Anyone familiar with Gaiaonline?
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Anyone familiar with Gaiaonline?
| Mon, 04-02-2007 - 3:17pm |
My son has joined an online community called Gaia online. Several of his friends at school are also members, as is his new girlfriend.
Does anyone have any experience with this site? My son is a good kid, real straight arrow, but I don't want him getting involved with something that could be a problem (like MySpace). I'm going to be joining the site myself, but was just curious what others might know about it, since I haven't heard it brought up here before.
Thanks.
Elizabeth J

The problem with these sites are not with the sites themselves but with how the child uses the site.
Exactly my point. Most often, the kids using these sites are either not well monitored or they have learned how to do so without the parent being aware of exactly what is going on.
Considering my personal experience with sites such as Myspace, I feel it is prudent to encourage other activities rather than posting to friends and *possibly* sharing too much personal information at such young ages. I mean, we can tell our kids not to post personal information, but their worlds are so small that they don't realize what WWW means! They never stop to consider that ANYONE can see all the information they put out there.
I just don't see the point in encouraging this type of internet use. But again, I speak from the perspective of my own (and dd17's) personal experience.
I monitor DS' Gaia activities regularly and feel comfortable so far with what he is doing. He spends a lot of time building and recreating his avatar and less time 'chatting' and on forums. His big thing is collecting all the 'stuff' so have a neat looking avi and he calls me in often to see what he's done with it. If he is being sneaky or trying to hide something, he's not trying too hard because he leaves his screen open when I come into the room, doesn't attempt to close or minimize screens and has no problem with me looking at what he is doing. He has many school friends who play the game and most of his interaction is with people he already knows.
We've talked at length about MySpace and the like, and he is NOT involved and has no use for those types of websites -- I check his history nearly daily.
Oh I know YOU'RE great about checking, monitoring, etc. So many parents are not and even those who do often find themselves in situations with their teens they never thought they'd be in. I guess I just don't see the need for those types of sites - it's too tempting for the kids to post TMI.
We were also diligent about checking up on dd and monitoring and limiting her time on line and dd was STILL able to defy and deceive us!! I know from monitoring dd's myspace that many parent's obviously are NOT looking or checking up on their kid's activities on line...perhaps they prefer to keep their blinders on or their teens are very savvy about hiding things from their parents! Of course, my 17dd doesn't have a myspace anymore. LOL - long story short, some kid began stalking her so we just decided, "let's delete this". Then he got her phone number and started calling our home non-stop. I had to have the phone company block all blocked calls/private numbers and unlisted callers for our phone. We also had to file a police report for harrassment, though nothing ever came of it - he stopped bothering dd. It is scary, but dd seems to have a knack for getting herself into these messes.
Have a good one~
Oh my ... I know you've had some issues with on-line activities, but I thought they were over! I'm sorry to hear that.
You may recall my whining about the unfriendliness of our neighborhood? Last week, I made some comment to DS about the amount of time he spends on that game and he said "mom, what else do I have to do?" Ouch ... he does have a point. I sort of equate it with my involvement on iVillage message boards -- someone to 'talk' to when there's no one around.
He's usually quite a bit busier with school and tennis than he is now, but we're in a bit of a lull right now ... he's on spring break, DD is not. We are going on a trip, but not until Friday so he'll be away from the PC for a while.
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KWYM ... I occassionally log onto mySpace for no other reason than to see what some of the kids DD and DS go/went to school with are up to. My kids know I do this which is probably why they don't want pages of their own!