You may want to relent on letting the kids create their own MySpace pages. According to a new study in the American Academy of Pediatrics journal Pediatrics, kids are at more risk online from instant messaging (IMs) and chat rooms than they are on the much-bedeviled social networking sites like MySpace.
Researchers for the study set out to explore the places online where youngsters were most likely to experience sexual solicitations and harassment. To their surprise, harassment happened 96 percent more often in IMs than on social networking sites.
“Internet safety is not just about whether your child is on MySpace or not,” cautions study author Michelle Ybarra. “You should know what your children are doing on MySpace and Facebook. But you also need to know what your children are doing in school, after school, at parties, at the mall, online – basically all environments in which they engage. You can’t just focus on one place and assume your job is done.”
Depending on the type of harassment and age of children being considered, between nine and 30 percent of children are harassed online every year – shocking in and of itself, true, but also an indicator that the vast majority of young people on the Internet never run into any problems.
So it might just be time to loosen the reins and let the kids have a shot at connecting with their friends via MySpace – under the watchful eye of Mom and Dad, of course.
