Quarterly Newsletter
LEAD ARTICLE
MySpace and Internet socializing…What’s behind the risks kids take?
Four years ago, Christina Long was a popular cheerleader and sixth grade honor student living in a suburb of Danbury, Connecticut.
Today, she’s known as the first confirmed U.S. victim of an Internet predator – at 13, Christina was strangled to death by a 25-year-old restaurant worker she met online.
“I would give anything to take that computer back,” said her distraught father after Christina’s body was found.
While it’s easy to understand his reaction, is it really computers – or even popular social networking sites like MySpace, FaceBook and YouTube – that are the problem?
It’s true that before all today’s technology existed, Christina probably would never have crossed paths with her killer.
But, just what happens when kids go online? What are they doing and saying? When does socializing on the Internet turn from fun to potentially fatal? How concerned should we all be?
Very, says New Horizons Clinical Therapist Eilean Mackenzie, who often works with young women recovering from bad online experiences and struggling with issues that got them into destructive situations in the first place.
“Teenagers constantly experiment with who they are,” said Mackenzie.
“And when you combine that with a deep need for attention, you often get a disconnect between who a girl is and how she portrays herself online.”
While teenagers have always struggled to fit in and feel accepted, the Internet has made it much easier to be part of the “cool” crowd, said Mackenzie, and that’s where real trouble often begins.
“Kids often post photos of themselves with drug paraphernalia or lots of alcohol, or they engage in inappropriate sexual talk online, bragging about what they’ll do or have done – things that may or may not have happened,” said Mackenzie. “All those things get them noticed, but not in positive ways.”
To illustrate her point, she tells the story of 15-year-old Allison,* who recently went through the New Horizons outdoor therapy program.
Like many of the kids who end up on the unsavory side of Internet social networking, Allison often felt on the outside socially and struggled with close friendships. Then she began to post sexually suggestive photos and comments on her MySpace page, and suddenly she was getting a lot of attention from a lot of people. That’s all it took to hook her and to make MySpace the center of her social life.
Soon, Allison began having regular email conversations with a young man she thought was 18. After a few weeks, the two agreed to meet at a hotel. And that’s when everything went awry. The “young man” was actually in his early twenties, about eight years older than Allison.
And, based on her MySpace page and their Internet chats, he expected to meet someone ready for sex.
And that’s so often part of the problem. The real Allison and the Allison she’d created online were two very different people. Her “boyfriend” wasn’t who he said he was either – or the age he’d claimed to be.
So, when they met in person, Allison felt lost. She didn’t know which Allison to be – and she didn’t know how to convince this older man she wasn’t as sexually active or experienced as she’d led him to believe. She ended up the victim of sexual assault – and she felt more unwanted and alone than before she’d gone down the Internet path.
According to Program Director Deb Hibbard, most of the girls who come to New Horizons initially minimize the Internet personas they’ve created and the potential dangers they face as a result. They understand the obvious aspects of online socializing – like not giving out a name or address. But, they don’t know or understand the subtleties of how online predators work. And they don’t think about what might happen when they’ve portrayed themselves as “ready for anything” and then arrive at a party with kids who see them in their online role.
Instead, said Hibbard, even if they’ve have bad experiences, most girls tend to downplay the problem.
“They say just what you’d expect: that it’s no big deal, that everyone is doing it,” she said. “But then we start talking. We ask the girls to think about what they’re looking for and about what kind of attention they really want. Then we work together to develop a Girls’ Bill of Rights that helps them understand values and clarify their own. It helps them to define what they want in a relationship and to think about how they want to be treated.”
To make these new discoveries more tangible, Mackenzie said, she has girls struggling with Internet issues create a concrete illustration of their dilemma. On a sweatshirt, they draw images of what they’ve been showing the world. On a T-shirt, worn underneath, they draw images that depict a more realistic picture of themselves – and what they’re looking for.
In another activity, the girls make a list of dreams and possibilities – everything from being a pop star or a model to going to college to building strong relationships with family and peers.
Once the list is complete, they’re given $2000 in virtual money so they can bid as each option goes up for auction. Good, healthy relationships always fetch top dollar.
So if they feel healthy relationships are a priority, Mackenzie then asks the girls, why do they do things that create situations so different from what they really want? It’s the toughest question they’ve faced yet.
“When the girls are in group talking with their peers about these issues, when we help them weigh the pros and cons of their actions, when we give them space and a way to explore their lives, they start to see the conflicts and contradictions,” said Mackenzie. “They actually confront each other,” added Hibbard. “They say things like, ‘You’re 14 and your MySpace picture shows you naked with a towel falling off’ or ‘Do you really want to have oral sex with any guy that asks?’ They make each other think.”
But, once the girls have rediscovered themselves and established more positive goals, what keeps them from falling back into old patterns when they leave New Horizons?
“There are no guarantees,” said Mackenzie. “After going through our program, some of the girls are ready to go back to their families and schools; and in those situations, we help families create contracts and establish rules about Internet use. Some girls are better off moving on to other programs, or like Allison, to a therapeutic boarding school. Most continue some kind of therapy.
“But, we peel away so many layers at New Horizons, the girls are always thinking about what they now know. They learn to ask themselves how to make connections and how to fit into the world without relying on their sexuality – or on technology – to get attention.”
But, Mackenzie acknowledges, the feelings of isolation and the fears that “no one likes me” are tough to overcome, and the girls must check what she calls their internal dialogue, continually thinking about how they can get their needs met in more positive ways.
“At New Horizons,” said Hibbard, “we work to help the girls find ways of getting attention and being valued that are real and lasting – and that gain them the respect of others. We help them realize they do have something worthwhile to give.”
*Allison is not her real name
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| Winter 2007
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