Zooming in on ClubPenguin

Grownup Michael Agger's experience as a penguin was quite different from the impressions left by Emily's "focus group" of 11-year-olds (he might've been a little more ingenuous than they - see previous post). Michael, an associate editor at Slate.com, spent enough time in ClubPenguin to observe various behavioral patterns, to understand how the safety features work, and to go a little flippy on the iceberg that penguin urban legend says might tip if enough penguins stand on one side of it.

As for behaviors, he notes: "Club Penguin may be heavily monitored, but, similar to school, messing with the authority figures is part of the fun…. Club Penguin regulars seem to enjoy their outlaw status, posting videos on YouTube of how they got the boot. Better yet are the tribute videos to banned penguins. This one uses the Puffy Combs ode to Biggie Smalls, 'I'll Be Missing You,' as a soundtrack."

Counter to Emily's observation, he suggests "it's slightly hypocritical to tell them to turn off the computer and go play kick the can. Looking around my workplace, I see a lot of adults spending their entire day flirting/working/planning on instant messaging. Welcome to the club, kids."

Here, too, is the Washington Post on Disney's acquisition of ClubPenguin.

'What kids like to do online'

Fun article at Slate.com by mom and author Emily Yoffe, who polled her 11-year-old's peer group about the question implied in the headline. Among other things, the "focus group" confirmed (qualitatively, anyway) my suspicion that one of the appeals (for the kids) of online play is that it's just kid stuff right now - Mom or Dad can't possibly know about all the sites they use and if s/he does, s/he doesn't have time to keep up with all their ins and outs. It'll be a while before we catch up with our digerati, kids know very well.

Anyway, with the group, Emily visits several tween-targeting virtual-world sites that have some things in common, including buying stuff for your avatar with virtual money. "To purchase this fake clothing and furniture [in virtual world sites] requires fake money, and to earn it, players are required to play a series of arcade-style games. What better lesson can we teach our kids: If you've just blown through your home-equity loan, you can always avoid bankruptcy by spending a couple of days in Vegas." The kids, she found, don't ask Mom or Dad to pay for the paid version of these sites because that would only "draw undue attention to [the kids' online] leisure activities." So her daughter and friends currently prefer a site by General Mills called Millberry.com.

As for avatar friends in these virtual worlds (e.g., ClubPenguin), one child "thought the befriending feature was something of a sham. First of all, these penguin friendships were too meaningless even for kids who do much of their real-life socializing online. Second of all, because she wasn't a [paying] member, Ellie was embarrassed to invite people to her barren igloo because it looked 'pathetic'." Many parents will sympathize with Emily's conclusion about the sadness of on-screen play replacing the old hands-on kind we pre-Digital Age types engaged in. But the nostalgia in this response, plus too much exposure to very negative media and political hype about online risks, may keep us from helping our kids take advantage of the benefits of the social Web for youth.

Social networkers' virtual dossiers

Bet you didn't know that there's probably a "dossier" on any social networkers you know out there on the Web. The Detroit Free Press talked to the CEO of a new service called PeekYou, which is basically "a people search engine. And if you have a profile on one of the many social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook, it's being tracked and aggregated and used to compile a virtual dossier on you." The company, which aims to be the Web version of the phone white pages, already has about 50 million profiles in its database. "What does that mean? If you are in one of the social networking sites, running your name through PeekYou aggregates all the info into a profile that can be ... well, pretty revealing." PeekYou will remove a person's profile, but only if they ask to be removed, so to protect their privacy they have to know about PeekYou. CEO Michael Hussey told the Free Press that social networkers need to post in their profile only what they're comfortable having people read (or turn on privacy features - I'm assuming that if profiles are private, PeekYou can't crawl them). For a different kind of exposure online, see also "Google Spy" at Slate.com.

Online socializing in Lithuania & Russia

This isn't just another business story. Since I'm writing this in St. Petersburg, it's fun to see a news story about social networking in both Lithuania and Russia. Russian tech-news site CNews reports that Forticom, which operates Lithuanian social site One.lt, has acquired a 25% stake in Russian social-networking site Dnoklassniki.ru. CNews says that the Russian site's 4 million registered users generally skew older than One.lt's, but Forticom's just glad to break into the Russian market, which it has been trying to do for some time.

'The Naked Generation'?

"We are the Naked Generation," writes Caroline McCarthy of herself and her peers born in "1980-something." She blogs at CNET that - unlike Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie - "we didn't have 'socialite' already on our resumes, so we turned to the Web." It is "more than just our stage; it's our dressing room, our cocktail lounge and, most notably, our PR department." The Naked Generation, she adds, is smart and knows it, "so they think they can use online exhibition as an advantage rather than an embarrassment. The word to highlight there is 'think'." A lot of adults reflexively believe her - adults who don't understand the full scope of what's going on in MySpace, Facebook, Xanga, Bebo, and so many other blogging and social-networking sites. The problem with McCarthy's view and that expressed in a more academic article on online self-exposure - "Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism" - is that they generalize way too much, and they fuel parents' fears because they continue to fix our attention on only one aspect of the social Web. Despite her eye-catching phrase, McCarthy's not actually talking about a whole generation. She's talking about one group of social networkers and bloggers - those who, for whatever reason, are into self-exposure - and one aspect of Web 2.0. So is researcher Christine Rosen, when she asserts that "the creation and conspicuous consumption of intimate details and images of one’s own and others’ lives is the main activity in the online social networking world." Certainly there is over-self-exposure in social sites. Some users do use them as popularity contests, for self-marketing, and toying with lightweight "relationships." But to say those are basically what social networking's all about is a massive generalization. Social networking is whatever any user wants it to be. A profile or blog is a reflection of oneself, or whatever persona a user is projecting in a given moment. That can be good, bad, or anything in between, but it's very individual. For the bigger picture, see "25 perspectives on social networking," by Malene Charlotte Larsen, a PhD student in psychology and communications at Aalborg University in Denmark. [Readers, unlike most bloggers, I usually post stories as I find them without editorializing - I hope you don't mind that I was really being a blogger with this post - Anne.]

