Privacy concerns enter teens’ site

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By The Associated Press

Published: January 6, 2009

CHICAGO — Many teenagers cleaned up their MySpace profiles, deleting mentions of sex and booze and boosting privacy settings, if they got a single cautionary e-mail from a busybody named "Dr. Meg.”

The e-mail was sent by Dr. Megan Moreno, lead researcher of a study of lower-income kids that she says shows how parents and other adults can encourage children to have safer Internet use.

Her message read in part: "You seemed to be quite open about sexual issues or other behaviors such as drinking or smoking. Are you sure that’s a good idea? … You might consider revising your page to better protect your privacy.”

Parents, and even doctors, who care for adolescents "should feel very comfortable looking up” their children’s or patients’ profiles on social networking sites like My-

Space and Facebook, said Moreno, a pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It’s not creepy or an invasion of privacy, she said, but more like reading posters on their walls or slogans on their T-shirts.

Young people don’t consider the consequences of posting their drinking habits and sexual behavior, Moreno said. Several wrote back to "Dr. Meg” saying they had no idea their pages could be viewed by anyone. Such social networking sites have privacy settings, but they’re not always used.

The sites can be a parent’s window into a teenager’s world.

"People who work with teens often have this idea that teens are hard to reach,” she said. But many young people post hobbies and interests on MySpace or Facebook.

"It can be a great icebreaker,” she said.

The study was published in the January issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.