December 9, 2005
As Janet Kornblum of USA Today remarks, America’s teenagers are growing up “with a mouse in one hand and a remote control in the other.” The generation Microsoft founder Bill Gates calls “Generation E” has never known a time when information was not instantly accessible on the Internet, or when communication was not available at warp speed through instant-messaging, e-mail and Internet websites.
All this leads to new opportunities—and to new dangers. One of the latest challenges faced by parents is the development of teenage blogging. Taking advantage of Internet Web sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and Xanga, many teenagers and college students are creating personal blogs, which are essentially online diaries accessible to the public. As Kornblum explains, these teenagers “now pour out their hearts, minds and angst in personal online diaries.”
There is real danger here, and parents had better check it out fast.
