Social Networking Safety

A recent article in the New York times talks about safety concerns relating to social networking. A new Harvard task force is exploring the risk on sites like Facebook and MySpace that teens are being targeted by sexual predators.

I'm really, really not an obsessive social networker. But even I get bizarre, random pokes and emails on Facebook from total creeps. I'm a skeptical 27-year-old who doesn't spend all that much time on Facebook - but would I be so discerning and cynical at 16? Would I have been at all receptive to online weirdos? To be honest, I don't think so. But that doesn't mean that social networking sites aren't dangerous on some level.

It will be interesting to see what the task force finds out; the online social networking world is new - and will require a new approach to safety. For me - well, in a way I feel lucky that I didn't have to even think about these things at 16...