Positives and Negatives
Apart from the social benefits, social networking sites can be used to document school research, promote artistic talents and experiment with other forms of content creation. They provide a way to interact with others who share the same interests and to get constructive feedback on ongoing projects.
Along with these benefits come some risks. Most social networking sites are open to all, especially MySpace, which means that your teen could be exposed to harassment, bullying or sexual advances.
Cyber-bullying and harassment are most often perpetrated by other teens and tend to happen most to older girls and to teens of either gender who have a strong online presence. It may take several forms:
publicizing private instant messages, text messages or e-mails
posting threatening messages
posting photos that will cause embarrassment
spreading rumors
It's rare for harassment to spill over into real-world conflicts, but it can still be a cause of emotional distress for teens.
A greater danger is that teens may become targets of pedophiles. The anonymity of some social networking sites makes it easy for unscrupulous people to target young teens and engage them in harmful conversations. It's easy for predators to pose as teens and lure children into harmful real-world contact as well. Most social networking sites have privacy controls in place, but teens seldom use them. Active monitoring of profiles and behaviors catches some predators, but not all of them.
Another risk is identity theft, which can occur when teens share too much information about their name, date of birth and location.