"Social networking" is the use of sites such as MySpace or Facebook to join online communities and communicate with others. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 75% (maybe more) of teenagers have a profile on at least one of these sites. An informal survey of our county's 5th graders found that around half of them have one. Having a profile on one of these sites isn't necessarily dangerous, as long as care is taken to avoid some common mistakes...

• Do not post private information (full name, address, phone number, school name, etc.) in your profile. For more info on this topic check out our Personal Info page.
• Do not share your password with others (except your parents).
• Don't use the length of your friends list as a status symbol, only "friend" people you really know.

And just a few more things for parents to keep in mind:

• Many kids have more than one profile on a site - one that they share with their parents and one or more others that they don't tell their parents about.
• There is nothing to stop a 12 year old from saying that he/she is 21 when registering for an account. The sites don't check.
• There is nothing to stop a 45-year-old sex offender from saying that he/she is 15 when registering for an account. The sites don't check.
• A lot of arguments that start online end up causing fights at school.