Myspace: question for the experienced (not a very good post)

MySpace

I don't know about teenagers, but there are a great many old codgers on their who aren't pedophiles. I've been on MySpace checking out all the local high school kids who have gotten into deep, deep trouble on their, and since that trouble, every parent I know also checks on the site regularly.

Good for writing teenagers. Beats me, but I tend to think it's more of a way to avoid writing. To me, it seems like one more place where teens kill time, more than anyting else. And there sure are some truly stupid teens on there. It's like they believe they can post whatever they want, and only other teens will see it, and all those will agree.

I know two scattered families that use it to keep in touch. One family is on MySpace and the other is on Xanga. I use LiveJournal, myself. There are no advertisements, and the security seems much better. I'm trying to convince my family members who live far from me to start updating so I can know what is going on in their lives. My parents are retired and party all the time . They're difficult to get ahold of by phone sometimes, and it's nice to know how they're doing. It's like a little Daily Times about people you know. I like it, but then, I'm no teenager so... I think I'll encourage my kids to use it when I have them, though.

Hmmm... That reminds me, I should update.

I had a short-lived MySpace page to promote my music. It was fun creating the page, but before I could go out and find any "friends" a bunch of my old friends from real life found me there...

I'm talking about big jerks from back when I was an actual teenager... people I hoped I'd never have to talk to again, but there they all were, descending on my friend-list like old drunken vipers. So I deleted the page, and haven't looked back.

As far as writing goes, I didn't see much of it out there at all. Most people I came across hadn't made entry one into their blog, or only used it for short, shallow observations. MySpace strikes me as more of a personals site, than part of the blogosphere, and in the world of shallow singles... the less you say, the better.

I've started up a MySpace page, and I'm using it for promotion/networking.

I don't care who from my past tracks me down, as long as they notice the bulletins that talk about only one thing: My Publications. Then, they can tell all their friends how they knew me when, and wasn't it so cool to know somebody who amounted to something besides vice-president of regional widget sales.

I also use the blog. The blog is a forum for me to give people a taste of my dazzling intellect... Okay, somewhat sparkly intellect... Well, it has a sheen on it... Perhaps that's a kind of greasy film... Hm, I need to wash that out. Where's that continuing education course catalogue when you need it?

And, if people think I'm single (because I always leave that box checked), and for some reason have Neal Stephenson fantasies, then the page is a useful illusion to encourage them to buy my book next year. Then, they can brag to their friends how I totally answered their e-mail and talked with them.

And, cool people like Nancy, Shadowferret, and Me might deign to talk to you.


I won't say anything about the music stuff except for this: I actually like weird, off-mainstream musicians, and it's sometimes hard to keep track of who is touring where, and when CD's are released, and I like having that knowledge handed to me in one website, instead of diggin up all the obscure record labels.

Mistook said:

I had a short-lived MySpace page to promote my music. It was fun creating the page, but before I could go out and find any "friends" a bunch of my old friends from real life found me there...

I'm talking about big jerks from back when I was an actual teenager... people I hoped I'd never have to talk to again, but there they all were, descending on my friend-list like old drunken vipers. So I deleted the page, and haven't looked back.
.

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I don't get this. How do people find old fri4nds etc? Do kids actually sign on with their REAL NAMES? Say it isn't so!

My daughter, 15, doesn't have myspace and I don't think her friends are into it, except one, an American girl who moved back to CA. I wouldn't be happy if she did so touch wood.

MySpace let's you put your location, sign on with whatever schools you attended, or are attending, and let's you join groups of common interests. It's designed with a search function so people can "find" you.

There's positives and negatives.

On the one hand, I've been able to catch up with a friend from high school currently working in Cairo for US Aid, whom I haven't seen since one random encounter at an airport during Thanksgiving break in college. This is good.

On the other, every few days, I get one of "those" e-mails.

Fortunately, I am used to dealing with these things through my multiple e-mail accounts. Gee, people who've never met me before want to go somewhere private with their webcam, etc...

As a parent, Aruna, you're probably aware that your daughter goes through weeks at a time when no creeps, no pedophiles, and no dangerous felons lurk through the bushes. And, on the off-chance one might come around, hopefully, you've raised her to be street smart enough to know what the warning signs are regardless of whether she's blogging, on MySpace, or skipping rope down the streets of Cairo.

Since my momma raised me to know a scam when I see one (usually), I know she feels safe with me chilling on the WWW. Heck, my dad's a CIO, and he's been hooking us into the WWW since the beginning. We were the first kids on our block ot have an Atari, a PC jr, and pre-AOL webbish networking.

