TECHNOLOGY

privacy

Dear Diary ...

By Paul Strand
Washington Sr. Correspondent

CBN.com – (CBN News) - It is the latest teenage craze and many parents do not know their kids are doing it: online diaries. The days of teens recording their private thoughts using pen and paper are long gone.

Today's Internet-savvy teens are posting their thoughts on the World Wide Web for anyone and everyone to see and read.

Robin Molnar is a recent high school graduate. She began using the online diary site Xanga, to keep up with friends and to share about her relationship with God.

Robin said, "I really enjoy expressing myself, having the freedom to just share my heart, to talk about the Lord, to just write out my feelings. Sometimes I'm going through really hard things and I'll just be able to express my feelings and kind of let it out, or other times I'm just so excited about something that's going on in my life.

Robin loves to put pictures of events in her life in her online diary - and generally keep in touch with friends who may have moved away. But what Robin and other teens may not realize, is that what they mean for innocent fun, can turn quite deadly if child predators make use of the information they have so freely posted on the web.

Parry Aftab is an Internet privacy and security lawyer, and an expert on teen online diaries like Xanga, MySpace, and LiveJournal.

Aftab stated, "The kids are putting so much personal information on these web sites, that it's very, very easy for anyone who wants to find them in real life, to find them. Most parents are worried because they wouldn't read their children's diary, and they feel uncomfortable reading their online diaries. But parents need to realize that when a child writes a diary at home, it is between them and the pages. When children write a diary on the Internet it's between their kids and 700 million people who want to read what they wrote."

Experts estimate that there are between two and four-million personal journals in use today, with kids ages 13 - 19 maintaining about half of them.

Here is how it works: First, teens register and create an account with the web site. Next, they can begin to personalize the design of their own online diary. Then they are ready to post their thoughts online.

Most sites have an age limit for their users. Xanga requires its users be at least 13 years old before they can create their own online journal. Myspace requires users to be 16. But there is nothing keeping children under the required age from starting one. All a child would have to do is lie about his or her age – it is as simple as that, and many kids do.

Robin asserted, "I do know a good number of kids who've had it (Xanga) since before they were 13."

And that begs the question, how appropriate are online diaries for teens? Some of the images we found are much too graphic to show you. Some sites contain sexually explicit pictures, profane language and disturbing images.

Esther is 13 years old. She started her own site as a way of expressing herself.

"I like to share my music with my friends and to express my feelings,” Esther said. “Sometimes if I'm having a good day or bad day, I just express my feelings whenever, if something happened exciting, you know, I share about the weekend."

But even the most careful and innocent of teens can get caught off guard.

Esther recalled, "One time I was just checking my comments and this guy left a comment, ‘Hey, check out my site,’ and I clicked it." Esther puts her hand over her eyes, and starts talking again. "It was just this gross pornography thing that just popped up, and I had to turn off my computer and everything, to get it off my computer."

Ultimately, the best way parents can protect their kids online is to be aware of where they are going on the Internet and what information they are communicating throughout cyberspace.

Parry said, "Our children need to be able to communicate on the Internet safely, without sharing personal information, and unfortunately, the bad guys are out there, looking for our kids, and our kids are making it easy for them."

Robin said, "I think about, like who could be reading the site. I'm pretty careful. I don't put anything too explicit, that someone could know like who I am exactly. But they could probably find out a lot through just my entries, like they would definitely know my environment. I try to stay away from saying this town is where we went to, or this is where I've been, but sometimes you forget, so I don't know how careful I am.”

And what Parry found out while conducting an Internet safety seminar with students recently, really concerns her. A number of teens are not aware that simply posting their picture online can give predators all the information they need.

Parry remarked, "I said could you take a picture of yourself today and put it on your Web site? And they all said yes. And all of them are wearing a shirt with the name of their school emblazoned on the side."

And for parents who are concerned about violating their children's privacy, Parry says parents have an obligation to read what their kids are posting online.

She said, "Parents shouldn't feel any more uncomfortable reading their child's online diary than they would reading a billboard that their kids put on the superhighway."