenomenon of the times, with millions of avid users. It is very compelling for kids. Keep an open mind about it and don't freak out just because there are other mature strangers out there socializing. That doesn't mean that you kids can't enjoy MySpace safely with their peers. But it does mean we parents need to monitor their social lives and set limits where needed—just like in the real world.

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Further reading:

• MySpace offers a general safety tips page and a tips for parents page. Both are very well thought out and worth reading.
• MySpace: A site with 26 million 'friends' a recent Times article describing the business and its success.
• To The Extreme: This is your space, this is Myspace offers a MySpace user's view of what the site is all about.
• The Berkeley Parents Network offers this page, Teen Blogs / mySpace with an interesting dialog among parents that shows a wide spectrum of parental attitudes toward MySpace usage.
• WiredSafety.org Questions about myspace.com and what to do if you have a problem