What is Blogging? -- Blue Valley Shawnee Mission Olathe
A: Blogging is on-line journaling. Entries (called "posts") are sent to a Web server and automatically converted to Web pages available to the 24x7 worldwide Web community. Some blog sites allow other bloggers to respond or comment to original blog entries, thus creating "blogrings." Public blog sites such as xanga.com are free for users.
Q: What is xanga?
A: xanga.com is a Web site devoted to teen blogging. Features such as being able to track activity by user and by groups of users (blogrings), and also the ability to use pictures, video clips, and music in postings, make it especially attractive to teens.
Q: Is xanga the only popular teen blog?
A: No. myspace.com, mydiary.com, livejournal.com, and thefacebook.com are others. As long as young eyeballs spend time on the Internet, there will be Web sites whose sole purpose is to capture big chunks of their time and attention.
Q: How does blogging differ from e-mail and instant messaging?
Blogging creates Web pages that are available 24x7 to the worldwide Internet audience. E-mails and instant messages are sent to specific people. That doesn't mean that e-mails and instant messages can't be saved and forwarded to many people, or that e-mails are always safe. But blogging, by its inherent nature, is automatically available to the 24x7 world.
Q: Why can blogging be so dangerous?
A: Blogrings are electronic neighborhoods. Would you allow your kids to run unrestricted in a neighborhood full of lies, profanity, occultism, pornography, sex shops, and perverts? Of course not. We move into real neighborhoods that we consider the most beautiful, safe, and best environments to raise our families. Yet, for some reason, some parents neither monitor nor question the electronic neighborhoods that their kids spend hours in every night through the Internet.
Imagine your most intimate thoughts as a teen -- your hopes, dreams, details of a date, a crush, a fight with your boyfriend, the loneliness of never having a boyfriend, your frustration over a test or teacher, or the struggles your dad is facing because he got laid off. Imagine the things you might have written in a private diary stuffed under your bed. Now imagine sharing that information with every stranger in your school, neighborhood, registered Johnson County sexual predators, and even the world! Welcome to the world of teen blogging.
Because teens are quick to reveal personal details about themselves and their friends on blog sites (personal details compromise about 90% of the blog postings), teens are also the most vulnerable to sexual predators or other individuals or groups who use type of personal information to manipulate and harm them.
| Kacie Woody was a 13-year-old middle student in Greenbrier, Arkansas who began talking with "Dave" after they met in a Yahoo chat room for Christian teens. On December 3, 2002, Kacie was home alone while her father worked the night shift as a police officer. She received a phone call from Dave. What Kacie did not know was that Dave was 47, not 18. He traveled from his home in San Diego to Kacie's home in Arkansas, planning for this specific night. As he spoke with her on the phone, he stood right outside, holding a rag soaked with chloroform. Kacie was abducted, sexually abused, and killed. Teen blogs such as xanga provide a sexual predator exactly what he needs to plot his next crime. Click here for more about Kacie Woody. |
No one knows exactly what attracts a sexual predator. The "turn on" is different for each criminal. It might be a child's picture, name, hair color, hobby, or something said in a conversation. But one thing is sure: every time you place personal details of yourself, your family, or your friends on the public Internet, you make the same people more vulnerable to a predator.
For an analysis of the dangers of online blogging that range from unseemly gossip to online bullying, character defamation, sexual harassment, cybersex, stalking, and drawing sexual predators, read the following article, Malice lurks online from HonoluluAdvertiser.com.
Q: Why are so many parents in the dark about this?
A: Blogging is relatively new. Parents often don't understand the differences between e-mail, instant messaging, and blogging. They think that when their kids are on line, they are simply 'talking to their friends.' The truth is that teen bloggers provide a great deal of intimate personal details about themselves, their friends, and their families to the world. The nature of blogging plays right into the hands of someone who wants to manipulate or harm kids. Yet some parents are still 'not sure' if they should get involved in this area of their children's lives because some portray it as snooping. One teen said, “If my mom would go behind my back and read my Xanga, it would be like she didn't trust me.” What these parents fail to realize is that their daughter has already posted intimate details of her life and family for the rest of the world.
Q: What has been the Blue Valley school district's reaction?
A: A year ago, BV teachers were encouraging students to build xanga.com Web sites for various creative writing projects. Some teachers are involved in xanga too, sharing 'deep thoughts and feelings'. Some use xanga ...to send messages about themselves: "Today I wore pink. I felt so powerful." ...to send student warnings: "John Smith (name changed), I'm watching you" ...or to make political or social statements: "I am disappointed at our country. Our country is a wonderful place, but there is something wrong. There are too many children." This fall, however, the Blue Valley school district told students that they have blocked xanga.com from Blue Valley school servers thus curtailing activity during school hours. The date and time stamps on many postings, however, indicate that many kids are still posting entries during school hours. Some entries still claim to access xanga from school computers.
Q: How can I see what is going on at xanga?
Surf around using the following links: Blue Valley high school xanga sites. If you want to create your own blog site or comment on someone else's blog site, you can easily create your own xanga user ID at www.xanga.com. A user ID is not needed, however, to merely read existing public blog postings.
Q: Are there other popular teen blog sites?
A: myspace.com, blogspot.com, blogger.com, and livejournal.com are a few others, but xanga.com appears to be the most popular in the Overland Park area. AOL and Yahoo also have free blogging services.
Q: Where can I go to get more information?
A: There are many excellent resources. To understand the true nature of teen blogging, however, there's nothing more clarifying than simply clicking local public blogring links or asking your son or daughter to show you the blogrings they already participate in.
FBI -- A Parent's Guide to Internet Safety
i-SAFE public service announcement about dangers on the Internet
"Unless we can teach the kids cyberethics, how to use good judgment online, we're going to lose this whole generation — and the ones after"
3/31/05 article Meaner Girls - Want a view into the heart of high school darkness? Try Xanga.com from the Pitch.
"Xanga is so easy to learn that a sixth-grader at the Shawnee Mission School District's Broken Arrow Elementary School was told he could face charges from the Johnson County district attorney for a "threatening" post he made on his blog about a teacher in early February."
3/26/05 article For teens, Dear Diary morphs into Xanga from the Kansas City Star
"It's amazing how many kids won't talk to a stranger, but they'll say anything to anyone on the Internet,” said Ganpat Wagh, a special agent with the FBI in Kansas City. “They'll put all their information out there."