Hate on the social Web

It's just another example of how the social Web mirrors the "real world," with all that's good and bad in it - not that hate sites weren't a presence on Web 1.0, nearly from the beginning. "The Internet has become both a social gathering place and a pulpit for the current generation of neo-Nazis," the Edmonton Sun reports. It cites experts saying that people have become inured to hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan because of its "more sedate but just as powerful presence on the Web." It takes the forms of white-supremacy forums, blogs, and social sites, such as "a European-American online community for whites that bears an uncanny resemblance to the popular networking site Facebook."

Facebook courted, criticized

It was a big news week for Facebook this week. First, the Wall Street Journal broke the story that Microsoft was discussing buying a small chunk of Facebook. It would be a minority stake of about 5%, valued at $300 million to $500 million. "But Microsoft must first outgun Google, which has also expressed strong interest in a Facebook stake," the Journal adds. On the downside for Facebook, New York Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo said his office "issued subpoenas to gather more information about the Palo Alto company's policies and procedures after an undercover investigation found that Facebook was slow to respond to complaints about sexual solicitations of underage users," the Los Angeles Times reports. Facebook said in a statement that Facebook took the attorney general's concerns "very seriously" and would work with him and other attorneys general, the Times added.

The 'Halo [3] effect'

Get ready, parents of gamers. You may've already heard from a real authority at your house that today's the day for Halo fans - Tuesday is release day for Halo 3, and it's " almost guaranteed to be a blockbuster hit," the San Jose Mercury News reports, citing the view of many analysts that it's likely to be the top-selling videogame of 2007 and likely to "boost flagging sales" of the Xbox 360. After all, "the evil aliens of the Covenant and the Flood" have taken control of Earth, and it's up to Master Chief, "humanity's last defender" to take control back. Halo 3 is rated M (for "Blood and Gore, Mild Language, Violence") by the Entertainment Software Rating Board.

Social networking in the workplace?!

Yes. By default*, for starters. But for some corporations (future employers of our kids, parents), social networking's already in the workplace, at the boss's behest or otherwise, and for some it's only a matter of time. "Thousands of employees of Shell Oil, Procter & Gamble, and General Electric have Facebook accounts. A Facebook network of Citigroup employees - only those with Citigroup e-mail accounts can join - has 1,870 users. Procter & Gamble employees use Facebook to keep interns in touch and share information with co-workers attending company events," InformationWeek reports in a long look at the subject. But of course "how the social networking model is applied to business will determine whether it becomes the next office collaboration tool or the latest Web app to get blocked at the firewall." Half of companies restrict social networking on their networks right now. For those who use it, InformationWeek says, uses "include viral marketing, recruiting, peer networking, and even emergency coordination and communications." A couple of specific examples: Some companies sell products that enable businesses to create their own social networks, some of which "can be used to create communities where customers can interact, like Nike's Joga.com, a soccer-oriented social network…. McDonald's employees and some partners will soon be able to create their own profiles on the company's Awareness (formerly iUpload) social media platform, from which they can blog and participate in communities." Motorola "already supports thousands of internal wikis and blogs, and a social bookmarking initiative is under way, too." It will add a "social networking layer" that will "let employees create profiles and let people see what information fellow employees have authored and tagged." Microsoft is definitely in Web 2.0 mode, with 300,000 internal blogs and wikis. [* By "by default," I mean social networkers simply work there and their corporate firewall doesn't block social sites.]

German social networking

Social networking is happening pretty much wherever there's a Web, but the picture looks a little different in each country. Fresh comScore research found that 45% of Germany's 32.9 online people (14.8m) visited social-networking sites in July, the latest figure available. As for the where they socialize, the Top 10 sites were: MySpace (3.6 million), studiVZ (3.1m), jux (2.6m), Piczo (2m), StayFriends (1.3m), Netlog (1.2m), Sevenload (1.1m), Xing (685,000), Skyrock Network (507,000), and MSN (440,000), as listed on BlogNation. Facebook, in at least the Top 3 in the US and UK, came in 11th in Germany last summer (177,000 visitors).

Very connected Oz

A just-released study in Australia found that 90% of Australians have both cellphones and landline phones and 80% have Internet access, mostly broadband, Australian IT reports. According to the study, by Australian Communications and Media Authority, "parents believe broadband is important to aid their children's schooling, and mobile phones were a useful safety aid."

Teen name calling: Federal case

This is a story parents and teens should know about because it clearly illustrates how a student's mean comment in a public blog can literally become a federal case. US District Judge Mark Kravitz in Connecticut last week "ruled that Avery Doninger was outside her legal bounds when she used derogatory language on the Internet to describe school administrators," NBC TV in Burlington, Conn., reports. Last May Avery, then a junior, called school officials "douchbags" (sic) in a blog post she wrote from her home. After the school stopped her from seeking re-election as her class secretary, her mother filed a lawsuit against two school district officials saying they'd violated her daughter's right to free speech," the Hartford Courant reported. In his ruling, Judge Kravitz said school officials were within their rights "because Doninger's writing related to school and was likely to be read by other students" (see the last few paragraphs of the Courant's report for the two sides' arguments and the 1969 and 1986 cases they pointed to).

