Quiz

Do You Know Where Your Kids Are ... Online?

1.) What is online social networking?

A. Blogging

B. Instant Messaging

C. A hybrid of A and B

2.) Which of these websites DOESN’T involve online social networking?

A. Wikipedia

B. MySpace.com

C. YouTube.com

3.) How many American children aged 12-17 are involved in online social networking?

A. 8%

B. 26%

C. 55%

4.) When MySpace searched for online predators last year, how many did it find on the site?

A. 500

B. 9,000

C. 29,000

5.) What’s an avatar?

A. An animated character that represents you online.

B. A Japanese cartoon.

C. An India-based social networking website.

6.) What’s an “honesty box”?

A. A post about your true profile.

B. A place where students post brutally honest information about each other.

C. A privacy setting.

NEW YORK — Young people in today’s digital age have redefined “hanging out” and “connecting with friends.”

Unlike the shopping mall of the ’80s, the social hangout of the ’00s is the virtual world of the Internet, and it is sometimes more real to kids than real life.

Ninety percent of American teens are online, and the number is growing, according to the PBS Frontline show “Growing Up Online,” which aired Jan. 22.

“This is the first generation to come of age immersed in a virtual world, outside the reach of their parents,” the program noted. “It is said the Internet has caused the greatest generation gap since the advent of rock ’n’ roll.”

Parry Aftab, executive director of WiredSafety.org, who appeared on Frontline, said that it’s a difficult thing for parents because so much of the kids’ social lives are derived from the Internet, and at the hub of it all is their personal profile page.

“If someone is having a party or they got a cool present for their birthday, that’s all announced and managed through their profiles,” said Aftab. “If everybody is communicating through their profile, and your kid doesn’t have one, your kid is now out, socially.”

Aftab shut down her law firm and founded Wired Safety in 1995 after seeing the rape of a 3-year-old in an online video.

Today it is the largest virtual organization, operating in 76 countries. Wired Safety educates people of all ages about Internet safety, including cyberbullying, cyberdating, online predators and identity theft. It also helps victims of cyberabuse.

Teenangels

Wired Safety is making inroads with kids through its Teenangel program, which was launched in two New Jersey Catholic schools in 1999, and now has chapters in public and private schools across the country. Teenangels are 13- to 18-year-old volunteers who are trained to give presentations in schools about online safety and conduct research about Internet use that is cited by the media. Tweenangel, another program, also educates elementary school children about the devastating effects of cyberbullying, which has led some young people to commit suicide.

Teenangels has worked particularly well in Catholic schools where Aftab said parents are more involved with their kids. Still, the online behavior of kids from Catholic schools is no different than kids from public schools, she said, and the kids are getting younger and taking more risks.

“I see more sexual risk for preteens than I do teens,” she said. “They’re engaging in provocative sexual discussions on MySpace. There are kids who aren’t old enough to wear bras who are posing in them, Catholic school kids who are 11 and taking naked pictures of themselves and sending them to the senior boys,” she said. “Once the kids see one kid doing it, they think everyone is doing it and they change their behavior to do the same. It then becomes the norm far more than anyone ever imagined.”

Risky Behavior

One Catholic father in Minneapolis who didn’t want to be named became suspicious when his 17-year-old daughter became overly protective of her cell phone. He found that she and a male acquaintance were sharing titillating conversations and sending graphic nude photos of themselves to each other. The reality that his daughter was not immune to pornography and lust was a wake-up call.

“I was sickened,” he said. “It was like a body blow. It takes you a minute to recover, but you have to get up and keep fighting. I had to take it head on, in probably one of the clumsiest ways that a dad can do. I can’t imagine how horribly shamed she was.”

Getting her to the sacrament of reconciliation, ongoing conversation and counseling have helped their relationship, but the trust is still lacking, he said. He acknowledges that it’s hard for kids growing up today, having to sort through the attitudes portrayed in the home, on the Internet, television and in schools.

“It’s all about parents, being good parents and modeling good situations,” he said, “talking to the kids about the things that need to be discussed, and giving them something like ‘Theology of the Body for Teens’ to work with.”

