Parenting social networkers

Even as social-networking sites multiply, so do articles about parenting their most avid users. This is great. It means the coverage is no longer just about sexual predation (there are other, non-criminal risks we all need to be discussing). So the reporting is getting more granular and helpful to parents. Here are some examples: The Sun-Herald in Mississippi led with the experience of 15-year-old Amanda Morris, who checks her MySpace profile about four times a day and whose mom checks it about once a month. In the same article, the Sun-Herald tells the sad story of another teenager who was expelled from school, she told school authorities, for having a handgun in her car because "she feared being physically attacked by a group of girls who recently posted threatening messages on MySpace" – a more extreme example of cyberbullying that we're probably going to hear more about in the coming months, as a risk of online socializing (in IM and phone texting as well as Web sites) which will affect a great many more kids than predators gets increasing coverage. Another good sign: The same day the Sun-Herald also ran a clear-headed, balanced commentary about social networking by Chloe Harvill, high school student and member of the paper's teen advisory board.

In other tech-parenting reports, Wall Street Journal Work & Family columnist Sue Schellenberger looked at "How Young Is Too Young When a Child
Wants to Join the MySpace Set?"; Business Week earlier looked at social sites for the "sandlot set"; and the Washington Post more generally considered "Mom vs. the Machines." In "Experts cite need for online parenting," the Cape Cod Times focuses on parents' general bewilderment with the social Web, and across the country the Tucson Citizen looks at teen socializing online from a southern Arizona perspective. The Vancouver Sun, in the land of what is reportedly western Canada's most popular social-networking site, Nexopia.com, in July went very in-depth on the social Web's attraction for youth and how grownups of all perspectives (parenting, law enforcement, advocacy, etc.) are handling it. See also Wired News's "Teens Online: Not a Freak Zone."