Adolescent Autonomy Threatened: MySpace to Give Parents Access

In January, MySpace.com announced that it would soon give parents access to their children's information on the social networking site. According to the United Press International, free software named "Zephyr," set for release this summer, will allow parents to see the name, age, and location their children are displaying on MySpace. A parent would see something like the image on the right, but it would be the page of the parent's child. This move to give parents more access is apparently an attempt to prevent being sued by thirty- three U.S. attorneys general. MySpace is giving parents what they want because MySpace does not want to lose money. Unfortunately, MySpace has forgotten about the teenagers' privacy. On the surface, the decision to allow parents to see their children's MySpace names and ages seems harmless at the least. After all, law enforcement officials report that dozens of teens have been molested and some murdered by people they first met through MySpace. The problem is that the information parents will be allowed to see (name, age, location) cannot help them stop their children from meeting dangerous people online, unless of course a teenage girl decides to call herself "I want to be raped." Teenagers will continue to meet dangerous people online, and parents will gradually be given more and more access until their teenagers' web pages are no longer private forums. During human development, it is necessary to achieve certain salient developmental tasks in order to adapt in a healthy manner and move on to the next stage of development. The salient developmental tasks to be achieved during adolescent development are intimacy in friendships and romantic relationships, academic achievement, and autonomy from one's parents. The adolescent must gradually move away from the parents in order to create his or her own identity. In "What to Know About Teen Independence," Kathleen Boyce Rodgers, a former assistant professor of Family Life, reports that, "Adolescents need to explore their world more independently so they can learn to feel confident in themselves and their abilities...They may begin to experiment with new ways to dress; or spend more time with friends and less time with family." Naturally, parents struggle with their teens' newfound independence. They are tempted to remain protective and controlling. Contrary to common belief, this is not in adolescents' best interest. Rodgers advises parents to monitor the behavior of teens without being intrusive, to let teens practice decision-making with minimal parental guidance, and to provide opportunities for teens to be independent within a safe environment.

The truth is that MySpace is a safe environment. The victims of sexual assault who met their attackers on MySpace had to agree to meet these strangers in person. MySpace is simply another place for predators to find victims. It is not any different than the mall or the park. We have all been taught "Don't talk to strangers." This mantra needs to be revised to say, "Don't talk to strangers whatsoever, whether you are online or at the mall." Teenagers that fall prey to predators online are not victims of poor security, but rather victims of poor education. While parents constantly checking their kids' MySpace pages will do nothing more than aggravate teenagers struggling to achieve autonomy, pro-actively educating these same teenagers may save their lives. Furthermore, evidence shows that most teens use MySpace responsibly, not hap- hazardly. A 2006 Pew Internet & American Life Project survey of 953 American adolescents ages 12- 17 found that 66% of teens with MySpace profiles allow only approved friends to access their profiles. Moreover, most teens knew the difference between private and public profiles, and most of them who reported using MySpace to make new friends were actually referring to friends of friends that they had met, not strangers. Steve Jones, pictured on the left, is a communications professor who studies new media at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Jones states that, "One of the things to take away from this report should be a sense of 'the kids are alright.' It's clear that teens are not just willy-nilly using social networking sites and making themselves vulnerable to predators." Jones admits that there are some teenagers who are careless and some even invite trouble, but the independence of the responsible adolescents should not be intruded upon by overly concerned parents. Contrary to what most parents believe, teenagers not wanting their parents to see their web pages does not mean that the teenagers are hiding anything. They are simply trying to use MySpace for the purpose that the name suggests, to have a private place to express themselves and exert their growing independence. The money and time being spent on creating software for parents to annoy their teenagers by nagging them about their MySpace names would be much better spent on software or programs to educate adolescents about the dangers of online predators.