MySpace.com--evil or just misunderstood?

There has been a huge uproar recently about the web hosting place known as MySpace.com. This site has been featured on several national news programs and NPR. Schools are blocking and banning it. Newspapers are warning parents to visit their children's sites to monitor content. And parents are freaking out.

First, a little bit about MySpace. It is essentially a web hosting source. People can register with MySpace and get their very own webpages. They can then post their blogs (much like here) and pictures, but there is much more to it than that. Everyone fills out a profile, like here, and creates lists of their friends and contacts and links to their sites. People can chat, surf the pages, and do searches to find others with similar interests to their own. It is functionally an online social community.

From my own limited experience with MySpace (my students use it and love it), I have noticed several pros and cons about the pages.

PROS
1) MySpace provides an easy way to maintain a community of friends who cannot otherwise have daily contact with each other. An example of this would be the girls at my school. Since this is a same-sex, private school, all the girls have lots of friends who do not attend school here. Many of them attended school together when they were younger, or they live in the same neighborhoods. Also, the girls have male friends (either "boyfriends" or just guys they hang out with) whom they obviously do not see during their day-to-day routine. These girls come to school in the mornings, stay all day, participate in extracurricular afterschool activities or sports, and then go home only to eat dinner, do their homework, and go to bed to start all over the next day. Rather than trying to get this large and diverse group, kids from school and kids from elsewhere, together in a single location like a mall, bowling alley, or movie theatre, the girls can maintain their circle of friends and contact many of them at the same time.

2) MySpace, just like the Internet in general, expands people's horizons by giving them access to people in different parts of the country, different cultures, and different backgrounds at the literal click of a computer mouse. The minimum age requirement for MySpace is fourteen, so everyone from teenagers to computer literate Golden Agers can stay in touch with friends from anywhere and everywhere. Where else can you debate the validation of the humor in Monty Python and the Holy Grail with someone in Moose Jaw, Canada, at three in the morning without leaving the house?

3) It is easy to use. People can constantly alter, refresh, and update their music, pictures, and contact information. You can easily find people who list similar likes, dislikes, and hobbies as yourself. The sites can be creative and fun to view.

4) MySpace gives people an easy and safe place to "meet". Here in the big city, teens should not be out in many parts of town after dark. Since they don't get home from school and other activities until then, and since many of the old-fashioned and traditional "hang outs" for teens no longer exist, MySpace gives the kids a theoretical hang out in the safety of their own homes.

CONS
1) MySpace is not really "my space". People do not seem to remember or understand that the Internet is a PUBLIC PLACE. Anything put on a MySpace page can be found by Googling, Stumbling, and a variety of other search methods. The information on a MySpace page is essentially as public as messages put in the newspaper, hung on public restroom walls, and taped to bus stop signs. Putting a photo of yourself in a skimpy bikini on your MySpace page is just like putting on that bikini and standing in the middle of a crowded mall; chances are good that someone other than your immediate friends will see you. Teenagers get really offended when their parents view the teens' MySpace pages, but hey, it's just like renting space on a billboard next to the (information) superhighway and getting mad because your parents drove by. It's PUBLIC, and whether you want to believe it or not, lots of people other than your friends make up PUBLIC.

2) MySpace takes things that used to be contained within small social groups and makes them very widely known. If you've ever seen what some teenagers post on their MySpace pages, you know what I mean. The MySpace page has become an evolved version of the notes that used to get passed around at school. So-and-so is mad at somebody because of something she did, did not do, should have done, or said. So she posts a nasty comment on her MySpace page about that somebody, just like passing that note in class. But now, that nasty comment is viewed by a much wider audience than just those few people privy to the note at school. People at other schools, in other towns, all over the place now know what that somebody did to so-and-so. That somebody now has a major problem; her reputation has been destroyed, not just at her school but all over the place, because so-and-so posted that comment in a public place. This is a thousand times worse than the "For a good time call..." message in that gas station restroom. Posting comments about people in such a public forum can lead to slander and libel, and ultimately lawsuits. Parents can now prove that so-and-so is bullying their little somebody because they can pull up the website, print it off, and BAM, there's your proof.

3) MySpace cannot create a "real" community. On the Internet, people do not have to be themselves. They can make up their own identities, not necessarily for nefarious purposes, but because they do not like themselves the way they are. Think about it. When a teenager goes in real life to meet friends at the mall, everyone can see if that teenager doesn't dress cool, is chunky, or has zits. In person that person must be himself or herself because there is nothing to hide behind. On the Internet, people can carefully control what perceptions others may have. You only put the pictures up of yourself that make you look skinny, or where you had the zits airbrushed out, or where you looked "just right". You can tell others than you are five-eight, 120 lbs, with blue eyes and blonde hair even if you are five-two, 145 lbs, with plain ol' brown eyes and mousy hair. While not everyone creates this alter ego for evil, some do. A 45-year-old man can claim to be a hunky 18-year-old guy and chat with teenaged girls in the privacy of his own home. Many girls feel "safer" being overly forward with someone over the Internet, so perhaps they flirt more than necessary, reveal too much personal information, and before they know it they have a twisted stalker waiting to snatch them off the street someday.

I'm not saying MySpace is the devil and that no one should be on it. Just like the Internet in general and many other things, like cars, medications, and alcohol, MySpace is something good and useful that can easily be misused, especially by younger people. Parents MUST supervise their children on the Internet and on MySpace. That's just it, right there. Parents don't let their kids drive without training and licensing, they don't let kids medicate themselves, they don't let their kids drink (or at least they SHOULDN'T). They should not let their kids use the Internet without knowing where the kids are going and what they are viewing. Parents should regularly view their kids' websites, especially any personal sites the kids post information on. Many parents feel guilty about doing this, like they are reading their child's diary that was stuffed under his or her mattress. PARENTS SHOULD NOT FEEL THIS WAY! The child is putting this information in a public place. If complete strangers have the right to view this information, the parents have the right as well. If kids get indignant about it, tough. They need to find a river, build a bridge, and get over it. If they don't want their parents to know that information, they shouldn't post it in public, should they?