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MySpace for the Sandlot Set 49

Posted by Zonk from the because-every-eight-year-old-needs-a-myspace-page dept.
conq writes "BusinessWeek has a piece on social networking sites for kids." From the article: "Parents are paying more heed to the kiddie sites because they know their children will learn, work, and live online. Computer skills such as social networking are becoming as much a part of the success-in-life portfolio as addition and subtraction, says Herbert S. Lin, senior scientist at the National Research Council. Parents' support of these sites stems in part from the idea that it's better for their kids to get their online introductions in a controlled environment -- as many of these sites promise -- than venture into the cyberjungle alone."
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MySpace for the Sandlot Set More

MySpace for the Sandlot Set

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  • Best way to teach about the net... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LiquidCoooled ( 634315 ) on Saturday September 23, 2006 @06:38AM (#16166087) Homepage Journal
    is to be there with them.
    Show them whats out there, explain things, guide them and most of all - don't let them out on their own.
    You wouldn't consider letting your youngster go playing on the streets on a saturday night, so do the same with online stuff.

    • Re:Best way to teach about the net... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by HoosierPeschke ( 887362 ) <hoosierpeschke@comcast.net> on Saturday September 23, 2006 @06:46AM (#16166115) Homepage
      I agree, it's the same as with TV and video games. I work and maintain a moderate lifestyle so my wife can stay home with my son. I'm not fond of those sites because they're mostly hideous and tend to be the new babysitter for kids.

      I feel sorry for my son though, he'll probably be one of the few that actually knows what it's like to play outside, go camping, and not know what myspace is all about (thank you gentoo+iptables+squid).

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by LiquidCoooled ( 634315 )
        Even though lots of people in the world use computers, a great deal don't.
        My sons can both use computers (too well sometimes) but they don't have an internet connection in their bedroom. If they want to go online they can come on the family pc and do whatever they need to.

        Computers can be a very powerful tool, but they should not run your life.
      • That the internet be the one place we can relax *away* from snotty-nosed brats? Just sayin'.
      • I agree. MySpace alone is bad enough among teenagers as it is, but a MySpace for tweens? Seriously, social networking already is bad enough, but letting 8 year olds have their own version of MySpace? Eight year olds do not need social networking. What they need is to go outside, have fun, and spend time with their friends and family.

        Computer skills such as social networking are becoming as much a part of the success-in-life portfolio as addition and subtraction

        I do not see how social networking can be c

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by ewl1217 ( 922107 )

          Going to school myself, I already see enough people with MySpace, and there is (obviously) many users. I cannot stand it when I am sitting in the cafeteria and hear a "did you add me to your MySpace friend list?" or "I read your comment on my MySpace". And to think that 8 year olds get their own version of this saddens me.

          I completely agree with you. Worse than that is when people ask something like, "Did you get my comment on MySpace?" It makes me wonder why they just can't talk to them in person...

          • I completely agree with you. Worse than that is when people ask something like, "Did you get my comment on MySpace?" It makes me wonder why they just can't talk to them in person...
            Where's the novelty in that?
    • Show them whats out there, explain things
      I think you misspelled "ask them what's out there, maybe they can explain it to you". ;)
    • is to be there with them.
      I'd love too but Bill needs me to work Saturday on those TPS reports. How am I going to be able to afford that new HD TV that I never have time to watch if I don't keep up with all my other coworkers who don't care about their kids? Jesus, if Bill finds out we have any....well, you can kiss promotion goodbye.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by segin ( 883667 )
        Meh, Just give the kids a porn flick, and let them take care of themselves. It's not like they could possibly stab themselves if they're busy with a good ol' porn flick!
    • umm.. excuse me?

  • great (Score:4, Funny)

    by macadamia_harold ( 947445 ) on Saturday September 23, 2006 @07:07AM (#16166179) Homepage
    MySpace for the Sandlot Set

    Yeah, just what we need. A website where five-year-olds can post drunk pictures of themselves. But now that you mention it, Pete Townshend might be into that.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Bing Tsher E ( 943915 )
      "Tough boys
      Come over here
      I wanna bite and kiss you ....

