At school we do Internet safety, and I asked how many year 7s (11-12 years) had a Bebo, Myspace or facebook or some such account; almost all did. Then I asked how many of them had told the truth about their age, none of them had, most had said at least 16. I hope it got them thinking when I pointed out that if none of them were truthful, how could they expect that any of the others they talked too were. I also said about school uniforms, names ect, giving clues away even if you didn't realise. One game I got them to play online had them chatting to another person in a chat room (not real, just computer simulated). One boy, who was really hamming it up, said about this cool chick who wanted him to go to a party with her, and she lived local. At the end the 'cartoon face' of the person was revealed. His exclamations of horror when he realised it was a 50-60 year old man was priceless. Without him, the lesson wouldn't have had so much punch, but it did get the message across. I just hope they remember it!

My daughter was very put out a couple of years ago when I refused to let her have an account, and insisted that her friends should take down pictures that included her on a school trip. She understands the dangers better now, and sticks to chatting on MSN to people she actually knows in real life.
It's sad though, Vicky had a friend to stay last weekend, and I've never had such a hard time. The friend didn't want to catch the bus into town, play cards, board games, nothing but go on the computer to chat to her 'online friends', never mind the friend she was visiting. They ended up watching 2 feature length films, and them some anime dvds we had. There was no giggly, girly conversations, and when I asked what she was doing next year she just said college, another question found out the subject, but she couldn't tell me how long the course was etc, I gave up trying to make conversation eventually. Unfortunately I suppose there are an increasing number of people who interact only with online friends, and do not develop people skills in real life.

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