News for the Week of July 2, 2006
There are social-networking and blogging risks that will affect a lot more young people than the sexual predation that has dominated coverage of teen socializing this past year. Among them are peer harassment ("cyberbullying") among young teens, reputation risks for older ones, and the newest one to come to light, one that is both risk and benefit...
The wrong kind of reinforcement
It may not seem like it as you read it, but the Washington Post's "Invitation to Harm" is very good news. It exposes parents and other caregivers to worlds we really need to know about - and helps us better understand behavior that's crying out for our help. As does any and all news coverage of online communities like "Groups" in MySpace and other social networks. Two samples: "On a self-mutilation group called 'Razorblade Kisses' - which had nearly 200 members as of last week - a message displays a 'Cutting Warning Label' that warns, 'before you make that first cut remember. You will enjoy this. You will find the blood and pain release addictive.' And 'be prepared to withdraw from others and live in a constant state of shame ... you will find yourself lying to the people you love. You will jerk back from your friends when they touch you as if their hands were dipped in poison'," and the Post tells of a 14-year-old New Jersey boy who belongs to MySpace groups that teach him about drug use (his parents don't know about his MySpace page).
The social networks give us unprecedented access to teens' inner lives, as disturbing as that can be, presenting a tremendous opportunity both for parental understanding and in-depth research - as well as for better care and treatment of troubled teens. For more on this, see "Net good & bad for teens: Study" and "Wrong kind of support". And here's an example of how her online activity helps a 15-year-old diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Teens manipulated to commit crime
A 22-year-old Florida man was mugged at gunpoint by two teens who allegedly posed in MySpace as an 18-year-old woman, The Register reports. They reportedly lured him into an in-person meeting, and when the man, Earnest Evans, "arrived at their agreed rendezvous, Evans told police, the two girls approached him and asked to borrow his phone. Once he had handed it over to one of the girls, the other held a loaded gun to his head and demanded his wallet and money," according to The Register. The girls reportedly have been charged with armed robbery and carrying a concealed weapon, and a 21-year-old man who was also on the scene has been "charged with furnishing minors with firearms."
In Other News...
- For the greater good. This may be the start of a trend: the social networks getting smart about combating all the negative p.r. they've gotten by doing something really positive. MySpace "is trying to galvanize its [now 90 million+] user base to get involved in public service," the Washington Post reports. "It is doing so by sponsoring a contest, which begins today [7/5], requesting submissions of 15- to 30-second video public-service announcements encouraging social activism. The winner will be featured in Seventeen magazine, which is co-sponsoring the contest." Entries will be reviewed by a panel of judges from both MySpace and Seventeen, and the winners will be announced the week August 21, the Post adds. It cites a recent survey by Teenage Research Unlimited in Illinois showing that "63% of teens said they care about others and want to make the world a better place ... but only 25% were involved in a volunteer activity."
- UK inquiry into social networks. Some 61% of UK 13-to-17-year-olds have pages on social-networking sites, and the British government-backed Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre (CEOP) has launched an inquiry into their activity, citing parents' and educators' concerns, The Guardian reports. According to The Guardian, 1 in 12 of the UK's 8 million children with Net access have met offline with someone they originally encountered online. That statistic includes online venues other than the social networks, but CEOP's reportedly zooming in on social-networking because of its sudden extreme popularity with teens. "A minority of children, some as young as 13, have begun showing pictures of themselves in sexual poses, semi-naked or wearing lingerie," according to The Guardian. Besides its inquiry, CEOP will also hold safe-social-networking workshops for parents, teens, and educators, the BBC reports.
- Uncle Sam concerned too. The Federal Trade Commission testified on Capitol Hill about its concerns about teen social networking, basically calling for greater self-regulation on the industry's part. "In testimony before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, FTC Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour said there is a 'need for social networking Web sites - individually, collectively, and, most importantly, expeditiously - to develop and implement safety features to protect children who visit their sites and empower parents to protect their children when they do so'," ConsumerAffairs.com reports.
- "Try to keep a cool head." Teacher and commentator Scott Granneman makes some useful observations for parents and everybody involved with teens using Web 2.0 in "MySpace, a place without MyParents". After running through (and linking to news stories about) a bunch of the latest exploits by teens and victimizing teens on social networks I've linked you to too, he tells this anecdote: "When I was a high school English teacher many years ago, I had a 9th grade student who confided a terrible story to me one day. When she was in the 8th grade, she started prank calling people on weekends to break up her boredom. One Saturday night the guy on the other end of the phone didn't hang up like all the others. Instead, he talked to her. The phone talks continued, and soon they met. You can guess the rest... So since that sicko used the telephone to meet his victim, we should ban phones? Or at least tightly control how kids use them, with age restrictions and credit card verifications? Of course not. The fact is, every new technology has been used by people to perform, or enable, illicit and illegal acts. MySpace, and the Internet in general, simply expands the ability of people to communicate easily over distance more than any other tool that humanity has created... Any time you allow humans to come into contact with each other, there's the potential for exploitation. That doesn't mean disaster is guaranteed, however. It just means that we need to try to keep a cool head and not allow blind emotion and fear to cloud our better judgments." Or our ability to talk with our kids about their social lives, offline and online.