About this case, ConnectSafely.org Advisory Board member and youth officer Det. Frank Dannahey of the nearby Rocky Hill, Conn., Police Department wrote me, "I started using this incident in my programs when it occurred back in May. The community where this occurred is about 20 minutes away from where I work. It’s an interesting look at the never-ending saga of First Amendment rights vs. school systems' ability (or not) to discipline for out-of-school Internet postings." Here's an opinion piece about the case in the Hartford Courant. [Editor's note, 11/09: The stories linked to in this item unfortunately are no longer archived in the Hartford Courant and local NBC news sites.]

Support for young videogamers

This is something parents of young Xbox Live users and Internet gamers should be aware of - that kids and teens can experience considerable verbal and text abuse in online-gaming environments and that there are grownup gamers out there supporting them. For example, there's the GR8 Clan gaming group, founded four years ago by Terra and Jen in Illinois. It represents the kind of community self-policing, or online "neighborhood watch" activity that is increasingly important on the social Web, wherever there's social networking - virtual worlds, instant messaging, and phone texting, as well as online videogames.

"Every day I find myself hosting a room [on the Xbox Live online service] while entertaining the kids," writes multitasking Terra about leading a typical gaming + chat session of GR8 Clan gamers, "answering their questions, asking if their homework is finished [if they're playing] during the school year, asking how their day was, commenting on their increased gaming skills and teamwork, as well as being attentive to what is being said in the room, accepting and sending private chats while searching for a suitable clan for us to battle, which requires online searches, private chats, IMs in 3 different services, getting agreements from opposing clan leaders that their members will not use trash-talk or use improper language during the battle (since I will have children as young as 8 years old in there) - all of this while I must move my own character in the game. A lot of the offenders are clever enough to bypass me and send foul messages to my kids. This is infuriating."

The clan got its start back in 2003, when Terra and co-founder Jen migrated over from the Playstation online community to that of Xbox Live and bought five Xbox 360s and five Xbox Live Gold Memberships, one each for the two of them and a few more for kids "whose parents couldn't afford such a purchase," Terra wrote. When she was between careers, she played videogames in her free time and noticed that "young children were entering public rooms where headset communication among adults and teenagers assaulted the ears with [the stuff of] X-rated or XXX-rated films." She "took control of the situation, steering the speech back to G-rated … and established a zero-tolerance-policy for foul, abusive language" in that room. "All violators were promptly booted out." She soon became "the lady who takes care of the kids.”

GR8 Clan - which now has 22 members throughout the US, more than half of them under 18 - recently got its share of flak, though, after a writeup at WomenGamers.com (quoting much of an article by Terra verbatim). The flak was about GR8 Clan allowing its kid members to play M-rated games ("M" is the "Mature" rating of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, ESRB.org). Terra's response makes some sense, I think: "I contend that allowing children to play Mature games under responsible adult supervision is perfectly acceptable - analogous to accompanying a child to a PG-13- or R-rated film." More than the content of the film or game, what she said she believes is unethical, or even illegal, in the online gaming context is the abuse coming from other gamers. "Online abuse over the headsets directed toward children is the exact same criminal offense as a supervised child in a public theatre watching a PG-13 movie, while a predator in the row behind the child leans over and whispers, or shouts, sexually explicit expletives or directives into that child's ear….

"I don’t have control over what games the kids play," Terra continued. "I only offer a safe environment for them if they happen to be playing the same game online as I am playing." She and other Clan members are currently playing Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas (rated "M"), Ghost Recon ("T" for Teen); Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (M), Battlefield II Modern Combat (T), and Gears of War (M). "Only the eldest kids play the Gears of War game, and their parents purchased the game for them, not The GR8 Clan," Terra wrote.

She says there are some positive outcomes for youth playing these games in a supervised online environment: Along with strategy and hand-eye coordination, she says, kids learn such things as teamwork, taking responsibility, "a healthy sense of competition, communication skills, and good sportsmanship, as well as how to recognize poor sportsmanship."

See also…

"The Gamer and the Tinkerer Plan out a Future with Computers" at the Digital Youth Project on the University of California, Berkeley, site

Tips for parents of gamers from Xbox Dad at Microsoft

GR8 Clan's MySpace profile and Web site

"For female gamers," about support for women and girls "who tread into the testosterone-steeped world of console gaming," as the Los Angeles Times put it.

Videogames increasingly social

Increasingly, experts are saying that banning a teen's use of social networking is like banning (or more likely inhibiting) his or her social life. That's increasingly true with videogames too. "People tend to play with friends and family more often than they play by themselves, contrary to the stereotype of the anti-social gamer that stays in their room all day," the Tehran Times (Iran's English-language paper) reports in "7 steps to make videogames good for your kids" (the article's actually a reprint of About.com's Guide to Nintendo Games but illustrates how universal videogaming is). The tips are great - they include: "Buy some active games" (like Dance Dance Revolution or games for the Wii), "buy extra controllers so you can join in," "keep the system in the open," and "don't be afraid [from all the media about violence in videogames]." As for excessive game play, the South Jersey News Online zooms in on the signs, adding that "70-90% of US youths play videogames." A tragic example of excess in videogames just occurred in China, where a 30-year-old man "died of exhaustion after a three-day Internet gaming binge" in a Guangzhou cybercafe. The Associated Press had that story.