(Frankly, if I told my mother about my myspace, the very first words out of her mouth would be "Meet any nice girls there?" That poor woman is pushing hard for some grandkids... It's not my fault that girlfriends hate how I always wander off on tangents. Like this one.)

I spend too much time at livejournal and blogger to add myspace to the list. However 99.9999% of what goes on there is harmless fun. I suppose that myspace could have a clear page shown at login telling kids not to post phone numbers addresses and other identifying information. But getting too focussed on the negative will ead to site like this getting closed rtaher than managed resposibily and constructively (UK msn groups was closed as if chat was only for paedophiles--an over-reaction).

Exactly, veinglory.


Also, we're seeing a reverse trend as well here in the states. Federal Law Enforement set up phony myspace pages to lure pedophiles into a trap.

I am an old codger who recently joined Myspace, mostly because the band my husband is in started a page and I wanted to get their bulletins, etc.

veinglory said:

I suppose that myspace could have a clear page shown at login telling kids not to post phone numbers addresses and other identifying information.

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I'm pretty sure there was some sort of warning like this. The thing that makes MySpace appealing is that you can easily find others from your high school or with similar interests. Of course, that is only possible if you put your information there for people to find. One way they try to improve the "finding" is allowing you to enter your real name privately, so that it will only be "found" if someone is searching for it - it's never displayed on the page, so casual browsers won't stumble on it.

I think part of the problem is that teens often aren't as web-saavy as they think they are. It's almost as if they think that, because their parents don't have accounts there (that they know of, anyway), they can't be "seen". On the flip side, they don't have that healthy skepticism about "friends" who contact them that is often gained through experience. The publicity may be helping though. There were some local boys who made a fake teenage girl profile to cheer up one of their friends. When "she" was contacted by a creepy older guy, they helped set up a sting that resulted in his arrest.

My impression, so far, is that MySpace can be a good networking tool, if the people you want to network with have accounts there. I'm not sure it's that great for writing - or at least not any better than any other blogging tool, such as Blogger or LiveJournal. The downside is that all of the networking features probably are a major distraction from getting any real work done.

My MySpace:
http://www.myspace.com/peggus

veinglory said:

I spend too much time at livejournal and blogger to add myspace to the list.

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I'm in the same boat -- livejournal has been VERY addicting and blogger, I'm sure, will become a close second.

Akuma said:

Ah, well, here I am again. I love stirring up the water--I'm a regular antagonist!
Ok, so maybe I'm not the evil lord of darkness you imagined but if any dark master was to have an obsession, mine are opinions. I consume them like the blood of virgins, I tell you what!

So lately, myspace has been sweeping the international cyber community of teenagers. I myself had a bad experience with it, but I'll try to leave biases out of this.

To all of you esteemed member of the *cough* older generation, this may or may not be new to you. If you don't know anything about it I'll sum it up:
its a community of teenagers and pedophiles pretending to be teenagers just to meet up and rape the victims.
Alright, so I'm exaggerating, but it HAS happened. And worse.
But I'm trying not the focus on those kind of things. I'm talking about what's really important here. Writing.

Myspace is a place of blogs, pictures, "PM"s, and bad music. But is it necessarily a place for writing? It seems more like a communication tool as much of it consists of "lolz" and "wtfomfgawoifdhpzfihasdluihfzzz" rather than intellectual content.

Aw, crap, I think I'm ranting again.

Anyways, do you feel it's very good for writing teenagers?
...That's it? That's my question? Well, that's not very good, not very good at all.
I don't think I should post this, even--it has no point. Then again, the bigger the number next to your avatar, the brillianter you must be! Off cores!
So, I will weakly try to justify this post:
to those who know about myspace, do you feel it is a good connection for teenagers nowadays? Or merely a network of idiocy in which pedophiles and evil lords of darkness can take advantage of?

Now that I think about it, Nick the evil dark lord master of darkness sound s pretty distinguished.

Antagonist out.

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I have MySpace, I love it because I find people I grew up with that separeted when we all graduated high school. But there are some people who just gives out too much information and is on MySpace just to have a good time. I use it to communicate, others use it for dating. I believe before you use any time of communicating program on the internet you really need to know how to be safe.

Mdlle. Nancy said:

Myspace can be fun. And extremely distracting.

I'm making an Absolute Write group now!

The sad thing is that's the best idea I've had all day. It's been a dull day.

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I like the idea of an AW group on there . . . better than a lot of the groups I've seen on there. LOL

I don't think that myspace is worse than any other web place. My 14 year old seems to know that preditors are everywhere. Heck in my little dinky town he has already been stalked once that I know of. Scared the crap out of me! When he was in live-games on the net, he got all the mail and people sending him pictures that worried me. I just keep an eye on things and warn him a lot. If he complains I will tell him "Just doing my job."

