Child
Psychology:
Research says “Majority of Teens Discuss Risky Behaviors
on MySpace, Studies Conclude”
In a pair of related studies released by Seattle
Children's Research Institute and published in the December 2012 issue of
Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, researchers found that 54
percent of adolescents frequently discuss high-risk activities including sexual
behavior, substance abuse or violence using MySpace, the popular social
networking Web site
The studies, Adolescent Display of Health Risk Behaviors
on MySpace, and Reducing At-Risk Adolescents' Display of Risk Behavior on a
Social Networking Web Site, were led by research fellow Megan A. Moreno, MD,
MPH, MSEd, and Dimitri Christakis, MD, MPH, of the Center for Child Health,
Behavior and Development at Seattle Children's Research Institute, and the
University of Washington.
With the rise in SNSs' popularity and use, parents and
those who work with teens have concerns that these sites might expose teens to
ill-intentioned online predators, cyberbullies and increased peer pressure.
There are also fears that university enrollment and future hiring decisions may
be compromised by what adolescents post online in personal profiles. SNSs like
Facebook.com and MySpace.com are increasingly popular; MySpace, the most
commonly used SNS, has more than 200 million profiles, with 25 percent
belonging to youth under 18, according to multiple studies.1, 2
"As with television, movies, games and all media,
social networking sites are neither inherently good nor bad," said
Christakis, Director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development
at Children's. "Their upside needs to be acknowledged even as we remain
concerned about their downside. We need to devise ways to teach teens and their
parents to use the internet responsibly. In the 90's we talked about a digital
divide that separated rich from poor. That divide is quickly narrowing, but a
new one is emerging rapidly: the 21st century digital divide separates too many
clueless parents from their Internet-savvy children."
In their study Adolescent Display of Health Risk
Behaviors on MySpace, the research team collected information directly from
readily available public MySpace profiles. A total of 500 randomly chosen Web
profiles of self-reported 18-year-old males and females from the United States
provided the data. Researchers examined the extent to which high-risk behaviors
were reported in the profiles, as well as any correlations that suggested that
certain behaviors may be influenced by other items, interests or activities.
They found that 54 percent of the MySpace profiles
contained high-risk behavior information, with 41 percent referencing substance
abuse, 24 percent referencing sexual behavior and 14 percent referencing
violence. In the study, females were less likely to display violent information
than males, and teens who reported a sexual orientation other than
"straight" showed increased displays of references to sexual
behaviors. Profiles that demonstrated church or religious involvement were
associated with decreased displays of risky behaviors, as were profiles that
indicated engagement in sports or hobbies.
"Online displays of risky behaviors may actually
just be displays," said Moreno, formerly a research fellow at Children's
and now Assistant Professor of Adolescent Medicine at the University of
Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. "Some teens may be
grandstanding, or may be indicating intention or considered behavior. If that's
the case, then there's a silver lining because this presents opportunities for
education and prevention before risky behavior takes place." Moreno adds,
"When online displays of dangerous behavior discuss actual behaviors, the
good news is that teens may be amenable to participating in online
interventions. Our related study looked at this, and we were happy to see that
even a brief email intervention may be feasible and showed promise for
influencing online behavior."
The researchers' pilot study Reducing At-Risk
Adolescents' Display of Risk Behavior on a Social Networking Web Site examined
whether a physician's online communication to teens about references to sex and
substance abuse found in their MySpace profile would have a positive impact on
reducing online display of such behaviors in the SNS. Looking at 190
self-described 18 to 20-year olds with public MySpace profiles that met study
criteria for being at-risk, the profiles received a single intervention email
from "Dr. Meg," the physician online profile of Moreno, who became a
MySpace member. Her profile displayed information about her professional
credentials and research interests. The email was sent from within the MySpace
system to the subjects' profiles, and no personal emails were used. The
intervention provided basic information about the risky nature of online
personal disclosures and also provided a resource link to a Web site containing
information about testing for sexually transmitted infections.
Three months after the MySpace e-mail intervention, the
same online profiles were evaluated again for references to sex and substance
use, as well as any changes in profile security settings (switching from a
"public" to a "private" profile). At the beginning of this
study, 54 percent of subjects referenced sex and 85 percent referenced
substance use. After the email intervention, 13 percent of the profiles
decreased references to sex behaviors, and 26 percent decreased their substance
use references. Ten percent of the profiles changed their security listings
from "public" to "private," and a total of 42 percent of
the profiles implemented any of these three protective measures. Of those who
received the email intervention females were most likely to eliminate sexual
references.
Using results from both studies, the researchers conclude
that SNS are readily available tools to identify displayed health information
and also to communicate with teens about these displays, and they are another
way parents and physicians can learn about how adolescents make health-related
choices. They add that adolescence is a period of identity exploration which
now includes online identity, and adolescents may be open to communicating with
health professionals about their online displays.
+ comments + 1 comments
There have been attempts to standardize these services to avoid the need to duplicate entries of friends and interests (see the FOAF standard and the Open Source Initiative. A 2011 survey found that 47% of American adults use a social networking service
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