My Space, Facebook, etc.

I wanted to thank Allan Katz for sending me the link to this important article about keeping kids safe on My Space. While some of our kids (like kids in every other yeshiva high school in this country) definitely do have My Space pages, Facebook is generally the social networking site of choice amongst yeshiva day school kids. While perhaps a tad safer than My Space, just about everything mentioned in this article applies to Facebook as well. It is also worth noting that My Space and Facebook no longer have the market cornered either. This wikipedia entry lists another 60 or so similar sites, and it is only a matter of time before kids from our community and communities like ours begin building virtual communities on those sites as well. It is critical, therefore, that we create relationships with our children in which we can talk to them openly and honestly about their virtual lives and that we take the same steps to protect them in the "virtual" world as we do in the "real" world.