aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Monday, February 27, 2006

Parsing the MySpace backlash

Wired has a major article on MySpace that finds the media and politicians who criticize the site are guilty of scapegoating and overreaction:

The spate of MySpace-related sexual predation stories undeniably has the feel of an epidemic, and it stands as the most persuasive evidence for the “parent’s worst nightmare” viewpoint. But put in context, it’s also the most overblown.

In actuality, the incidents that have been publicly linked to the site are dwarfed by the overall number of such cases historically prosecuted nationwide. An August study by the National Center for Juvenile Justice estimated there were about 15,700 statutory rapes reported to law enforcement agencies in the United States in 2000, based on an analysis of data collected by the FBI. That amounts to 43 cases per day. In fact, with a reported population of 57 million users, MySpace is arguably safer from such crime than other communities that haven’t been the subject of the same scrutiny. One example: California, which averaged 62 statutory rape convictions per month in the late 90s, in a state population of 33 million.

We’ve been down this road before:

Parents in the 1950s were horrified to discover that the comic books their children were reading contained violent and sometimes gruesome cartoon imagery, leading to congressional hearings and the formation of an industry “comic book code” that held titles to wholesome standards.

In the 1980s, parents opened their kids’ bedroom doors and were buffeted by heavy metal music, leading to another round of panic and “Parental Advisory” labels on albums. In the ‘90s, it was rap. In the wake of the Columbine massacre, wearing a Marilyn Manson T-shirt to school could be grounds for suspension.

This time, though, the target of the crackdown is content created by teens and not just consumed by them.

The very design of a teenager’s MySpace page can be shocking to adult eyes. A highly customizable amalgam of blogging, music sharing and social-discovery services, a typical page is a near perfect reflection of the chaos and passion of youth: a music-filled space, rudely splattered with photos and covered in barely-legible prose rendered in font colors that blend together and fade into the background.

“The profiles are hideous,” says a technology specialist at a southern Oregon school district that’s recently started blocking the site for safety reasons. “I’ve seen yellow text on a red background before.”

I am aware that there are real issues to be explored here, but (anecdotally & locally) I see a huge dollop of anti-technology bias in educators’ discussion of the topic.

We need to embrace and understand this part of the modern landscape that is not going away, then work from there to help teens negotiate the terrain appropriately.