MySpace can bring shy kids out of their shells

‘Disinhibition effect’
Just like adults might find it easier to say something in an e-mail or on instant messenger to a friend, sweetie or stranger, kids feel more comfortable being themselves on MySpace.

Psychologists call it the “disinhibition effect”: People reveal more about themselves from behind a computer screen, especially to a virtual friend who will always be a stranger in real life. And making friends can be easier online because it requires trust, which can be built around repeated, honest online conversations, and mutual interests, which can be matched on MySpace pages.

So kids on MySpace do what they’ve always done in the real world: Try to craft an image, look cool and chat with friends, said C.J. Pascoe, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who researches how new media has become central to teen life.

“I'm seeing the same old teenage stuff in different packaging,” she said.

MySpace can even help kindle — OMG! — teen romance. Brad Dupuie, 16, of Orange County, Calif., said the social-networking site has made it easier to hang out with girls from school. They sometimes leave their phone numbers on his MySpace page. “Half the time you call, half the time you don’t,” Brad said.

When he got into MySpace his freshman year, his social life was starting to take off. Formerly known as the chubby, funny kid, Brad had “dropped some of his baby weight” — and joined the football team at Corona del Mar High School. “I was becoming more popular in my mind and less self-conscious of myself,” he said.

Brad now mostly uses his cell phone to keep in touch. He doesn’t spend much time on MySpace, but will use the site to maintain real-life friendships. Like other teens and especially college students, Brad is turning his focus to Facebook. “Facebook becomes a brand-new start and it becomes a sign of maturity,” said Pascoe.

Brad isn’t shy about sharing his MySpace page with his parents. He’ll even show them pictures of girls he likes. Rosen said most teens — about 70 percent — don’t mind their parents seeing their profile.

“It shows most of them are using it in a fairly health way,” he said.

‘Where it actually counts’
That can include talking to strangers. More than half of adolescents — about 55 percent — do so on the Internet, according to Rosen’s book.

Seeking online friendships on social-networking sites doesn’t raise the risk of being molested offline, according to a study published in the February/March issue of the journal American Psychologist. But the odds did increase for kids who exhibited several risque online behaviors including being rude, sending personal information to strangers — and talking about sex to strangers.

“MySpace is a means for kids to express themselves,” said Laurence Steinberg, author of "You and Your Adolescent," and a psychology professor at Temple University in Philadelphia. “Troubled kids will express themselves in ways to indicate how troubled they are.”

Jessica’s parental units eventually busted her for talking to the older boy on MySpace. She was “really mad” at first. But Jessica has since calmed down — and  now uses MySpace to maintain friendships with kids from her soccer team and school. She isn’t really bothered that her parents are now on her list of 40-some MySpace “friends.”

“I don’t say bad stuff on my comments,” Jessica said. “I tell them everything.”

Her MySpace profile also allows her to express herself through blogs, pictures documenting her life and page designs that she changes about once a week. She recently transformed her profile from a “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” theme to anti-war. Jessica says that her MySpace page reflects that she has “more personality.”

“Before it was boring and now it’s really different and exciting,” she said.

Jessica doesn’t care to meet strangers on MySpace anymore. She said a Web safety seminar at school and talks with her parents helped change her mind.

“In person is where it actually counts — not with a stranger on the Internet,” she said.

Are you concerned about what your adolescent is doing on MySpace — but you're unsure how to broach the topic? Shoot me an e-mail with your burning questions about parenting a MySpacer — and I'll go to the experts for answers. Some responses could be published in another story.

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