Social Networking Sites Safer Than IM or Chat Rooms

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Parents have mistakenly thought that if their children aren't on a social networking site they are safe, and if they are on one, they are at risk, Ybarra said. "We need to stop trying to scare our kids. We need to start having real conversations," she said.

"We need to help parents understand it's not about social networking sites, it's about monitoring what's going on," Ybarra said. "Just as you should know where your child is after school, you should know where they go online."

One expert isn't sure that social networking sites are as safe as Ybarra's team found.

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"I am most concerned that they have surveyed kids who are younger than I would have expected, with only half of the survey population in the 13 to 15 age range," said Kimberly M. Thompson, director of the Kids Risk Project at the Harvard School of Public Health.

MySpace and Facebook have age restrictions to prevent youths under ages 14 and 13 from using the sites,, Thompson said. "This means that many of the kids in the survey are theoretically prevented from exposure, and one interpretation of the author's findings is that setting an entry age is keeping many kids out of these sites," she said.

"The authors downplay the role of social networking sites instead of recognizing that these are the newest form of online media opportunities, and hence, their use and uses are still growing as people adopt the technology," Thompson added. "I wonder what they would have found if they surveyed a slightly older population."

The fear of social networking sites has lead one state to propose a law that would attempt to bar sex offenders from these sites.

Recently, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo drafted a bill mandating that e-mail addresses and screen names of registered sex offenders be reported to social networking sites.

The bill would make it easier to stop sex offenders from using popular teen-oriented sites. It would also bar paroled sex offenders from social networking sites and ban online communication with minors.

More information

For more on teens and the Internet, visit the SafeTeens.com.

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