Two Takes on Kids and Online Social Networks

For parents looking for more guidance on kids and online social networking, I came across two comprehensive pieces this week in U.S. News & World Report and PC World. Both provide a good overview of the teen social networking scene, and some great advice for parents on how to help their kids be smart about how they portray themselves online and whom they communicate with while there. 

PC World's Scott Spanbauer writes from the perspective of a dad whose son has a MySpace page. (He asked his parents and they agreed, as long as they could occasionally monitor it and glance at messages to make sure his online friends are his offline friends.)

As I wrote in this post about parental controls, Spanbauer agrees that good parenting and communication are a better combo than computer filters and an outright ban on online social networking, which probably would only be honored at home. If you can talk with your children about difficult subjects like sex—and especially if they feel comfortable talking about those topics with you—offering guidance in their online activities will be easier, he writes.

For kids, he advises they take a look at their social network pages and blogs and ask, are there images and words on there that may come back to haunt me later? And he shows them how to reset their account settings to make their pages viewable by friends only, and to keep personal, identifying information off their sites in case outside eyes peer in.

U.S. News & World Report offers a great first look at MySpace and other social-networking sites for uninitiated parents, and some top-notch resources to delve deeper. Check them both out, then let us know how social networking is approached in your home.