What do you know about boys using myspace.com

[yellow_hammer]

Myspace is banned at the yellow_hammer home - and will continue to be until further notice. I have a zero tolerance for web sites - if there is one instance of something that I don't like on a web site then it is banned.

 

I'm an IT professional and so people often ask me about giving their kids access to the internet. I give them this analogy...

 

Would you let your kids drink water from the tap if occasionally, if they accidentally turned the knob the wrong way, something other than water came out of the tap? Sometimes it could be alcohol, sometimes sewage, but most of the time water. Of course they say no.

 

I then tell them that they shouldn't give their kid access to the internet unless they intend to monitor it closely. The computer must have filtering software, it must be in a public place where other people will often see what is on the screen, and they cannot use it when no one is around. I also recommend logging software that keeps track of both sides of a chat sessions.

 

It is serious business, don't take it lightly.

[ASM59]

Sunday, at our Church's youth meeting, our Youth Minister asked the question, "How many of you have a MySpace account?" Over 90% of them raised their hands. His next question was, "How many of you have more than one MySpace account?" About 15% of them raised their hands. He said that he had information that 2 of every three MySpace accounts are "fake". In other words, they have incorrect ages listed or other fictitious information; you cannot trust who you are talking to on MySpace. He said that many of the "fictitious accounts" are set up at the same time as the "parent approved account". So, your parents can check your MySpace account, but know nothing about your other account(s). It's on these other accounts (with fictitious information) that the "real" information is shared.

 

My 14 year old niece, was recently caught with a second account. Her parents thought everything was OK, because they monitored her MySpace account. What they didn't know is that she had another account where she was listed as being 17 years old. She had an "on-line relationship" with a 19 year old boy. She had his picture and he had hers, they knew where each other lived and had each others cell phone numbers. She got caught by her mother who noticed a strange number on the Cellular bill. It took a while, but they discovered what was going on and suspended her computer privileges. They also called the local police department and asked if this could be a case of a sexual predator. The police assured them that this boy had no record of any such thing and the officer that she talked to went over to talk to the boy. He really had no idea that she was only 14 years old and told the police officer that he would not have any further contact with her.

 

It is scary, make sure you monitor your kids on these accounts. As was mentioned there are programs available for parents. Some will monitor for key words that are typed and will log a string of text so you can see the context in which that word or words were typed. Keep an eye on your kids; they're risk takers!

 

ASM59

[mmhardy]

As usual on this forum, we have managed to demonize another element of modern society. No one has mentioned that there are over 100 groups within myspace that have dedicated Scouting themes.

 

It is given with this Internet technology that as a parent:

 

Monitor it...of course.

 

Watch your kids...duh...your responsible.

 

However if you think that myspace is some kind of freak fad for perverts....son...you better sit down. Business week had an article called The Myspace Generation that points out some interesting figures.

 

"MySpace.com, whose membership has nearly quadrupled since January alone, to 40 million members. Youngsters log on so obsessively that MySpace ranked No. 15 on the entire U.S. Internet in terms of page hits in October, according to Nielsen//NetRatings."

 

The article further notes..." Although networks are still in their infancy, experts think they're already creating new forms of social behavior that blur the distinctions between online and real-world interactions. In fact, today's young generation largely ignores the difference. Most adults see the Web as a supplement to their daily lives. They tap into information, buy books or send flowers, exchange apartments, or link up with others who share passions for dogs, say, or opera. But for the most part, their social lives remain rooted in the traditional phone call and face-to-face interaction.

 

The MySpace generation, by contrast, lives comfortably in both worlds at once. Increasingly, America's middle- and upper-class youth use social networks as virtual community centers, a place to go and sit for a while (sometimes hours). While older folks come and go for a task, Adams and her social circle are just as likely to socialize online as off. This is partly a function of how much more comfortable young people are on the Web: Fully 87% of 12- to 17-year-olds use the Internet, vs. two-thirds of adults, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

 

Teens also use many forms of media simultaneously. Fifteen- to eighteen-year-olds average nearly 6 1/2 hours a day watching TV, playing video games, and surfing the Net, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey. A quarter of that time, they're multitasking. The biggest increase: computer use for activities such as social networking, which has soared nearly threefold since 2000, to 1 hour and 22 minutes a day on average."

