<p>I think that sometimes younger people (such as high school kids) can be very intelligent and still do things that are ill advised and that they mightn’t do as adults, such as leave their Myspaces or their Facebook pages open to the world. That’s why I posted the article: to remind the students who read this forum (and their parents) how what they post on social networking sites can come back to haunt them if they are not careful. As soozievt notes, an obvious solution is to use privacy settings. </p>
<p>I think we all also have to recognize that teenagers are still young enough that they sometimes sort of cannot conceive of the fact that what they post online (esp. without privacy settings) is out there for the whole world to see. They think only of their friends viewing their pages and don’t have a good and accurate grasp on just how big that audience can be! </p>
<p>I think it’s our duty as parents to remind them. I also think that even kids who are well brought up and are very nice kids in their real lives sometimes might choose to use language online (on these sites, or in emails, etc.) that we adults would find offensive. They very well might/do write things that they would never say, in the same way that adults write things in emails that they might never say to a person’s face.</p>
<p>Bottom line: kids, make sure your social networking site pages are private and do not post things that would make a college adcom not want to admit you.</p>