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Teens carve out space on MySpace.com
Published February 5, 2006
It’s a busy life. Talking to friends, decorating, putting up new pictures — it can take up every waking hour.
MySpace is, just, totally addicting.
Having a MySpace “page” is sort of like decorating your locker. You fix it up any way you want, pasting up pictures of you and your friends, and locking out people you don’t want in your “friends” network.
Friends read your online diary, leave comments and listen to your favorite music, including local bands establishing their own networks and informing fans of their concerts at such venues as Dunbar Park in Lake Jackson or the Engine Room in Houston.
What makes MySpace so addicting is that the social networking Web site is constantly changing. Users sign in to their MySpace page, read what others typed in, then click around their friends’ pages, follow links to friends of friends, and on and on.
To understand MySpace, think of it as an Internet hangout, a Web site that has grown to 50 million users since its beginnings in July 2003.
The Web measurement company comScore Media Metrix reports that MySpace has grown by 32 percent in the last year, with 32 million people visiting the site in December alone.
A USA Today article said MySpace membership is growing by 5 million a month. ComScore ranked it the 18th most visited site in November. When measured by the number of pages viewed, it came in fourth, ahead of eBay and Google, the newspaper reported.
MySpace is a local phenomenon, too. A search Wednesday showed that about 3,000 people within 20 miles of Lake Jackson have pages on the sophisticated blogging site. A blog is a Web log, a frequently updated online journal.
Jasmine Walkes and Carly Roye are two of more than 800 Brazoswood High School students, graduates and hangers-on who have their own MySpace pages. Bear in mind, however, that these numbers are probably way low since MySpace users don’t have to put in their real locations and ages.
This is scary to many parents, Internet safety groups and local police.
On Jan. 25, authorities issued an Amber Alert for a missing League City girl believed to have gone to meet a man she’d become acquainted with on MySpace. She was found the same day after allegedly having been sexually assaulted.
Investigations Lt. Russ Baker of the Brazoria County Sheriff’s Department is extremely wary of Internet places such as MySpace.com.
“We haven’t had any cases come through directly linked to MySpace,” he said. “But I think the kids have to understand that there’s information that you don’t want to share with just anybody.
“You give a pedophile a little information and they can get a lot. Kids are writing down everything that’s gone on in their day. You’ve got people out there who prey on just that.
It’s easy for a pedophile to fake age, gender and location and get added to a vulnerable youngster’s online friends network.
“By putting your private thoughts and private business on a blog, you’re giving a pedophile an avenue of conversation with you,” Baker said.
“I don’t like it and wouldn’t let my kids on it.”
Baker cautions parents to require their children to come to them for Internet access. Set a passcode and be as cautious about where they go on the Internet as where they go in the community.
Walkes and Roye have their own way of monitoring MySpace. Both seniors at Brazoswood, the girls see MySpace as a way of checking someone’s file before getting to know them.
“I see if I like a person. You can tell by their page,” said Walkes, 18, of Angleton.
What a person writes in a blog and lists as favorite music, movies and books are all important in determining whether to add them to a “friends” list, said Roye, 17, of Lake Jackson.
Despite her caution and what she calls pickiness, Roye has 389 people on her MySpace friends list.
Walkes said she adds only people she has met face to face at concerts, school and other places. Nevertheless, she has more than 500 people in her network.
They see MySpace as a good way to pass time but insist they’re only on it an hour or two a day. They enjoy wandering from page to page, exploring each person’s personality and expressing their own.
Roye’s page reflects her style.
“It’s very simple, very clean,” she said.
“Jasmine’s very flashy. I always turn down the volume when I go to Jasmine’s page,” she said, dodging a pretend punch from her friend.
MySpace is for ages 14 and up, mainly high school kids. Teens have to wait until college to join Facebook.com, a similar site limited to those with a college e-mail address and student ID. Facebook connects college students by university, major and personal interests.
“I feel so little when people say they’re on Facebook,” said Roye, who’s quite ready to get out of high school and move on to Facebook.
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On the Web:
www.myspace.com
www.myspace.com/misc/
safetytips.html
www.wiredsafety.org
www.wiredkids.org
www.teenangels.org
www.pewinternet.org
Karen Nace is a features writer for The Facts. Contact her at (979) 237-0155.
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