Blogging the Book

Meet the parents. That's been the theme of this week's work on the book. I've been reaching out to different networks of parents through sites like About.com and Blogher and with help from friends at New Moon and Respect Rx. I also posted on Mediabistro. I've done three phone interviews and two email interviews so far and have three more phone interviews scheduled. I've spoken to moms in Michigan, Kansas and New York City, and emailed with a dad in upstate New York and a mom in Wisconsin. So far they're falling into two camps: Those who trust their kids (and there have been no incidents) and those who have decided to heavily monitor and even unplug usually as a result of something that's happened.

The mom in Michigan told me about how her 13-year-old daughter and a friend made fun of a home economics teacher on MySpace. They called her fat and made jokes that were very sexual in nature. When it was discovered that this tween and her friend were behind the page, the school, which had no formal policy on this stuff, expelled them. The principal said they had become heroes to their peers and had to be made an example of. Her mom told me she was upset with what she perceived as the school's overreaction because she said it took the power away from her as a parent to punish her daughter. Her daughter can now only use the Internet for schoolwork with her mom watching over her shoulder.

I'm sure these incidents are rampant right now. Think back to how many stupid notes you wrote about teachers or jokes you made in the hallway at that age. I remember drawing a picture of my geometry teacher and calling her fat (and that was in 11th grade). It's something teens have always done. The difference is now that it's posted on MySpace for the world to see, the reaction and consequences have increased tenfold.

I actually think that the "moral panic" created by the media around MySpace is forcing schools and parents to have to figure out their policies and approaches to dealing with the Internet and what teens are doing online. There will be tons of overreaction and extreme measures taken at first (like in the story above), but I'm hopeful that clear rational thinking will prevail and that parents and schools will be able to balance the need to know what teens are doing (and have appropriate responses when bad things happen) with all the good the Internet and other technologies have to offer.

I also have been asking parents about whether or not technology has helped or hurt their relationships with their kids. What suprised me was the mom who told me about how she rules at Final Fantasy and has given tips on how to beat the game to her sons. I also had a mom describe how she and her husband and two sons all sit in the living room together, laptops open, looking up information and talking about it together. Another mom talked about how great it is to be able to text her son and ask him to pick up groceries on the way home…More next Friday!

P.S. I'm not posting Essentials today, but there are two social networking related stories worth clipping — one is from the Financial Times about how MySpace is now attempting to screen and delete objectionable profiles in order to attract blue chip advertisers and the other is an analysis piece from the Media Post (reg. required) about whether Facebook can keep its cache with students now that administrators are all over it.

You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.