Trend: Exclusive social networking

Business Week calls them "online country clubs," and they're becoming a trend: not just niche social-networking sites, but exclusive niche sites. "Membership in these networks, not unlike the exclusive country clubs where the rich and powerful hobnob, is carefully guarded," Business Week says. For example, at one such site, aSW (short for aSmallWorld), "only a subset of established members have the power to invite new users to join." Going from 500 to 260,000 users in its 3.5 years, aSW's growth doesn't come close to MySpace's, but of course "big is bad" with these sites (here's the New York Times on aSW). The Independent describes another one to launch next month, Diamond Lounge, which "aims to do for the world of Internet networks what Studio 54 did for New York nightlife, and the identity of members is being kept strictly secret in order to maintain an aura of glamorous mystery." Its proprietor says 30,000 will be its max membership. Another new Web 2.0 trend: social networking for baby boomers. As Robin Wolaner, founder of a new boomer site called TeeBeeDee.com (and former founder of Parenting magazine), told the New York Times, who wants to hang out at the AARP Web site? One thing's for sure, our teens would certainly prefer it if we hung out at TeeBeeDee or trying to do so at aSW than at Facebook!

Online eating-disorder communities

Eating disorder communities have been with us as long as there were eating disorders. When I was in high school, long before anyone but a handful of innovative researchers used the Internet, some of the cheerleaders would support each other while they binged and purged. The "community" was geographically limited. After the Web came along, ED became an "interest community" not restricted to any location. The same goes for "pro-Ana" (for anorexia) and "pro-Mia" (for bulimia) community in social-networking and blogging sites. It's one of the darksides of the social Web that are alerting us to and teaching us about the many age-old risks that at-risk youth take. Virtual eating-disorder communities are also a byproduct of "the [US's] moral panic about obesity," according to "No Wannarexics Allowed: An Analysis of Online Eating Disorder Communities," a study that's part of the MacArthur Foundation-funded Digital Youth Project (here's its home page at the University of California, Berkeley). "In the 1990s, eating disorders were the body issue of the moment but that spot has now been taken over by concerns about excess weight…. Sites for the pro-ana/mia/ednos communities have proliferated while, at the same time, a general cultural conversation about eating disorders has waned. Initially, many [Web site] servers took down pro-ana/mia sites, but, with the emergence of social-networking sites, they have reappeared." Even this brief synopsis of the study offers insights into these online communities (note the three numbered points at the end), "primarily populated by women under the age of 20," 56% of whom identify themselves as teenagers. See also my "Eating disorders & the social Web" last spring, including a backgrounder from Hannah, very caring friend of a college student who suffers from an eating disorder who contacted me about this to help get the word out.

Social networking's impact on RL

How is online social networking changing socializing in real life? It's a very interesting question that people - from researchers to social networkers themselves - are beginning to look into. For one thing, UK professors have found, "online social networks tend to be far larger than their real-life counterparts," Science Daily reports - "the average person has a social network of around 150 friends, ranging from very close friends to casual acquaintances." There are as many insights to be gained, too, from this blog post by a 23-year-old social networker who has thought a lot about how social networking has affected his life and the lives of his fellow social-Web users: "5 observations of how social networking (online) has changed social networking (offline)." His first observation, "Social networking as a pre-screening tool," seems to answer a question Prof. Will Reader at Sheffield Hallam University took to his research: "Making new friends involves an investment by committing time and energy to another person in the hope that they will provide reciprocal benefits in the future. Dr. Reader and his colleagues wondered whether online networks are somehow reducing the investment necessary to make new friends by lowering the perceived risk." Meanwhile, a media studies class at Pitzer College in southern California will be studying YouTube, looking at such things as "the role of 'corporate-sponsored democratic media expression'," its professor told the Associated Press.

CA teen-driver law signed

Just a quick update to last week's item about teen drivers using tech: "Signed into law Thursday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the bill by Democratic state Sen. Joe Simitian bans teenagers from using an electronic device, such as cell phones, pagers, laptops, and handheld computers, while behind the wheel," Information Week reports. It adds that "violators would be fined $20 for the first offense, and $50 for each additional offense." The law goes into effect next July 1. The governor's office says that, though teens represent 6.3% of US drivers, they account for 13.6% of fatal crashes.

The kitchen computer

A family doesn't really need HP's $1,700 touchscreen computer for the kitchen (to keep coffee and cereal-milk spills off of keyboards), but the idea of a centrally located kitchen computer - harking back to the days of the family hearth - is a great one. Obviously it carries out that cardinal rule of kids' online safety about having the Net-connected computer in a high-traffic spot, but it's also a very natural way of making the Internet as much a part of family day-to-day life as it is of young people's social lives. Then stuff that goes on online becomes a natural - and hopefully hardly ever confrontational - topic of family conversation (parental overreaction too easily sends kids "underground," establishing "stealth accounts" and profiles in any number of places online that parents may've never heard of, sometimes putting kids at greater risk than when communication lines are open). But the Internet in family routines is definitely happening, the New York Times indicates, since broadband use (47% of US homes, according to the Pew/Internet Project) makes things like looking up phone numbers and movie listings more efficient on the Net than in phone books and newspapers. Even better news is that "74% of teenagers who use the Internet at home do so in a shared space," the Times reports, citing Pew figures.

