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OMG! Facebook Is Too Dangerous

My 13-year old daughter and I attended an information session on the dangers of social networking presented by Children Online at my daughter's public school in New York City last night.

Doug Fodeman, who gave the adult version of the session (the kids were given a sanitized version by Fodeman's colleague, Marje Monroe, in another room), began by announcing, "I'm no Luddite."

He then proceeded to contradict himself.

According to Fodeman, kids under 16 years of age shouldn't participate in social networking, and kids under 13 shouldn't use email.

Fodeman said kids suffer from atrophied social skills, obesity and overexposure to sexual content, and they lose their moral compass online.

The same arguments are made about TV, and I don't see any sign that those arguments are working.

And while you could argue that kids wouldn't lose much (other than a cultural reference or two) by skipping TV, they would lose not just the technical skills, but the social skills involved with IM, texting and social networking.

But Fodeman says parents should restrict or prohibit online access.

"We don't have to understand the technology... we have the skills to do this, we just have to get past the fact that it's technology," he said.

The sad thing is that I decided to attend this session with my daughter because she could have learned some important skills, like avoiding phishing scams and ensuring she doesn't fall prey to sexual predators. (Of course we talk about these issues at home, but it's always nice to get reinforcement from someone who isn't over-protective "oh, daddy" -- or mommy.)

But any useful information was overshadowed and discredited by the onslaught of patently ridiculous propaganda Fodeman and Monroe put out.

For instance, they told the kids they could lose out on college admissions because of something on their Facebook pages. My daughter's reaction to this: "anyone with a brain would know to get rid of anything that looks bad" before applying.

Well, duh!

The worst thing Fodeman said was that kids don't need to learn online skills early--there's plenty of time for that later.

This from a self-professed expert who didn't have a Facebook page until three months ago.

Kids are always pushing boundaries and messing up, Fodeman said. But online, "mistakes can last a lifetime."

As a parent, I think the mistake of a lifetime would be to keep my daughter from developing the technical--and social--skills of the 21st century.

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