In Denver they had a bust of a bunch of kids that destroyed a house during a party. They made 6 arrests directly as a result of myspace. So the authorities are there watching.

Maybe I will check it out as an outlet for some of my more contemporary photography (no not that kind of photography) and poetry. Most of the comments I get on my blog are from the young set. There is a HUGE market with them. They still have money to spend. Hmmm.

If bad things continue to happen then it could be required for parents to know the myspace name and password of their minor children--but I think having this private space can be good for kids. perhaps a better solution would be for youth oriiented sites to both have, monitor and enforce some privacy policies.

Mdlle. Nancy said:

Myspace can be fun. And extremely distracting.

I'm making an Absolute Write group now!

The sad thing is that's the best idea I've had all day. It's been a dull day.

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I don't know a thing about MySpace - so could you explain how to get to the AW group space and what one does when they get there?

MySpace

MySpace is very easy to get into, and none of teh sites on there have enough protection to stop anyone from looking at them

I doubt MySpace is any worse than many otehr places, but that says nothing at all good about it. It is NOT predators on MySpace getting the kids in trouble, it's the kids doing it to themsleves. Doesn't anyone even watch the news? MySpace is on regularly because of the completely moronic stunts kids pull on there.

Any parent who doesn't have full access to everythign a teen does online is an idiot, and is just begging for serious trouble.

Myspace is what you make it.

It could be a fun place where you play games, or hang out with your friends.

It can be a work extension where you network your butt off to get some attention.

It can serve as a pimping board for your projects and products.

It can be used to help you find your long lost love from high school that your parents ripped you away when you were forced to move with them to Timbuktoo.

Did I mention it can be fun?

Personally I use it for a psuedonym that I'm already published under. I use it to tell the world about my writing success or failure...my ups and downs...my ins and outs.

I've yet to meet anyone on there who has decided to destroy me, physically or otherwise...and the few friends that found me from high school only wanted to make sure I was still alive (guess they're worried about their own mortality!).

The truth is no matter where kids go on the internet there will be some nut job trying to harm them. This can also happen if they walk only a block away for milk. The world is a sick, sick, place anymore...20 years ago I could run around the world and come back with nary a scratch...now we have to worry if they are just across the street.

I say...it's a great way to teach kids about networking (they'll need this more and more as corporate businesses expand) and about how to promote product. It will also teach them to learn to read between the lines of what they hear and read as long as they know their parents won't judge them for showing them a conversation (actually messages on Myspace) that seems to be going in the wrong direction.

Parents should be teaching them to stay away from certain types on the internet anyway...just like they would if they saw them talking to a stranger in the street. They should teach them what is private information and what is okay to chat about.

And before anyone tells me I'm expecting too much I have to tell you...I have four kids...2 on the brink of teendom and I know where they are and what they are doing now...and I've made it clear to them that I will until the day they turn 18.

Funny thing is they love the computer but only for games (they have no interest in Myspace) so I must be doing something right...at least I hope I am...

Carrie

Mdlle. Nancy said:

I'm making an Absolute Write group now!

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Woohoo!

Not that I have a clue what that means, because I know absolutely nothing about MySpace, but woohoo nonetheless, because you're clearly assisting us with our diabolical plan to take over the Internet. Bless you, Dictator Nancy!

JennaGlatzer said:

Woohoo!

Not that I have a clue what that means, because I know absolutely nothing about MySpace, but woohoo nonetheless, because you're clearly assisting us with our diabolical plan to take over the Internet. Bless you, Dictator Nancy!

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I think that's MySpace's plan, too . . . it seems like everyone you come across has heard of it, has an account or knows someone who has an account (or knows someone who knows someone). It's interesting. And kind of annoying. LOL

As I've said in a previous post elsewhere, I'm on MySpace and so is one of my nephews. He's on there every day and I read all of his bulletins. Sometimes I'll send him a reply along the lines of "I hope you don't kiss your mother with that mouth!" *sighs*

Even though he has friends from high school on his Friends List (he'll be 17 soon), he wrote to me with concerns about some of the other people on there. He said he's "trying to be nice" in adding them but I'm concerned because sometimes he'll post personal information, like stats and his cell phone number. I've noticed that sometimes he'll post "fake surveys" and I really wonder if it's to poke fun at them or to throw people off.

I have done the whole survey thing in the past, too, but I tell you: Those bulletins have SERIOUSLY gotten out of hand and someone on my FL pretty much gave me the heads-up that discretion is the way to go.

I think something like this CAN be dangerous for the unwary, uneducated child/teen. Then again, so are a lot of the other public forums on the Web.