Yahoo's new social site

Called Mash, Yahoo's social-networking site is still being tested (people join by invitation only right now), the Times Online in London reports. "Mash has already been dubbed 'an homage to Facebook' – but with a difference: users of the new Yahoo site can edit each other’s profiles." As a New York Times blog puts it, "Think the Wikipedia version of a social network." Now there's a scary thought. But, as with Wikipedia, changes can be changed back, and the profile owner has the controls: "If you don’t like this game at all, you can change settings to allow just people marked as best friends or family to edit your profile, or you can keep the crayon box entirely to yourself," the New York Times blogger adds. Here are some interesting UK social-networking numbers cited by the Times of London: "One in four UK people with an Internet connection at home now uses a social networking site - rising to nearly a third among 15 to 24-year-olds." And here's Reuters on Mash.

Schools, state laws & cyberbullying

A Texas schools superintendent said that any online behavior that detracts from learning in school is going to get school action, and his schools have detailed but one-page Internet-use contracts students have to sign. State legislators are taking action too. Rhode Island is considering one of the toughest anti-cyberbullying laws, the Chicago Tribune reports. "Under the proposed legislation, students and their parents could be prosecuted if the student is caught sending Internet or text messages that prove disruptive to school," whether or not they send those messages from school. As for other states, "South Carolina recently passed a law that mandates school districts to define bullying, including cyberbullying. In Oregon, lawmakers have backed a bill that would require all schools to adopt policies that ban cyberbullying and allow for expulsion of those who are caught doing it." School policy and state laws may be kicking in because courts have "proved reluctant to get involved in what many may see as an age-old problem," and courts and prosecutors "have largely agreed, concluding that the 1st Amendment covers even the most offensive online speech." It might be a good idea for all adults - parents, educators, policymakers - to start thinking of online kids more as participants than as potential victims and start working with them on online citizenship as much as online safety - involve youth too in the public discussion about online behavior and the First Amendment. For more information, the Washington Times has a thorough look at cyberbullying, including how it differs from the traditional kind. And here's National Public Radio on how Virginia is out in front as "the first state to require public schools to teach Internet safety."

Social networking & school

The US's 14th-largest school district believes social-networking tools have instructional value. Ted Davis, director of enterprise information services for Fairfax County Public Schools in the Washington, D.C., area told that to Christopher Heum of SchoolCIO.com. Even though MySpace is "public enemy No. 1" to many schools, he writes, "now, as more social-networking tools like blogs and wikis are developed for classroom use, technology directors face a difficult dilemma: how to balance the educational benefits of these new tools with concerns about student privacy and safety." Some school administrators seem to think that MySpace is the all of the "social-networking problem" and simply block that and maybe a few other social sites, when the number of such sites is multiplying exponentially and many "traditional" Web sites are adding social-networking features. In a not-to-be-missed commentary in the Christian Science Monitor, Mark Franek of Philadelphia University and former dean of students at Philadelphia's William Penn Charter School writes: "Want to have a conversation with an author, a professor, a critic, or a journalist? Want to utilize the 'oral histories' or expertise of your classmates' families, relatives, and friends? Want to talk to someone in Boston or Baghdad about something that is going on under their boots or in their brains? If they have an Internet connection, send them a link and invite them to join your online classroom discussion. In several profound ways, the classroom is no longer a pedagogical 'black box'." Here's another view on social networking at ProgressiveU.org, a nonprofit site for blogging about social issues.

Oz panel to study social-site safety

Australia's federal government announced it has appointed a task force "to investigate the safety of social networking sites and the danger they pose to Australian children," Australia's ABC News reports. "The Social Network Consultative Group is part of the Government's $189 million NetAlert program." The panel will also consider "strategies," including legislation, that might make social networking safer.

Parent-teen connectedness, online & off

Pediatrician Trish Hutchison and ob-gyn Melisa Holmes, authors of the "Girlology" books for girls 11-16, say that "leaders in the field of adolescent health" call parent-child connectedness a "super-protector" for teens. They say it can have positive effects like fostering teen self-esteem and coping skills, reducing violence and drug use, and improve social relationships. In their book site the two docs have 10 tips for parents on how to connect with their teenage children. It looks to me like they apply just as well to parents of boys. I especially like the last four and have used variations of them many times myself when talking to fellow parents (the authors elaborate on the following on the page I link to above): "Be a parent more than a friend…. Learn the art of active listening…. Don’t freak out over anything [they] tell you - at least not in front of [them]…. [and] Encourage safe risk-taking." All the tips are applicable to their online lives as much as their offline ones.

Innovative child-protection tech

Its creator, Adam Hildreth, 22, calls it the Anti-Grooming Engine, The Guardian reports. "He claims the product is 99.9% effective in identifying adults online with a sexual motivation," and it's not keyword filtering. "The software is designed to look out for conversation patterns, typing speed, use of grammar and punctuation, and any aggressive or bullying language. Using extracts of online conversations between young people as examples of 'good' data, it is fed into the computer and compared with conversation gathered from that of suspected groomers." And the computer, he says, "learns" to tell the difference. CyberSentinel in the US has made some similar claims in the past, indicating that others have thought of this approach (see this in 2001). The proof is in the pudding, though, The Guardian cites one child-safety advocate as saying, and the pudding's not done yet - check out the article to get the full picture. Here's info in our forum site, ConnectSafely.org, about "How to recognize grooming."

