I work in a public library, spending half my time in the youth department. This means children from birth to 14. The biggest draw is the computers. Once school gets out until closing, those kids are online. MySpace is where 80% of them go. There is this one family, 3 kids, they are like 8,9 and 14. The younger ones spend the entire time on MySpace. I could have sworn there was a minimum age limit to create an account. Another girl who frequents daily is 12, and gets very cranky without her daily MySpace fix. The other day I sat & asked her what exactly does she do there all day. She said, email, chat, plays games like mobster (or something like that) with her friends and then there are the babies she can create & raise. I sat with her while she explained to me how to create a baby and how to care for it. It seemed alot like DigiPets my kids are begged and cried for a few years ago then let them die because it was too much trouble to play with it.
I understand that people go to these social networking sites to meet people and communicate and have fun and all that. But I see these kids with their friends lists of 50, 100, 200+ people and can't believe it! How could they possibly know so many people, they can't all be in their classes at school. I think the whole situation leads kids to be too trusting of people they don't really know. That person wouldn't lie to me, they're my "friend"! I've known that person for like a year now! Am I the only person that this bothers?
I have had to ground 2 of my kids in 2 separate instances where they got chatting with kids and even though they have been told a hundred times by us and by teachers and everyone on the planet, NOT to give out your personal info, they turned around anyway and gave out our address and phone number over the internet to people. Luckily, the 2 people they gave it to WERE actually kids, and I had to talk to 2 other very upset mothers.
And if you're asking what were my kids doing at places like MySpace if I don't agree with kids their age using it, I'll tell you it's not that I haven't tried. Our ISP has filtering software, we run separate monitoring software that will block certain types of sites and ones we specifically choose. But through word of mouth at school, they discover sites that you can go to that safely get through the filter, that you can then within the frame, log onto sites that are blocked. We then block those as soon as we find out about those as well, but it seems never ending. Sometimes, they'll go to friend's house where there is no parent concerned with Internet activity, sometimes they'll go to the library and use the public computers which do not filter anything. I ask you what's a concerned parent to do?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I feel you on this topic. My little cousins in VA have Myspace accounts, and the youngest is 8 now! His older sister, (12) showed me how to tweak my account! I think Myspace is the fad of our era. It seems the thing to do, but will it interfere with a child's education. Will they spend more time online than in their homework assignments. I believe that answer is yes. Sadly...But then again atleast Facebook has attempted to make education a part of the social agenda.
I've had a Myspace longer than I've had a Facebook, and you know what? One of the reasons I don't use my Myspace anymore is the stupid applications and games now available on the site.
I used to enjoy reading other people's comments and seeing what their friends were up to, and seeing if I knew anybody they knew, etc... but now, the dumb applications fill up everybody's comment space, and most of the time the person whose space you're looking at doesn't even know the person whose application notification is in their comments.
The apps have totally cheapened and depersonalized Myspace. I disabled them on mine, so I don't receive app notifications, but that doesn't change the negative effect apps have on everybody else's spaces.
Wow, I cannot believe those kids spend so much time online after school. What happened to playing outside with friends, or interacting in person with friends instead of interacting online with "friends." Don't they have homework, too.
I don't think children should be allowed to have Myspace accounts, but I guess it's easy to lie about your age to create an account. I don't understand why more parents aren't concerned with things like this, especially when some of their "friends" may not be who they say they are.
Post a Comment