When reading this Wired article, I came across a very interesting comment, presumably from a teenager.
Clearly, those adults who think myspace is bad for us kids and will only lead to us being sexually molested clearly has forgotten their teenage years. I’m a teenager, and I use myspace. I have yet to be contacted by someone I don’t know, and i’ve certainly never been molested.
I’m sure you all remember your struggle for independence as teenagers, so why do you insist on restricting ours? Now that technology allows you to keep track of us, its that much easier. We can’t go out on our own because we might be abducted, and we can’t play violent video games because it will cause us to want to shoot up our school. Now we can’t go on the internet because we’ll get molested? Whats next? We can’t sleep in our own beds because someone could come in through our window and hurt us?
Stop being so overprotective, because if you ever want us to grow, we need to experence life. You ask why we spend so much time on the computer. Maybe its because you won’t let us do anything else ‘because its too dangerous"
Until reading this article, I’d never really thought about the effect of the new reality we live in that has parents scared to let their kids outside, to play in the streets, to ride their bikes, to walk to their friend’s houses. MySpace and the other social community allow kids to do what kids want to do – "hang out" – in a safe environment, free from parental control.
