Beware: Catholic parents warned MySpace invades their children's space

WESTFIELD, Mass. (The Catholic Observer) - "All of my friends have them. All I know is you can go online. You can put on things about yourself, put on memories, pictures about each other, your friends," said Laura Gaiser, a senior at St. Mary High School here.

The 17-year-old was talking about MySpace.com, one of fastest-growing trends in the lives of young people. WebPro News reported recently that this Web site has 32 million members with 130,000 being added each day. A majority of the members are under 21. For many teens, it is a way to connect with others and let others know about them. But there is a dark side to this new Web wonder. Pat Sears, youth minister and co-founder of New Spirit Ministry, which runs retreats and a summer camp for young people, became acquainted with MySpace at the end of summer 2005 through an e-mail link from a teen. "I clicked on MySpace and went from site to site. It was something that the more I looked, the heavier my heart became. There was so much negativity. There were so many pictures that were inappropriate. They were very revealing," said Sears. "The negativity, the swearing, the anti-religious sentiment that's on there. It was all things that made my heart heavier," he said in an interview with The Catholic Observer, the official publication of the Diocese of Springfield, Mass. Sears, a father of four young sons, said he researched the site and prayed about what to do. "I felt I couldn't, in good conscience and being a youth minister and having connections with young people, remain silent about it," he said. "I decided to send an e-mail out to our entire camp community and just challenge them to raise the bar," he said. Sears wrote to the teens he meets through his summer camp and year-long retreats and asked them to look at their pages "through the eyes of faith." "If there are things written (or pictures posted) that you would be embarrassed to look at with me (or a parent, grandparent, etc.) beside you, it's probably a good idea to make some changes," he wrote. The youth minister received a lot of feedback from campers, parents and teen members. Most of it was positive and reflective. He stressed that the Web site was not "inherently evil." He said he had two levels of concerns regarding MySpace. One was that those creating pages make good moral choices. "I see where it is beneficial to have places where you feel you can express your feelings," he said. However, he said, bloggers must take a stand. "If you are not clear what your limits are on something like MySpace then you'll compromise yourself up and down. That's a very dangerous thing, dangerous for your personal safety and dangerous for your spiritual health," he said. Danger is a very real aspect of MySpace. In September 2004, a 16-year-old Port Washington, N.Y., girl was abducted and molested after trading messages on MySpace with a 37-year-old man. He tracked her down because she posted her job address on her page. A story in the Philadelphia Inquirer reported other abuses, such as "two 10th-grade boys in Connecticut who used editing software to superimpose faces of female classmates on a lesbian sex photo." Pope John XXIII High School in Sparta, N.J., recently banned all Internet blogging in the school and at the students' homes. Many schools are coping with the problem of cyberbullying where someone posts something negative or harmful or harasses another person through the Internet. Internet safety has always been a top concern at Mt. Carmel School in Springfield, Mass., according to Debra Foley, a computer teacher at the school. She and Carol Raffaele, principal, recently sent a letter home to parents about MySpace. In addition, Foley said that the school is planning an information session for area parents from other Catholic schools about this topic. In their letter, they wrote that "statistics from the Center for Missing and Exploited children report that one in five children, ages 10 to 17, is solicited on the Internet for sex through e-mail or chat." They also noted that many children, including some of their students, posed as 16-, 17- or sometimes 18-year-old teenagers. Some of the postings contained references to drinking, sex or violence, said the letter. Foley acknowledged that many of the postings on MySpace are not objectionable. "They're talking to their friends and it's all innocent. They're talking about their favorite color and their favorite soda," she said. "But there's an infinite web of kids out there. And the further you go into it or the deeper you go into it, you get onto Web sites that are not so innocent," she said. "There are kids that not being very nice and they're showing pictures that are not acceptable to younger kids and language that's not acceptable." "Your kids may be there innocently enough but they're connected." MySpace does list safety tips and privacy notices. Bloggers can make their pages private so that only accepted friends can view it. That is the practice on the college-age Web site Facebook where everyone must log in and be accepted as a visitor to one's Web page. However, most pages on MySpace are very public. The MySpace site states that the site is designed for persons aged 14 and older. However, the search device for users on MySpace is set for persons age 18-35. The site tells bloggers not to post any personally identifiable information. However, that rule is rarely followed as those who visit the site often talk about their school, team or job. One college freshman listed her dorm and room. Many teens state where they are going on a particular night and invite others to meet them there. Any one who browses through the MySpace site can focus on a certain zip code or other search method. Photographs of children ages 11-13 are common, although the youngsters state they are older. Sometimes they write they are from a different town or state, but are linked to other local children on the site. Profanity is prevalent and revealing photos are frequent. Gaiser, who hopes to study art in college, said she is aware of the drawbacks of MySpace, but said she would have a page herself if she had figured out how to create one. "With everything that's online or anything with an advantage, there are negatives. People do abuse the privilege and put themselves out there in a way that they shouldn't," she said. She, like millions of teens, enjoys going online. "You can have more than one conversation at once. You can look up things or do homework while you are talking to your friends. And basically It's just another way of communication - to see who's around," she said. Marty Gaudrault, a junior at St. Mary's, said a lot of his friends have a site on MySpace. "To me, it's just another way to talk to people you know and meet new people." He said he doesn't have a page because "I see what's happening and it's getting to the point where it's kind of risky and you put a lot out there about yourself." "If I did make a page it would probably be to meet new people and talk to old friends that I would maybe be uncomfortable on the phone with or something like that," he said. Gaudrault said he knows there are inappropriate pages, but thinks that is not the norm. "Some kids are doing it just to talk with friends or put pictures up but not everyone is doing bad things there. Most kids are doing it to have a good time and talk with people," he said. When asked what makes the Internet so appealing to teens, Gaurdrault said, "You can say things without being embarrassed on the computer that you wouldn't say on the phone because you wouldn't be able to hear the person's initial reaction or see their reaction." Gaiser agreed that many teens don't think that what they post will be viewed by people other than their friends. What would she advise adults about Myspace? "Talk to your kids about it, about what could happen. Maybe go over their MySpace with them and monitor what they are putting on it. Monitor who's talking to them to make sure none of it's sketchy or bad," she said. Foley agreed with that advice and added, "I would suggest that parents keep their computer in a public part of their house in a family room or kitchen so you can walk by and keep an eye on what sites the kids are going on." She noted that there are parental controls for computers and servers that will notify parents what sites their children have gone on or attempted to go on each month. "I think that kids are in their own home and feel safe so they don't realize what's on the computer is out there for everyone to see," she said.

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This story was made available to Catholic Online by permission of The Catholic Observer (www.iobserve.org), official newspaper of the Diocese of Springfield, Mass.