 

Companies like Coca-Cola and Proter & Gamble are spending millions on this Social Networking area for marketing to todays fickle youth. It huge business. There is a news report today that says myspace is worth $15 billion.

 

So my question remains...are we, representing a supposedly a primer youth organization going to sit like a house on the side of road and let an opportunity to connect to todays youth pass us by or are we going to find ways and offer ideas to connect with this "wired generation"

 

What do you think? What are your ideas to use Internet Social Networking to advance Scouting?

[scoutldr]

I've been accused of being an old fuddy-duddy. I'll admit it. But my concern is how todays teens and pre-teens are spending their time on Earth. How is spending 4-5 hours a day on Myspace or playing computer games or listening to obscene lyrics on their illegally downloaded iPod preparing them to survive in the world? I'm sorry, but we are launching a generation of functional and social illiterates because we are not taking the time to make them study and learn. How many kids today do 2-3 hours of homework a night, like we used to do? How many can balance a checkbook, diagram a sentence, explain the platforms of the current political parties, change their own oil, or like, carry on like a conversation in like proper English and stuff with like someone like older than they like are? IF they are going to be successful adults, they simply don't have time for this crap. They are the future voters of this country, and I am truly afraid. The Eagle candidates that I see are a ray of hope, but they are a very, very small percentage.

[mmhardy]

I guess the question is whose world will they survive in? My G-G-dad was a large animal vet and remembers when horse an buggy was the only way folks got around. When cars came around it was a HUGE change in the social underpinning of our society. I'm sure that there were folks thinking that if a young man didn't know how to handle a horse in 1910 that he would amount to nothing.

 

As Business Week points out these kids see no difference between the on-line and off-line world. Again your falling victim to seeing only the ills of the technology. What are ways that Scouting can benefit and reach out?

[OldGreyEagle]

who was it that said:

 

"Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers."

 

Oh yeah, Socrates, hope his assessment of youth is off...

 

Anyway, as I thought had been established early on in this thread, the internet and MySpace is a tool. As a tool it is neither inherently good or bad, it just is. Now, how can troops use it?

 

Well, heck, are you having a hard time getting the PLC together or is attendance sparse? How about a virtual PLC meeting. The SPL "hosts" it and others chime in contributions. It might be tough to get started, but how many flilaments did Edison try before he settled on tungsten?

 

Private Chat room Patrol meetings might work as well as well as an internet bulletin board for patrol/troop members to post reminders and ask questions. If you dont have adults who know how to do this, I am sure some scout would love to explain it. (talk about youth lead!!!)

 

 

[Hunt]

"How many kids today do 2-3 hours of homework a night, like we used to do? How many can balance a checkbook, diagram a sentence, explain the platforms of the current political parties, change their own oil, or like, carry on like a conversation in like proper English and stuff with like someone like older than they like are? IF they are going to be successful adults, they simply don't have time for this crap."

I have to think that excellent computer skills will be more important for this generation of boys that will be skills like changing their own oil. I agree with you about ignorance of politics, but I'm not sure that was any better when I was young. But I have to disagree with you about homework. My kids have way more homework than I ever did, and they are doing critical writing much earlier than we did. I guess I don't see much difference between spending an hour on Myspace and spending an hour watching Gilligan's Island, which many reasonably successful people of my era did every day after school.

[yellow_hammer]

mmhardy,

 

Your message sound an awful lot like "all the other kids are doing it" - which is an argument that carries no weight with me. The potential for really bad things to happen on myspace is too great for me to allow my kids to use it.

 

Hunt said,

 

"I guess I don't see much difference between spending an hour on Myspace and spending an hour watching Gilligan's Island, which many reasonably successful people of my era did every day after school."

 

Then you need to take another look at Myspace. Ginger never did some of the things that you'll see there - at least not on TV. Mary Ann, of course, never did anything wrong. ;-)

 

 

 

 

[mmhardy]

Carefull on that yellow_hammer, your missing my point. My question remains...Given that so many young folks are utilizing social network tools like myspace is anyone using this tool to reach out into this vast communitee to introduce the Scouting philosophy.

 

So far only OldGreyEagle has offered a suggestion. Which is to have virtual patrol meetings. Excellent idea.

 

There is protecting and smothering. Teaching kids to make good choices and allowing them to do so out in the world is parenting too.

