another myspace thing

Avatar for momtb4
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
another myspace thing
9
Wed, 02-08-2006 - 2:24am

this is gonna sound stupid, but I'm not as savvy as my teen. Close, but not as much. He has a myspace page. I have a link to it but I don't know how to navigate the site. Sounds totally stupid, since I clearly can get around here. Anyone wanna help out a lame mom who thought she knew what she was doing, but thinks there must be more?

Leslie

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-14-2000
Wed, 02-08-2006 - 8:58am
I'm no expert but from what I've observed (and I spend a bit of time most days checking out various myspaces) it works kind of like this:
Pam
Avatar for momtb4
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Wed, 02-08-2006 - 1:50pm

so, this is his myspace page. It never changes. I can see the public comments, but they don't make any sense. It's like hearing only one end of a conversation. He has a lot of stuff on it, but it never really changes. Am I missing something?




Edited 2/8/2006 3:48 pm ET by momtb4
Avatar for elc11
Community Leader
Registered: 06-16-1998
Wed, 02-08-2006 - 3:34pm
Yes he does have a lot of stuff on it! It worked fine for me. He has it laid out a little differently than most kids' pages as most have the comments running along the far right of the page. If you scroll down about a third of the way you will get to the messages left by his friends, the most recent was on 2/4 from a blond girl with a white cap. If you click on her picture (or on any of his friends' pictures) it will take you to her page, scroll down on the comments left to her and you can see his messages to her. You're right that reading the comments is like just one side of a conversation, to get the whole convo you have to go to each friend's page and find your ds' comments to him/her and even then it may not make much sense! There is also a way to send private messages and you would need his password to read those. Superimposed on the grill of the car are his blogs, if you click "view more" you can read them. You have to be logged in as a member to look at his pictures, the link is to the right of the blogs. Does this help?
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-14-2000
Wed, 02-08-2006 - 3:40pm
Hey momtb - I think you should edit your post to remove the link to your ds's myspace.
Pam
Avatar for momtb4
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Wed, 02-08-2006 - 3:51pm
ok, I took the link out. So I am reading his stuff right. There is very, very little activity on his page. I know he IM's with a number of different people, most of them local. I do know already to click on pictures to go to the friends and all that. The upset about myspace had me all worried that I wasn't reading things right. Now I don't feel quite so stupid. Oddly enough, where I have his link saved in my favorites, I gave it a really stupid name that he'd never recognize so he'd never think to open it!
Avatar for deenow17
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-12-2004
Wed, 02-08-2006 - 8:07pm
ok, Leslie. I have read the other responses and it seems like you got the help you needed so it's time for my dumb question. What is myspace & how does one access it? I have asked my boys and they don't know anything about it. They think I was asking as I run a girls technology camp every summer and I mentioned that I had heard about this being the in thing. Not sure if I'm just a dumb Canadian here or just dumb. Thanks, Dee :-)
Avatar for momtb4
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Wed, 02-08-2006 - 9:17pm
www.myspace.com I honestly don't know how to find people on it. The way I found my sons was that I was using my mom's computer and my little brother (he's 13) had left it open to his page, which was easy enough to follow to my son's page. I've tried using the search feature but never find my own kid on there, even though I know he's there. I have an alternate ego there, saying I'm either 16 or 18, can't remember which, so when I find a picture of a young girl I want to be, I can chat with my kid and he'll never know it's me. I know, that's sneeky and underhanded, but it works for me.
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-26-2003
Wed, 02-08-2006 - 9:36pm
I know that a lot of parents are upset about their kids on MySpace, but I beleive there is a solution. My Husband and I both have MySpace accounts and check our kids pages regularly, and they know it. We check all of their friends pages, too. We have found some pics on our dd's page on occaision that we dont feel are appropriate and ask her to take them down, and she understands and complies immediately. Also, we continually remind them that most likely if they talk to strangers it is probably some old guy with a beergut in his underwear. The visual is enough to keep them from talking to strangers. Also, if anyone is blatantly sexual to them, they report it and get the person kicked off. They tell me about it everytime it happens. The trick is to talk to your kids and pay attention. Both of my kids are sucessful in both school and extracurricular activities and MySpace has not ruined them. Our son attends a special High School studying engineering and is the president of his class. But I will tell you it is a constant process. We know all the kids and all their friends. They feel safe and happy with us. We worry about some of their friends and we know that we cannot save them all, but sometimes it is just nice for them to know that they have a adult they can talk to without judging them.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Thu, 02-09-2006 - 12:25am

I haven't posted here in ages but do lurk pretty regularly. I have been following the MySpace thread with great interest since learning my neice had one a few months ago. Seeing her site was a real eye opener to say the least.

Just this past week one of our local news channels did an investigation regarding teens using MySpace. The reporter spent some time surfing through kids sites and collected enough information from the kids sites and their friends sites that she was able to go and knock on their doors at their homes !!!

You should have seen the looks on the parents faces when they learned how their kids had been found. Some kids had a lot of information such as their name, DOB,school and a picture. Others just their first name and a picture and some only a first name but through their friends sites the reporter was able to put the pieces together and find each kids home.

One girl had a dad that is a local police officer. A couple of the parents said they monitor their kids sites.

I think the site can be used to keep tabs on kids and their friends which could be a good thing as in my neices situation. But the only safe way to have one of these sites is if your kid and all of their friends are set to private.

My daughter doesn't have a MySpace butI have spent some time looking through MySpace sites of kids my daughter goes to school with. Even when one of them is set to private...unless the friends sites they are posting on is also private...your kids are still exposed.