As Anne stated, it's the best course of action to talk to her and just make sure she doesn't have any intention of meeting anyone on the internet. You could also try and coerce her into making her profile private so that only her friends that she approves can contact her. But otherwise she's just being a teen following the crowd, and Myspace is only a phase. I'm sure she has a good head on her shoulders, especially if she has a mother and grandmother who care, so she won't make that mistake. It's easy to understand your concern, but I'm sure she'll be fine.

Grannie1, she's lucky to have a grandmother who cares so much about her and keeps an eye on her MySpace. But I wouldn't worry too much. Even if her profile is public, it's unlikely to be dangerous unless she's posting her street address or encouraging offline meetings with strangers who comment in her profile or send her instant messages or mail.

You might want to ask her about that, and if she says she just deletes or ignores creepy comments from weirdos, she's probably just fine. None of the known cases of social-networking child exploitation involved abduction - those cases all concerned a child who went out to meet someone they'd "met" only online.

The National School Boards Association just this week released a study that found that "only .08% of all students [9-17 years of age] say they've actually met someone in person from an online encouner with their parents' permission." Coming from the NSBA, that should ease some parents' concerns and counter the incredible negative hype we've seen in the news media about teen social networking. See also "Profile of a teen online victim" and "Sex offenders on MySpace: Some context." I suspect your granddaughter will be just fine and is smart about ignoring inappropriate contact. I hope that helps. All best,
Anne
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Anne Collier
ConnectSafely co-director