Book Review - MySpace Safety: 51 Tips for Teens and Parents
Category Book Reviews
I recently received a copy of the book MySpace Safety: 51 Tips for Teens and Parents by Kevin Farnham and Dale Farnham. Since I have two teens (and I'm their parent), I thought it might be interesting to see what they had to say. As a means for some common ground discussion (and to help educate the adult side), this works pretty well.
Contents: Introduction; Get Ready For MySpace; Joining MySpace; Setting Up Your Account; Your Profile; MySpace Friends; The Extended Network; Group Interaction; Scripted Safety; Abuse; Leaving MySpace; Afterword; Resources; Order This Book
This appears to be a self-published book that focuses on the MySpace social networking site. The main thrust is to educate parents and teens on how they can be active in MySpace without taking unnecessary risks to expose themselves to predators or identity thieves. The material is presented in (as the title states) 51 safety tips on what you need to know about MySpace when it comes to personal information. The authors have combined the safety tips with a small amount of "how to" information that will help the MySpace newbie get up to speed on the features, as well as helping them to avoid initial mistakes that might be hard to fix later on. The writing is pretty clear and understandable for both adults and teens, so really anyone with decent reading skills should be able to use this guide effectively to understand what's at stake.
Realistically, most techies who spend a lot of time online will not find many new revelations here. There's a lot of emphasis on not giving out information that could be used to allow others to narrow down your location and such. But that's not, in my opinion, a drawback. The value in this book is to give you (as the parent/adult) and your kid a framework for discussing important online safety issues. The clueless parent who knows nothing of MySpace except what is reported on the news will learn that all MySpace members are not potential threats (as the media often portrays). The teen (if you can get them to read the book) will at least be presented with the basic privacy tools to allow them to have fun but not risk falling prey to predators. Since teens already know everything there is to know (just ask them!), they might not take this as seriously as you'd like them to. But if they remember just enough to get that twinge of "something's not right", then you've done well...
So... if you think your child will willingly follow all the steps in the book, dream on. But if you've wanted to instill some sense of online privacy in them and you don't know how, this could well be the place to start...
I recently received a copy of the book MySpace Safety: 51 Tips for Teens and Parents by Kevin Farnham and Dale Farnham. Since I have two teens (and I'm their parent), I thought it might be interesting to see what they had to say. As a means for some common ground discussion (and to help educate the adult side), this works pretty well.
Contents: Introduction; Get Ready For MySpace; Joining MySpace; Setting Up Your Account; Your Profile; MySpace Friends; The Extended Network; Group Interaction; Scripted Safety; Abuse; Leaving MySpace; Afterword; Resources; Order This Book
This appears to be a self-published book that focuses on the MySpace social networking site. The main thrust is to educate parents and teens on how they can be active in MySpace without taking unnecessary risks to expose themselves to predators or identity thieves. The material is presented in (as the title states) 51 safety tips on what you need to know about MySpace when it comes to personal information. The authors have combined the safety tips with a small amount of "how to" information that will help the MySpace newbie get up to speed on the features, as well as helping them to avoid initial mistakes that might be hard to fix later on. The writing is pretty clear and understandable for both adults and teens, so really anyone with decent reading skills should be able to use this guide effectively to understand what's at stake.
Realistically, most techies who spend a lot of time online will not find many new revelations here. There's a lot of emphasis on not giving out information that could be used to allow others to narrow down your location and such. But that's not, in my opinion, a drawback. The value in this book is to give you (as the parent/adult) and your kid a framework for discussing important online safety issues. The clueless parent who knows nothing of MySpace except what is reported on the news will learn that all MySpace members are not potential threats (as the media often portrays). The teen (if you can get them to read the book) will at least be presented with the basic privacy tools to allow them to have fun but not risk falling prey to predators. Since teens already know everything there is to know (just ask them!), they might not take this as seriously as you'd like them to. But if they remember just enough to get that twinge of "something's not right", then you've done well...
So... if you think your child will willingly follow all the steps in the book, dream on. But if you've wanted to instill some sense of online privacy in them and you don't know how, this could well be the place to start...
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