Don’t let your fear raise your kids or I’m on MySpace because it’s SO 2006

Even though adults are online, it still scares them. And kids feel like they have nothing to fear because like Nussbaum says “they’re soaking in it.” ‘It’ being the Internet, social networking sites, brand new technology that makes it ten times easier to keep in touch with their friends. The parents’ fears (based on their lack of knowledge or tech savvy) of all of this, rather rational or not, are lodged in the back of their minds and influencing all their instincts in child rearing. Insofar, that children on the whole are more sheltered and under more surveillance than normal. Like Boyd says, children need a safe space to grow and mature. They need to make mistakes and learn from their own actions what is right and what is wrong. What parents need to be doing is educating their children on who to trust, who not to trust, and how to make good decisions – not keep their kids in so many extra-curricular activities that they don’t have time to socialize and find out who they are outside of classrooms, sports arenas, libraries, and their own homes. It is a big scary world out there, but it was when parents were young as well. I think it’s more productive to be wary of the predators that live in our neighborhoods or are members of families, than to be worried about the lurking creeps on MySpace.

Further, on Boyd’s points regarding the hegemonic teens of Facebook and the subaltern kids of MySpace – I agree with most of it. There is definitely a grittier edge to MySpace compared to the clean cut “Harvard” style of Facebook. Facebook looks more sophisticated, where MySpace has an underground-punk-Bohemianistic feel to it. I joined MySpace first, and Facebook much later. I had not even heard of Facebook until maybe halfway through my first semester here in January of 2006. I took a look at the login page and felt like I wouldn’t belong. I ultimately joined it because I was taking part in a group project and none of my fellow group members used MySpace: can you imagine how well I got along with them? Based on the opinions I just admitted to having, I’ll bet you can.

*Image from a boolean search on Google for "teens addicted to MySpace"*