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__ Adolesent Social Networking Activities: What Adults Don't Know __

This was an interesting article on the use of social networking sites by teenagers today. It acknowledges that teenagers today use technology in ways that weren't even thought possible three to five years ago. In addition to that they expect it to be instant and have the ability to customize and collaborate with others. Chats, blogs, videoconferencing, and social networking is happening constantly across the globe. With access to many of these social tools there is the possibility of making contact with other individuals that are predatory in nature. To prevent this many parents and school districts have installed monitoring software to observe or block social networking sites. Others suggest that having discussions with their teenager and setting online safety rules are better used in protecting them online. They seperated the study groups by parent-child pairs with a high level of agreement in awareness of what their teenager was doing and another parent-child pair with a low correlation. The lower group was characterized by some different circumstances such as; greater access to computers in private locations, teens posted more personal information and photos, teens were less likely to report that they feel comfortable coming to their parents if they were in trouble. (23.4% of teens in the high level of agreement group reported they would not tell their parents if they were in trouble; this number jumps to 46.7% in the low-correlation pairs.) Filters and rules did not seem to affect the teenagers behavior or level of communication about what they do online. The biggest factor that seemed to affect their online behavior was through discussions with parents and the comfort level of the teen coming to his or her parent when in trouble.