Word: facebookers
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...know asked her 15-year-old daughter recently about her math homework. The teenager, not exactly sure what was due when, replied that she'd "Facebook" someone for the assignment. Why not use the telephone? the mom wanted to know. Her daughter rolled her eyes at that...
Here's why: those online social networks have become, almost overnight, booming teen magnets exerting an almost irresistible pull on kids' time and attention. Though both sites are only two years old, MySpace is the No. 2 most- trafficked spot on the Internet; Facebook is No. 7, right behind Google. MySpace is open to anyone with an e-mail address; Facebook requires members to be affiliated with a college or a high school, which is why it's the preferred virtual reality in my household...
Created by a Harvard student, Facebook started out as a digital version of those little photo guides of incoming college freshmen and quickly expanded to include the student bodies of more than 2,100 colleges. Last fall, high schools were invited to join, and now Facebook has 7 million members. Like all secret societies, it has its own language, passageways and handshakes. You can "poke" a friend--sort of like a wink or a wave--without saying much more. You can check the "pulse" to see what movies, books and music are topping the charts at your school...
...have become almost indispensable. But they have their darker passages too. When students began posting pictures of themselves at parties holding a beer and leaving messages that were hurtful, defamatory or demeaning, schools began considering ways to regulate the speech on the site. Some high schools have officially banned Facebook as well as MySpace activity during the school day and discouraged kids from spending time on those sites after hours. Colleges can't begin to enforce such bans, but many have groups studying how to control bad behavior or have issued guidelines. And they have discovered a powerful incentive...
...cases of online friendships that turned violent or even homicidal have pressured social-network sites to provide better security for their members. Facebook recently overhauled its privacy settings to give members tighter controls over who sees what...