As teens embrace blogs, schools sound an alarm
As blogs, social sites explode in popularity, students post more and more personal data online. Schools are concerned. Parents can help.
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."
Cases similar to the one at N.C. State are cropping up across the country. Northern Kentucky University reportedly fined five students and put one on a one-year probation from campus housing after finding pictures, via Facebook, of the students with a keg of beer in their dorm room. The University of California at Santa Barbara recently warned that students living on campus can be disciplined for the content of their Facebook profiles. And Fisher College in Boston expelled a student this fall for posting threatening comments about a campus police officer on the site.Drastic measures
If you suspect your child is keeping you in the dark about Net use and might be in danger, you may decide to take more-serious steps. Some things to consider:
Search-engine sleuthing. It's possible to search on names, nicknames, cell phone numbers, screen names, IM and e-mail addresses. You could discover a blog, personal page or other site that makes your teen vulnerable.
Site seeing. A search won't turn up profiles on social networking sites. You can ask teachers about the most popular sites at school, and search them by e-mail address, town, school and name (though kids rarely use their real name).
Browser clues. You might review the "history" folder in your child's browser cache. Web-savvy teens can empty these, but you may be able to prevent that by password-protecting a PC's settings.
A passing glance. Other common advice is to place computers in high-traffic areas of the house to discourage questionable activities. But this can also dampen your children's enthusiasm for blogging and other creative Web pursuits, which isn't necessarily the goal.
When all else fails. A serious case may mean installing monitoring software, which captures every keystroke, including passwords; logs every Web site visited; records IM and chat room conversations; and captures screenshots. Spectorsoft makes one such program. But be careful: This may alienate your child and should probably only be done if you know he or she is at risk.
An official at N.C. State emphasized the public nature of the forums and stressed that students shouldn't assume such virtual material won't have consequences in the offline world.
"There is no reasonable expectation of privacy" on these sites, said Paul Cousins, director of the office of student conduct at N.C. State. "So I have no concerns about any university becoming aware of issues via Facebook and then following up on those concerns."
In addition to misconduct, schools are concerned about far more serious problems. For instance, Virginia Commonwealth University is developing new guidelines for student Internet usage after the suspected murder this fall of 17-year-old freshman Taylor Behl. Behl used MySpace and similar sites, and though it's unclear whether her online activities had any relation to her death, the case highlights an important issue, VCU's Lepley said.
"In the course of the investigation it became very apparent to university officials just how much information she had put out about herself online," Lepley said. "She and thousands of other people her age put out these Web pages and may not know how vulnerable it could make them."
High schools and middle schools are also keeping a wary eye on teen-oriented blogs and directories like MySpace, Xanga.com and LiveJournal. Some are banning students from visiting such sites while at school, and they're sending letters to parents urging them to monitor children's usage of the sites.
Among these schools are Juneau-Douglas High School in Juneau, Alaska, Mayfield High in Cleveland, Ohio, and Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta, N.J. The Leander Independent School District in central Texas has a similar ban and recently sent letters to the parents of hundreds of middle and high school students, urging them to keep an eye on their children's Internet use. The superintendent of Cape Henlopen school district in southern Delaware also sent such a letter.
Parents and educators are particularly concerned about MySpace because it's so popular among high school students, and most profiles are open for anyone to view, according to Aftab. She hasGetting literate
Kids have developed special lingo around chat rooms and messaging. For instance, "A/S/L" is short for "what's your age, sex and location?" and "POS" means "parents over shoulder." Teenangels.org's translator can get you up to speed.
Another problem with the site is underage users, Aftab said. MySpace prohibits children younger than 14 from creating profiles and restricts access to the profiles of 14- and 15-year-olds. But some children lie about their age, and MySpace has struggled to adequately police the problem, she said. Her Web page includes instructions for parents for deleting underage MySpace accounts.
The company acknowledges these problems and says its
Online guides
As for Facebook, the company says it designed its site to be the online equivalent of a gated community, with membership requiring affiliation with a school or an invitation to join. That helps keep out problem visitors, said Facebook spokesman Chris Hughes.
Regardless, colleges are beginning to do more to educate incoming students on the potential perils of Internet usage. In the wake of the Behl tragedy, VCU is planning to incorporate information about the safe use of blogs and personal Web pages into a safety training course for freshman, starting this winter. Officials at the University of Virginia, where students have complained of Web-related stalking and ID theft, recently urged students to exercise caution when posting information to blogs and personal pages.
Parents, too, can do their part.
"Certainly there are many teens who are savvy with this stuff and understand the risks, but there are those that don't," said Amanda Lenhart, co-author of the Pew study. "It's the role of adults to remind kids that this is a public space."
Child advocates and educators agree that asking teens about what they're doing online is a good first step. Do they have a blog? Who's on their instant message buddy list? Do they have a profile on a social networking site like MySpace? What are they doing to protect their identity online?
If a teen has a blog or online profile, parents should also ask for permission to visit it, some experts said. And they may want to give an older teen a day or two of notice before viewing the site, Aftab said.
And Lenhart agrees. "I would recommend parents approach the child first," she said. "Just as a diary is a specific, personal space, (peeking at a teen's blog) would be seen as an invasion of privacy."
The goal is to engage teens in honest, open discussion, so parents can offer guidance.
From a safety perspective, parents should focus on how teens handle contact from strangers online and whether they disclose any identifying information, such as name, address or phone number, where they go to school, or where they work, Aftab said.
Aftab tells parents to focus on the "three Cs": content, contact and commercialism. Content--what kids are actually saying online and how they say it--often comes as a shock to parents but isn't always the most critical thing. "Their first concern is (obscene) language," Aftab said. "Their bigger concern should be about contact: who can communicate with them that they don't know."
Many of the teen-oriented blog sites now have privacy options that let users restrict who can view their site, giving access only to people they know. Parents concerned about safety may want to suggest or insist their teen use those access controls, Aftab added.
The "greater abandon" shown by the Pew survey's Net-savvy "Internet omnivores" can be a positive force, leading teens to use the Web for multimedia projects; create Web pages for friends and school projects; and help adults handle tasks online; among other things. And the new sites and tools can help drive these creative endeavors. But, as with any powerful implement, caution is key.
"We certainly recognize there are benefits to these sites," VCU's Lepley said. "So the idea is to really talk to students about how to use this kind of tool safely."
CNET News.com's Stefanie Olsen contributed to this report.