reflection on digiteens

There was some powerful information in this presentation and I will definitely share it with my teenager. More than 2 1/2 times the number of car wrecks from driving while texting (DWT) as when DUI. As a parent who is just entering into the 21st century, my children have always been ahead of me in the social networking. I have always been frightened by it and tried to educate them about the dangers I was aware of. I told them the horror stories of people not getting jobs because of pictures on facebook and they would always try to reassure me of their safety by explaining how facebook or myspace worked and assuring me that only their friends could see anything. I still don't believe that and, perhaps even more importantly, who or what is a friend? I know my daughter doesn't have 837 friends, so who are all of those strangers? Just as when children were young, parents taught about safety and the school supplemented that, sometimes bringing in the experts, I feel the same should be true about these digital dangers. The school environment helps to make the education from home become more than warnings from out of date parents, reinforces and enhances the message, perhaps bringing in more professional expertise.
OK, I know this is not being read in real time, but something just happened in real time that is an exclamation point to anthing else I was going to write. I got interrupted while writing this entry to go pick my daughter up at the mall. As she was waiting at the entrance, she was suddenly hugging another teenage girl. When she got into the car and I asked her who it was, she responded, "She's Kelsey's friend, we are friends on facebook and we recognized each other from our pictures...it's great to finally meet her!" Scarey!!I then went to research her number of friends on facebook and found a new profile picture which I had to tell her to remove immediately. All that while responding to the dangers of teens in the digital age. Coincidence?