I had been thinking about Karen Owen, the Duke University graduate who sent a Power Point presentation via email to friends with details about her sexual encounters with 13 men during her years at the school. The young woman thought she was sharing her writings only with trusted buddies but it quickly was leaked onto the internet. She didn’t understand that electronic communication is not private. Ever.

The internet is fun and interesting but it can also be a weapon and it is not private, I began the story about the incident.  My daughter pretended not to interested. She held her head with her hand and stared straight ahead. She asked no questions. 

“Do you think email is private?” I asked.  My daughter turned toward me in surprise.  ”Mom, my friends and I don’t send email. We use Face book.” It’s practically the same thing, I responded.

So I warned her again about putting personal information on Face book, posting inappropriate  comments, writing anything on Face book or email that could potentially be embarrassing. Of  course, I had to note that it wasn’t a good idea for that Duke student to have sex with all those guys but I didn’t dwell on that matter. That’s another discussion.

When I was growing up, my mother and father used to talk to me, too. I dreaded those discussions and vowed as a teen that I wouldn’t do that to my children. But as much as I tried not to listen to my parents, I did soak up most of what they said, and their advice and warnings helped shaped some of my decision-making as a young woman.

I’ll  continue to talk to my daughter, even when she doesn’t want to hear what I have to say.

Related posts:

1. Privacy on Facebook
2. How much privacy should teenagers have?

Parents, we have to. No matter how much they protest or complain about an invasion of privacy. Without this type of parental guidance, our children are roaming dangerously in cyberspace. I began to better understand the risks of this new playground while attending a social media conference here in Charlotte. I got the point about our kids but I realized that many of us Baby Boomers are just as naive about our online privacy.

Why, the social media experts asked, do we put our birthdays (with the actual year), religious views and other personal information on Facebook pages? Just because it was requested on a form? Why do our children think nothing of wanting to plaster their images all over MySpace? Because that’s what their friends do? Many of us parents do the same thing on Facebook.

Here’s the advice from the experts: Read and understand the Facebook and MySpace privacy settings and make sure you reserve some information, such as family photos, only for your identifiable friends. If not, it’s all free territory for anybody with an internet connection. Talk to your children, over and over, about using good judgment about what they say and do online because it never goes away. Monitor them during the turbulent high school years. A study this week showed that 70 percent of employers now do online searches on applicants, young and old.

My daughter grunted when I told her we would be having a family meeting to talk about sensible use of the internet. I’ll be looking more into privacy matters to help both of us. What about you?

As a start, check out www.mashable.com, an online guide to social media.

Related posts:

1. Monitoring Facebook and MySpace
2. How much privacy should teenagers have?
3. Say it loud: there is no privacy on the internet