Sister Mary Kansier, a member of the Marian Sisters of the Diocese of Lincoln, Neb., and administrative coordinator for the Diocese of Lincoln school system, was trained in Internet safety for parent and teen presentations. She maintains a Facebook and MySpace page, and is finding a lot of risky behaviors among kids, often with their parents’ knowledge and consent.

“I once found some pictures on MySpace of some girls I knew in sixth and ninth grade, in bikinis. I was so bothered that I contacted the parents. The mom wrote back and said they thought it was a good thing and didn’t care about it. I was floored,” said Sister Mary.

Posing in suggestive garb, using suggestive screen names and making suggestive remarks on online surveys, are all open invitations to a predator, she said. Most underage kids will also lie about their age, saying they’re 16 or 18, not knowing that when you make yourself older online, adult men are more likely to explore sexual opportunities with you.

“I don’t think kids are conscious of the fact that it’s risky behavior. It’s normal and natural for teenagers to explore their identity, and exploring it online with people they don’t know seems safe to them,” said Sister Mary. “There’s a huge disconnect between what kids actually do online and what kids do in real life.”

Sixteen-year-old Gianna, from Ursuline School in Westchester County, N.Y., said her first experience with MySpace was in seventh grade when no one knew much about it. She put up fake information and didn’t post photos, but was nervous about it.

“I didn’t know what it was and wasn’t quite grasping who could see this,” she recalled. “Some of my friends would fill out the profile questions; others would put in fake facts. I wasn’t really getting it but everyone had one. Then I started hearing about it on the news and my mother told me about a girl who met a guy online, and got murdered. I just deleted it after that.”

‘I Said So’

Gianna feels safer online now that she knows what she’s doing, and she’s trying to help other young kids as a Teenangel presenter for Wired Safety.

“Our surveys show that a lot of kids don’t care about safety, because they feel their freedom is impaired and what’s the point,” said Gianna. “We show them that they can still put pictures online and participate in social networking, but there’s a compromise and they can do it safely.”

While most young people view cyber communities as simply another opportunity to pursue social relationships, people invent identities on the Internet all the time, and hide behind a false sense of anonymity, noted G. Alexander Ross, professor and dean of students at the Institute for Psychological Sciences in Virginia.

“The attitude in our society is self-expression of any kind is good, and that’s not going to help our children at all. Freedom is not a license to do whatever one wants, but freedom to pursue the good,” said Ross. “If we allow them to do things that may in fact be harmful, what does that say about our love for the child?”

Ross said adolescents and teenagers have far less volitional control over temptations and near occasions of sin. They don’t have the strength of character when they are developing, yet they are so prone to pressures from all sorts of areas, and many aspects of our culture lead them to go further than they can handle.

Middle schoolers are now the targets of gangs who are actively recruiting kids as young as 12 through online discussions and websites where kids download music and pictures that glorify gangs. Assaults or gang fights have resulted from Internet profiling, according to a report in CBS5.com.

In all her discussions with young people, Aftab said, more than anything they just want a place where they can communicate with their friends, free from dangers, unknown strangers and degrading advertising.

“We need to come up with a place [online] where they can hang out,” she said. “In the meantime, parents need to recognize, ‘because I said so,’ still works in certain quarters.”

Barb Ernster is based in

Fridley, Minnesota.

(Part 3 in the series will explore how Catholics are using online social networking to evangelize the culture and promote Catholic events and culture.)

Answers

1. C. In online social networking, users create virtual communities and link to friends.

2. A. Other sites include: Facebook.com, Xanga.com, YouTube.com. Yahoo360.com, MSN Spaces, AOL Red Blogs and LiveJournal.com.

3. C. 55% according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

4. C. MySpace found and deleted 29,000 sexual predators from the site, which targets young people.

5. A. Some teens live vicariously through their avatars, including explicit “adult” activities.

6. B. Honesty boxes are the source of much cyber-bullying and sometimes are used for people to elicit put-downs of fellow students.

Safety Tips For Parents

• Most experts say social networking is not for kids under 14, and no child should be allowed on MySpace.

• Some experts say 12 and 13 is okay on certain social networks for certain children. Parents should decide, and help set up the profile, and monitor who their kids’ “friends” are.

• Parents should also have the log-on password, and make sure the profile is set to “private.”

Resources:

National Institute on Media

and the Family (mediafamily.org)

WiredSafety.org

iSafe.com