A recently completed study into the new phenomenon of blogging, has found that from a developmental perspective, blogs play a positive role by offering teenagers a place to construct narratives and share stories. But teenage bloggers often willingly reveal their actual names, age and physical locations, putting them at risk for cyberstalking. The study was conducted by David Huffaker, a Northwestern University researcher, who presented his findings at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in St. Louis. The study focused on male and female teenagers aged between 13 and 17 and examined the amount of private information revealed in their blogs.
The results showed that around 70 percent of the teenagers disclosed at least their first name, 67 percent revealed their age, and 61 percent provided their contact information. Around 50 percent of the blogs included discussions about boyfriends, girlfriends, or attractions to someone in the form of a "crush." Seventeen percent of those who wrote about their own sexuality discussed homosexuality and their experiences of "coming out."
Huffaker said it was important to realize that blogs differed from the traditional personal diary. "Blogging is not an individual pursuit in the way teen diaries once were. Instead, blogs are used by teens to form a small or large community. These activities are important to identity exploration which is one of the principal tasks of adolescence," he added. "What's more, the mechanics of these online diaries, with their opportunities to link to and get feedback from peers, also aid teenagers in creating and maintaining social ties."
But Huffaker added that blogs do have a dark side. "The danger of sexual predation by adult strangers and of bullying by peers are sometimes unfortunate products of the teen blogging phenomenon," he warned. Huffaker cited an alarming study in which 2,500 children aged 10 to 17 years of age reported being harassed or threatened online. And in another study, one in five teenage Internet users said they'd been approached or received a sexual solicitation within their last year of Internet use. One in 33 reported being aggressively solicited by predators who asked to meet them, called them on the telephone, or sent them letters, money or gifts. Worryingly, despite their apparent frequency, these incidents of predation seldom were reported by teenagers to parents, school administrators or other authorities.
Huffaker concluded by saying that parents should be aware of their kids' online activities and consider talking to their children about software packages that offer the opportunity to make one's online diary "friends-only" by including password protection.
Source: Northwestern University
