by Joe Joey

Created on: June 23, 2009   Last Updated: July 04, 2009

Myspace may have been the dawn of a new beginning in social networking, but it's only added to the struggle of parents understanding their kids. There have always been gaps between the old and new generation, the old school and new school, parent and child. Myspace and the Internet have just thrown a new dimension into that gap. Even now this dimension is growing more intricate and complicated.

Parents not only have to worry about where their kids are physically, but they now have to worry about where they are cognitively. Thanks to Myspace and the Internet, a kid could be safely at home, but unbeknownst to the parent, be dangerously online talking to strangers, viewing harmful information, and possibly giving away personal information of their own. Kids nowadays practically have the ability to talk to anyone, anywhere, at anytime. In addition to this, the Internet and technology continue to change even as parents try to adapt to the new atmosphere.

Yes, parents can try to get a Myspace of their own. They can secretly view their kid's profile or even tell their child to add them as a friend. The problem is that Myspace isn't even the top dog in social networking anymore. Now anyone who's anybody has a Facebook. Just as parents have gotten the hang of the Internet and Myspace, they now have to learn the ways of Facebook. Even now, Twitter may replace Facebook. Twitter adds another possibility for danger as kids can tweet exactly what they're doing and where they are as they do it for the rest of the world to know. The Internet keeps changing and kids keep adapting to that change. Parents, however, because of the technological gap continue to lag behind.

The big question is how can parents assure that no matter the technology (currently the Internet and social networking sites) their kids remain safe? To answer that question we may have to go back to an old school solution. Technology will always change. The Internet will continue to change. The one constant is that the parent to child relationship will always be important. That will not change. How a parent addresses that relationship is for another discussion. The important thing here is realizing that it is crucial that the parent does address the relationship. Before a parent can tell their kid to be safe on the Internet, to be safe on Myspace, Facebook, or Twitter, the child-parent relationship has to be there. If it is there, then perhaps kids and parents alike could learn together as the technology and the Internet continue to advance in this Web 2.0 era.

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