Bonanza Photo - Emma Garrard Incline Middle School students use computers Tuesday morning during Marsha Tejedaa's computer class. MySpace.com is blocked on all district computers and online safety is an increasing concern.
Justin Broglio Bonanza staff writer October 26, 2005 PrintEmail Taylor Behl was a college freshman who wanted to meet new people. She had an email account, a blog (a type of online journal) and a MySpace.com account.
She also had a secret - a romantic relationship with a 38-year-old who she frequently talked with online.
According to information from MSNBC news the Virginia Commonwealth University freshman died in September and police are still investigating her death as a possible murder. Their lead suspect - the man she met online.
Just as the cell phone quickly made its way into the pocket of every kid in America, online social networking is quickly making its way onto every computer screen in the country. The most popular form of social networking is "blogging" - writing information about yourself on a Web site so other Internet users can read about your life, opinions or thoughts. Blogs can include anything their users upload, including pictures and personal information.
Web sites such as MySpace.com and Facebook.com offer Internet users a complete social networking package with services like blogs, personal profiles, instant messaging, photo uploads, music downloads, chat rooms and the ability to share your information with anyone who has an Internet connection.
The minimum age limit to create a MySpace.com profile is 14 and there is currently no verification of membership information. The only regulation on MySpace.com comes from a recent partnership with WiredSafety.org, who are working with MySpace.com to create software that seeks out and deletes underage users and profiles with nudity or obscene content.
About half of all the blogs on the Internet are authored by teenagers, according to a 2003 study by the Perseus Development Corp. (a web survey software provider); and a majority of the top 15 sites visited by teens 17 and under in January of 2005 were either blogs or social networking sites, according to comScore Media Metrix (an Internet audience profiler).
A study of teenage blogs published by the Children's Digital Media Center at Georgetown University revealed that two-thirds of teenage bloggers provide their age and first name; 60 percent offer their location and contact information; and one in five divulge their full name on their sites.
What happened to Taylor Behl is still unknown, but what is known is that she opened a MySpace.com account when she was a senior in high school. Her profile contained information on her location, her likes and dislikes, her dreams and aspirations, her picture and where she went to school.
CLEAR 67°