[yellow_hammer]

mmhardy,

 

Gotcha. I think that is a good idea BUT I would do it outside of myspace. It's pretty easy to set up a forum like this one or a blog even. Set one up and let the boys have at it.

[Aidan_MacAnBhaird]

Hey mmhardy - yello-hammer has a very valid point. We as adults who have perused the myspace web site, and especially those that log in as 14-16 year-old boys and girls have a pretty good working knowledge regarding what to expect. We as adults can often sense when a conversation or a chat thread is turning unacceptable, but most teens just don't get it. So yes, we can monitor away, but what would be your advise to a daughter that just fat fingered a button from an unsolicited cam-chat, only to see a grown man about your age performing live on screen. Of course delete it. Now delete it from your daughters brain. What a wonderful intro to a sex-ed talk!

 

Now as adult leadership of the scouting movement, using myspace as a scouting place gives your tacket approval to the images that tend to be throughout the site in order to get to the area you have created for the youth. It doesn't matter if you agree with it or not, as far as the child (and they are in fact still children), and often their parents are concerned, the subcontious and contious both relate YOUR tackit approval.

 

Now go one step further and watch a scout or potential scout whose parents do not pay attention to their internet use get sucked in to a bad situation. YOU and BSA are now at fault. Unfortunately in this day and age, parents are never liable or at fault for anything for the most part. It is just too ripe a situation to completely dismantle everything scouting has tried to build up and maintain.

 

I like OGE's idea too. How about on a site that is less sexually pervasive, or where at least one must actively choose to peruse the "adult content" areas of a site. Myspace is cool today, but go find the statistics on their approval ratings from teens. They are dropping. Why? Other sites are popping up, and myspace is starting the downward slope of becomming, "like, so 5-minutes ago, like, ya-know?". Using electronic communication in scouting is a cool tool. But we all need to use it responsibly.

 

 

[Trevorum]

These young whipper-snappers! Why, in my day, when we wanted to exchange notes, we first had to kill the goose, grind up the galls for ink, write it out longhand, and then hand deliver it. Walking uphill both ways. And of course we were blissfully ignorant of naughty talk. Why, we didn't learn about s*x until after we'd been married. For three years.

 

[OldGreyEagle]

And you forgot Trev, that we LLLLIIIKKKEEDDDDDD it !!!

[mmhardy]

Actually there have been a couple of good points. Myspace.com is most certainly not the ONLY Social Network out on the Internet. But it has the worst reputation, perhaps by design. (Press coverage good or bad = free PR)There certainly other services may adhire to a more acceptable decorum. I found the following "other" social network sites.

 

CampusBug, Tribe, Facebook,Faces.com, Neighborwork.com, LinkedIn

Orkut,Swellster.com,Yahoo! 360... and about 80 others.

 

One Family Friendly Social Network Site is called Imbee.com, it says its a secure, social network and blogging site. And it's geared at kids ages 8 to 14. Offers email, instant message, and swap pictures.

 

 

 

 

[BrentAllen]

Be careful what you post, eh?

 

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/National/Gossipy_Blogger.html

 

Blogger Sought for Posts on Ga. Teen Sex

ATHENS, Ga. Authorities are searching for whoever posted a long list and description of supposed sexual encounters between dozens of high school students on the online networking site MySpace.com.

 

Oconee County Sheriff's officials said they were investigating who posted the gossip about North Oconee High School students Sept. 1-9. Since gossip isn't a crime, the sheriff's report lists the offense as distributing obscene materials to minors. The list describes sexual encounters and could be accessed by people younger than 18.

 

"There's a lot of difference between writing on a bathroom wall and distributing it all over the world on the Internet where anyone has access to it," Lt. David Kilpatrick told the Athens Banner-Herald for a story published Sunday.

 

Students argued with one another, disrupting classes, when most found out about the MySpace blog, said principal John Osborne.

 

Kilpatrick said that MySpace gave him the e-mail address of the person who created the site, but that it was an anonymous Yahoo account. He said he would subpoena BellSouth, the Internet service provider used to create the e-mail address, to try to determine who paid for the Internet service.

 

Any student found to have created the site could be expelled because the school's conduct code covers off-campus behavior that affects school life, Osborne said. He said they might also face lawsuits from parents of students cited in the postings.

 

 

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October 1, 2006 - 6:59 p.m. EDT