YouTube scene in RL

This Washington Post article offers insights into what you might call the YouTube scene, the one populated by YouTube celebrities and their fans. It tells about a recent gathering of YouTubers in "real life." An example of the former: SXePhil. That's " the alias of 21-year-old University of South Florida student and Web heartthrob Philip DeFranco, whose videos have been viewed millions of times." Then there are the ones who have corporate sponsors that pay for product placements in the YouTubers' videos. As for online entertainment in general, the Wall Street Journal article profiled singer and guitarist Marie Digby, who, the Journal says, illustrates how "the Internet is transforming the world of entertainment."

Adult's view of 3 social sites

San Jose Mercury News columnist Dean Takahashi wondered "which social network [was] worth joining" among three biggies: MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn. The three "all make it easier for you to express yourself and meet people with shared interests, but each focuses on a different area." You'll want to read the article for details on each, but he makes a good point that no single social site can do all things for all people - each has its strengths and weaknesses, which of course are different for each user. Meanwhile, CNBC reporter Julia Boorstin offers a look at some newer niche social-networking sites.

Increasingly connected online kids

For a long time in online safety talks, we've been stating what is probably obvious but deserves some family discussion: The number of devices on which and access points (friends' houses, wi-fi hot spots, etc.) at which youth can social network and otherwise use the Net is growing fast. The newest iPod is yet another example of the latter. It joins Microsoft's Zune as something that young people will probably deem a very cool way to access the Net. The new iPod Touch "is a touch-screen device that lets anyone in range of a wi-fi hot spot buy music or surf the Web. The version with 8 gigabytes of storage will cost $299 and the 16-gigabyte version $399," the Los Angeles Times reports. Microsoft has cut Zune's price in response, PC World reports. Apple also cut the price of the iPhone by $200. Here are a PC World blog's "Fifteen Random Thoughts about the New iPods." Google News linked to some 1,700 stories around the world on Apple's announcement. BTW, I mentioned family discussion up there. What I'm referring to is discussion about kids making good use of and developing the "filter" between their ears as they access the Net via all these places and devices.

For female gamers

US society has evolved since the '60s, but videogaming is stuck in a pre-Feminism time warp, and the Los Angeles Times profiles someone working on that problem: Christa Phillips, screenname TriXie, "a goodwill ambassador for Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox Live online game service. Her online group, GamerchiX, functions as a virtual Grand Central Terminal for women and girls who tread into the testosterone-steeped world of console gaming." TriXie told the L.A. Times that some women get either trash-talked or hit on ("or both") the minute they join the Xbox Live fray, which can be a bit of a deterrent. She estimates that 10-20% of Xbox Live's 7 million members are women. For those unfamiliar with Xbox Live, the service is used to find opponents ad teammates and to chat either via voice (usually using headsets) or instant messaging." This article offers some great context on the female gaming community as a whole too.

Videogames as art

"Just like paintings, sculptures, plays, films, or symphonies, videogames can both display breathtaking aesthetics and convey powerful messages. Videogames can carry the twin payloads of beauty and purpose as any other artistic medium," writes CNET editor Will Greenwald. Click "PRESS START" on the page and you'll see screenshots of 10 examples, among them Bioshock (featuring "brilliant art deco-inspired level design and fascinating analysis of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and the Objectivist movement"), Okami, Metal Gear Solid, Eternal Sonata, and Alice. Meanwhile, CNN reports that producers in this very visual artistic medium have "largely ignored … the blind." "With that in mind, a team of researchers at the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab in Massachusetts set out this summer to make a music-based video game that's designed for mainstream players and also accessible to the blind."

CA may ban teen tech use in cars

California is one of 11 states considering a law banning teens' use of cellphones and other electronic devices while driving. "At least 15 states and the District of Columbia have passed bans," the Associated Press reports. California has already passed a law that will require adults to use hands-free phones and takes effect next July, but this law would apply to kids' use of any non-emergency devices, including hands-free phones, laptops, hand-held media players, etc. "Last month, police in suburban Phoenix blamed a teen's text-messaging habit for a head-on crash that killed two people," according to the AP.

If Gandhi had a MySpace profile

"What would Gandhi have done if he had a MySpace account?" Stephen Carrick-Davies, CEO of Childnet International, asked social networkers at a talk he gave this past weekend in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. He asked them to use social networking to "channel their creativity, energy, idealism and vision in creating and promoting peace across cultures and borders," to "be the change you want to see," as Gandhi put it. "'Don’t wait for the adults to do it,'" Stephen told youth among a capacity audience at the international conference on technology for peace. "So many [adults] don’t fully understand this new space. Rather, start yourselves with your own network of friends." Stephen was referring, according to Childnet's press release, to the opportunity as well as risk that cyberbullying presents all of us (teens, parents, educators, policymakers, etc.). There has never been a more overt, society-wide example of how it's really only "self-regulation" and individual behavior that can defeat a problem like cyberbullying (recent research at the University of New Hampshire shows that aggressive behavior puts the aggressor at risk). The social Web is highly unruly, in many ways lawless, but it's not the problem. In his speech, Stephen cited Vint Cerf's recent comment on BBC Radio about how the social Web is simply a mirror of human society and behavior. "If you don’t like what you see in the mirror you don’t simply blame the mirror," Stephen said (I wish some American policymakers could've been in Sharm El Sheikh).

