Are social networking sites endangering NZ teenagers?

There are many views on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Most of these are views from people believing that these sites are endangering New Zealand teenagers by exposing teenagers to sexual predators. There are also people who choose to oppose with this opinion and believe that these sites are safe and just a way of socializing with friends. I see both sides of this story but agree that these sites do endanger teenagers all over New Zealand.

The internet is open to all viewers of the public and this means being accessible to those with bad intentions. False identity through these socializing sites is a huge issue putting teenagers in risk of being stalked and prayed on by sexual predators. There are many people who use the internet but take it for advantage; this is why sites such as Facebook and MySpace have such bad connotations. Some people, most commonly men, use these sites to talk to females who are usually teenagers and earn their trust then obvious danger occurs. There are many stories on internet abuse, most of these stories having bad endings. Older men pretending to be young chatting to young girls on the internet, slowly trapping them into a web of trust and having the girls meet them in a secret place is a common occurrence. Although the majority of these social networking sites conditions only allow people over thirteen to make a profile, there is no real way of knowing who is who and how old they really are. These sites are commonly misused and there are often people posing as someone they’re not in order to trick someone one way or another. While using these sites there is no way of knowing if the information on each socializing page is real.
However on most of these social networking sites you are able to set your profile to private. By doing this only the people that are on your friends list are able to access your profile viewing your details and personal information. This setting allows the page holder to either except or decline other users who have requested to be their friend. The private setting helps the user of the site to keep personal information concealed and stop others who don’t have the user’s permission from seeing it.
Cyber bullying is another huge danger of social networking sites and this affects many teen agers of New Zealand. Forty percent of all teenagers with Internet access have reported being bullied online during the past year and although most of these incidents are said to have occurred in chat rooms, sites such as Facebook and MySpace are growing fast, and so are the cyber bullying incidents originating from them. There are experts who believe that these sites will soon overtake chat rooms as the top source of cyber bullying problems worldwide. Some of the most common cyber bullying occurs on these networking sites as others are able to steal an individual’s name and password then using their profile to post rumors, gossip or other damaging information. People are also able to alter photographs using PhotoShop or other photo editing software in order to humiliate the individual and using the web sites and blogs to post hurtful, embarrassing information about other people. There have been cases where cyber bullying had occurred and lives were ended in result of suicide.



However these sites are safe to a certain degree and usually depend on the user and how sensibly they use the internet. If the user chooses not to reveal personal information about themselves and they know how to use the internet safely they have a much higher chance of remaining safe. Many people use the sites for keeping in touch with friends, finding out the latest news with old friends and just away to waste time. If the users of these socializing sites are aware of the dangers which happen online the chances are they are more likely to avoid the harms that the internet does brings and prevent them from happening by knowing what to look out for.
There are many dangers that New Zealand teenagers are vulnerable to when using social networks and although there are ways of preventing these dangers by putting your profile on private or using the internet safely I believe New Zealand teenagers are still capable or being hurt. Most teenagers choose to ignore using the internet safely but even if they were aware of what can happen I believe that there would still be many teenagers still being hurt or harmed in one way or another.