The things that teenagers will share online

A girl in London looks at a page on Facebook. Studies have shown that many teens using social...
A girl in London looks at a page on Facebook. Studies have shown that many teens using social networking sites such as MySpace (below) or Facebook are sharing information about sexual behaviour, substance abuse and violence.
These days, almost all teenagers use social networking sites to connect with friends and share details of their lives.

And the majority of those teenagers are sharing information publicly that may hurt their chances of being admitted to college or securing a desirable job.

That's the word from two studies on adolescent revelations of risky behaviours on MySpace and on reducing the display of those behaviours on MySpace.

The studies were conducted by the Centre for Child Health, Behaviour and Development at Seattle Children's Research Institute and the University of Washington.

For the first study, researchers targeted 500 random teenager profiles on MySpace and found 54% of the teenagers discussed and/or posted photos revealing sexual behaviour, substance abuse or violence.

In the study, girls were less likely to display violent information than boys, and teens who reported a sexual orientation other than "straight" showed increased displays of references to sexual behaviours.

Profiles that demonstrated engagement in sports, hobbies or religious involvement were associated with fewer displays of risky behaviours.

"In the '90s we talked about a digital divide that separated rich from poor.

"That divide is quickly narrowing, but a new one is emerging rapidly: the 21st-century digital divide separates too many clueless parents from their Internet-savvy children," study co-author Dimitri Christakis says.

In discussing the study, Mr Christakis encourages parents to become Internet-savvy. Parents need to monitor childrens' activity online just as they do in the real world, he says, noting that teens historically lack judgement.

The second study on these risky behaviours gives parents an easy solution to the current social networking scene - send an email to the teen referencing the publicly available information on the teen's MySpace or Facebook page.

When lead author Megan Moreno did that to 190 teens, 42% of them either changed their pages or made them private.

Ms Moreno and Mr Christakis recommend googling a teenager's name with them and discussing what information can be found.

A recent incident in Michigan illustrates their point.

A middle school student in Farmington faces disciplinary action at school after posting a threatening message on a Facebook page.

A parent saw the message and alerted the school district, which locked down the school for a short time while police investigated.

Stacey Garfinkle writes the On Parenting blog for washingtonpost.com, from which this article is adapted.

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