Schools can help, Stephen suggested, as can parents. “Educating children about how to behave online and understand the very real safety issues is supremely relevant to the teaching of citizenship and personal safety in schools. If the role of schools is to prepare children for life outside of the school gate and help children think for themselves, then it needs to be relevant to the world children are inhabiting. ICT is crucial for the knowledge economy and is now such an important life skill, it’s time schools taught children how to live life to the full online, and that includes safety and moral responsibilities in environments that aren’t used in the classroom, such as instant messaging, chat and social-networking sites.” In any case, if social networking forces us to focus more on social ethics and citizenship in homes and schools, I don't think it's a stretch to say it's a gift to humanity.

About the conference: The first of its kind, the conference was organized by The Suzanne Mubarak Women’s International Peace Movement and gathered 600+ teens from 100 countries "to review how ICT could be better used in promoting and sustaining a culture of peace among young people." Besides Egypt First Lady Suzanne Mubarak, it was attended by senior IT industry and NGO executives, government officials, and representatives from the UN, the ITU, and the Global Alliance for ICT and Development.

CA videogame law update

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has appealed a federal court's injunction against a law banning violent videogame sales to minors, the Associated Press reports. "The law, signed by the governor in 2005, prohibits the sale or rental of violent video games to anyone under the age of 18 and requires that such games be clearly labeled. Retailers who violated the act would be fined up to $1,000 for each violation." The judge had found the law unconstitutional, saying its definition of violence was too broad and its supporters had failed to show a clear relationship between videogame play and children's behavior. "His decision echoed a string of rulings in other states where similar laws were blocked by challenges by video game industry groups," the AP added.

Laws & child exploitation

The Vancouver Sun cites some outdated research from the US and confuses chatrooms with social-networking sites, but this about Canadian law and online child exploitation is notable: Because Canada's age of consent is 14, "under Canadian law, a 54-year-old man from Berlin can fly to Vancouver to have consensual sex with a 14-year-old girl he met on Facebook. Chillingly, neither the young girl's parents nor the police would be able to do a thing about it," the Sun reports. It adds that "these types of cases will continue to be prevalent in Canada until Bill C-22, which raises the age of consent to 16, is passed through the Senate." Canadian police say that because of 1) current law, 2) a lack of resources for law enforcement to focus on Internet crime, and 3) "Canadian youth are among the world's most active Internet users" (80% have access at home, 50% with little or no supervision), "it's up to parents to be more vigilant."

Laws & child exploitation

The Vancouver Sun cites some outdated research from the US and confuses chatrooms with social-networking sites, but this about Canadian law and online child exploitation is notable: Because Canada's age of consent is 14, "under Canadian law, a 54-year-old man from Berlin can fly to Vancouver to have consensual sex with a 14-year-old girl he met on Facebook. Chillingly, neither the young girl's parents nor the police would be able to do a thing about it," the Sun reports. It adds that "these types of cases will continue to be prevalent in Canada until Bill C-22, which raises the age of consent to 16, is passed through the Senate." Canadian police say that because of 1) current law, 2) a lack of resources for law enforcement to focus on Internet crime, and 3) "Canadian youth are among the world's most active Internet users" (80% have access at home, 50% with little or no supervision), "it's up to parents to be more vigilant."

Hacking ethics

A Sydney Morning Herald commentator looks at the ethical questions around 17-year-old George Hotz's iPhone hack. There's no question it's a great story: "In a quest for a car that will win all the girls, some no-name kid in the US devotes his last summer before college to unlocking the seemingly impenetrable iPhone. Corporate giants Apple and AT&T watch helplessly as this kid kills their monopoly with a soldering iron and a pile of energy drinks, then pours the know-how out over the Internet." Here's my post on the news story. This is great material for a discussion with any hackers in your house or classroom involving questions like, "Could you have done this hack?" "Would you have, should he have?" "Why/why not?" "Even if it was legal, should it have been?" There are no black 'n' white answers, but this is the kind of discussion that develops the "filter" between kids' ears, the kind that can handle any and all change and growth the user-driven Internet throws at our youth and us.

Students: Portable is good

For students shopping for computers these days, "it's clear what most will be opting for: anything that can be packed up and taken to go," CNET reports (adding that 90% of Amazon's top-selling computers right now are notebooks). They also want style and convenience features, of course: "like Bluetooth connectivity, integrated Webcams, and fast boot times." Students aren't just looking for laptops, though, of course - they're shopping for "smart phones, digital cameras, all-in-one printers, and of course, a hip case in which to lug their new notebook around."

Facebook more public

Soon anyone will be able to search for a Facebook user, whether or not he or she is a registered user. The social site will be preparing users for the change for the next 30 days, telling them they can set their privacy settings so their profiles can't be searched for from the public Web, Reuters reports. Then, in a month, Facebook will have a search box on its home page and search engines' Web crawlers will be allowed to crawl Facebook's population of 39 million users (up 62.5% from 24 million in late May, Reuters says. What search engine users will be able to turn up is a Facebook user's basic profile, the BBC reports: "the thumbnail picture of a Facebook member from their profile page as well as links allowing people to interact with them. But, in order to add someone as a friend or send them a message, the person will have to be registered with Facebook."

