Disadvantages of MySpace for Military Kids

by Andrea Downing Peck

MySpace profiles can be viewed by anybody on the Web, which means teens who post intensely personal information or sexually provocative photos and comments could be making themselves targets of cyber bullies, sexual predators or simply setting themselves up for embarrassment.

Teens are stretching boundaries online, creating a generation gap with their parents that Collier argues may be “the sex, drugs and rock and roll of the new millennium.’’  She says parents must contend with the need for “constant negotiation” with their children and “it is no different where online life is concerned.”

Collier’s advice is simple:  “Be in their face the way you would be offline about their social lives,” she says.  “Who is on your ‘friends’ list’?  Do you know all 250 people?  Is there anybody on it who has contacted you in a way that makes you uncomfortable?  Questions like that need to be asked.  But this is just using your good old parental instincts.  This is not rocket science.”

Brendler agrees, but adds most parents–military and civilian–are blind to their children’s activities.  While she respects her son’s privacy within his room, Brendler says the family’s computers fall under no such privacy curtain. She knows her son’s computer passwords and monitors his email, MySpace and IM accounts 

“He and I have an agreement,” she explains.  “As long as we are buying his computers, paying for the Internet and he is underage, nothing on them is private.  Absolutely nothing.  That is for his protection as well as his education in life.”

The Ugly Side

Many parents are alarmed to see photos on MySpace of teens posed seductively or flaunting underage drinking.  A former teacher who now home-schools her own children, Ruthie says she has viewed profiles posted by former students and thought, “Oh, my goodness.”

“It’s very easy for them to be involved in something over their head and not realize it,” she explains, “which was our big worry. 

While their daughter’s transgression–creating a stealth MySpace profile–might register only a bleep on the parental radar screen in some households, the Air Force couple sent their teen back into the technology Stone Age, banning her from using all forms of technology.

Brendler says parents do have reasons to be concerned.  “I think being blind to all that kids are into is wrong,” she says.  “We’re talking about very vulnerable kids going through the huge emotional, physical and hormonal changes of puberty.  Even the best kids make bad choices; their brains are not yet mature to handle some of life’s tough stuff.”