Videogamers & the 'game of life'

Parents of gamers (and gamer parents) might be interested in a thoughtful piece in the Ottawa Citizen by education technology Prof. Constance Steinkuehler at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Referring to the perception gaps between gamers and politicians and between gamers and people over 35, Professor Steinkuehler cites Pew Internet statistics ("more than eight out of every 10 kids in America have a game console in the home and over half have two or more") indicating that we might want to bridge this divide that she straddles. "I talk to parents, teachers, librarians and other professors about the social and intellectual value of gameplay. And I talk to game players and designers about why education is important and how research on learning might have something important to say about how games are designed and experienced." Here are the intellectual practices gaming involves which she studies: "collaborative problem solving, reading and writing practices that use highly specialized language, scientific habits of mind such as hypothesis testing and revision, skills in information and communication technology (IT literacy), and argumentation." Steinkuehler says that "such practices are the mainstay of online gameplay. Together, they form that 21st-century skill set so crucial to democratic success." She also talks about online games as "third places" or useful "hangouts" (see "Digital hangouts" posted in this blog Monday). And speaking of videogames, the Washington Post just profiled "the new face of videogames" on Capitol Hill, Michael Gallagher, the Entertainment Software Association's new president, who keeps a Nintendo DS in his suit coat pocket.

Not 'the new Dr. Spock'

The headline of a recent CNET interview with MIT professor Henry Jenkins suggests he might be, but - though he isn't a pediatrician or child development specialist - he is one of the US's top experts on social media. So he knows a lot about how young people's social producing and creative networking with digital media. Referring to research showing that "57% of teens online have produced media and about a third of them have produced media that they shared with people beyond their immediate friends and families," Dr. Jenkins told CNET that those 57% "are kids who are learning to share knowledge, to collaborate over distances, to work with people from diverse backgrounds, to participate in a global culture - those are really powerful things that are emerging in this generation. But they're also facing dilemmas about intellectual property, cyberbullying and how to navigate these environments." It's challenging to parent them as they do this navigating, he says, challenges that "are not anything their parents taught them how to deal with. They don't have a language to talk to their kids about a lot of the issues they're facing online." It's becoming more imperative to learn enough about social networking to try to talk with our kids, I'd say, because - if we try too hard to control or even ban it, communication breaks down and kids go underground. They have so many workarounds and opportunities to connect without our knowledge. "Turning your home into a surveillance culture where you don't trust your kids is dangerous because you're going to make it harder to communicate with your child," Henry told CNET. "So part of what I've argued is that the kids don't need someone looking over their shoulders, they need someone watching their backs." For more on his research and views, see "Participation: Key opp for kids."

Cheaper textbooks online

Well, most everybody knows that. But the great news from New York Times Cyberfamilias columnist Michelle Slatalla is BookFinder.com. It's "an umbrella search site that sifts through the inventories of hundreds of thousands booksellers worldwide, started a simple, easy-to-use textbook search tool. The way it works: enter a title, I.S.B.N. or author’s name in Bookfinder’s textbooks search box to navigate a huge database of 125 million new and used books. You can compare prices, shipping costs and the availability of less expensive editions published overseas." She offers other tips and links to other useful Web sites for savvy student shoppers.

Cellphone parental controls available

It was a gleam in some early adopter parents' eyes back in 2004 when I first wrote about phone controls; now a reality. Today AT&T launches a service that might make for a little more cellphone-related family harmony: "Smart Limits" for $4.99 a month. "Many parents want their children to have access to cellphones for safety reasons, but they don't want them making or receiving non-emergency calls during the school day, chatting away all the shared family-plan minutes or bloating the bill with text messaging charges," AT&T told the Associated Press. "The functions, ranging from call blocking and hour limits to text message and download allowances, will be set through a website. Calls to or from a parent's number can be made to override the restrictions, and calls to 911 can be made anytime." Smart Limits also includes filtering if Web access is within the AT&T phone network (it won't work on an iPhone or when any phone is using a wi-fi hot spot for Web browsing outside the company's network). Here's the Detroit Free Press's coverage, which says about 79% of US 15-to-17-year-olds have cellphones.

Online hangouts: Teens exploring ID

Most adults know that a lot happens when teens are "hanging out," and all that personal and social development's happening in online hangouts now too. Two researchers supported by the MacArthur Foundation offer insights into what's happening in two such "places" - YouTube and Faraway Lands. In "Self Production and Social Feedback Through Online Video-Sharing on YouTube," psychologist Sonja Baumer describes what went into and came out of a video by 19-year-old "Fatalshade" (her screenname), who grew up on a family farm. Fatalshade "indicates that the video has enabled her to understand the complexity of growing up and confusion around the feelings and desires that teenagers often encounter," Baumer writes. And in "You Have Another World to Create: Teens and Online Hangouts," sociologist C.J. Pascoe describes how one teen, Clarissa, explores identity and role-plays with "friends from all over the world" in her favorite online hangout, Faraway Lands. For more insights and stories - including "Coming of Age in Networked Public Culture," by Heather Horst - see the Digital Youth Research site at University of California, Berkeley.

Facebook & MySpace in Oz

Social networking growth patterns in Australia makes for an interesting case study for parents looking for a bigger picture. MySpace has 3.8 million profiles in Australia, while Facebook has 141,000 Australian members. But Facebook grew by 273% in Australia between April and June, putting it in that country's top 5 online communities and "outpacing the industry leader," Australian IT cites Hitwise as reporting. Hitwise found that 18% of Facebook visitors arrived there directly from Hotmail, "where they may have received emails from friends asking them to join Facebook," and "nearly 10% came directly from a MySpace page." They're not abandoning MySpace, though, Hitwise added - there's just "a lot of crossover." "Twenty-three percent of MySpace traffic came directly from Google Australia."