      Rough boys
      Don't walk away
      I wanna buy you leather ....

      Tough boys
      Come over here
      I wanna bite and kiss you"


      (actual Pete Townshend lyrics from the 'Empty Bottle' album)
  • Social networking, a "computer skill"? Social networking has translated pretty well to tha intarweb, but that doesn't mean it's a computer skill. I'd say that online social networking has both pros and cons compared to the traditional venues, so you can't even call it the ultimate.

  • Computer skill..? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mangobrain ( 877223 ) on Saturday September 23, 2006 @08:45AM (#16166481) Homepage

    Since when was "social networking" a computer skill? Kids have been going to friend's houses, going to youth clubs, going to music/dance/martial arts etc. classes after school, going to each other's birthday parties, and just generally hanging out for a very, very long time. They've also been making pen friends. I once met someone on IRC from the other side of the world, and although that initial meeting was online, almost all of our correspondence from then until losing touch years later was by letter (the real, pen and paper kind).

    To my mind, a "computer skill" is a skill related to the intrinsics of computers themselves, be it hardware or software, or the ability to do something you actually or effectively cannot do without computers. Simply knowing how to use computers is "computer literacy"; for me, at least, the distinction is the very reason we have two separate terms.

    • I think you're right, and it's an important distinction.

      The last thing we need is people assuming they need to keep their kids up-to-date with "skills" like "social networking with myspace".

      What they should be doing is keeping their children as far away from that horrifying mess as they can.

  • Mad Dog Mobile [maddogmobile.com] is aimed at the same age range and uses full time moderation of both chat and content to keep things "safe", compared to other sites though capabilities are restricted to err on the side of safety.
  • Restrictions suck and they don't work. As in real life, I'm giving my daughter a healthy sense of what's good for her and what she should avoid. It's a lot easier to teach her to look both ways to cross the street than it is to physically restrain her, so she's known to stay out of the street since she was two. Now we are teaching her to look before crossing. The computer and the TV are not any harder. We tell her she won't want to watch some shows because they will give her bad dreams and sometimes wi
    • Now, she uses her computer to play games on PBS, which are helping her math and language. She especially likes Cyberchase. Because we use mostly free software,

      Hang on, to do that surely she would have to use the Flash plugin, which you have derided on many many occasions as "non-free junk" which you personally abstain from?
    • We tell her she won't want to watch some shows because they will give her bad dreams,. . .

      Shows like Barney the Dinosaur have been known to give lots of people nightmares!

      • Barney the dinosuar once made me laugh so hard that it hurt.

        Many years ago, my ex's little brother (who was about 5 at the time, if I remember correctly) ran screaming across the mall to where a guy in a Barney costume was standing and kicked the poor sod square in the shin.

    • I'll help her do what she wants with her computer as long as she wants me to.

      Friends don't help friends install MS junk.

      What if she wants to install Windows? As she gets older, any computer classes she takes will quite likely be using that OS.

      • What if she wants to install Windows? As she gets older, any computer classes she takes will quite likely be using that OS.

        She will have to do and pay for that by herself, but I doubt M$ will exist much less be the basis for any computer courses in ten years. If Vista does not kill M$, the ten years it's going to take to make Event Horizon will.

        What's Event Horizon? Event Horizon is the code name for the next version of Windows. Vista is the view beyond the Windows and the Horizon is the view beyond th

        • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          twitter, please read this carefully. Following this advice will make Slashdot a better place for everyone, including yourself.
          • As a representative of the Linux community, participate in mailing list and newsgroup discussions in a professional manner. Refrain from name-calling and use of vulgar language. Consider yourself a member of a virtual corporation with Mr. Torvalds as your Chief Executive Officer. Your words will either enhance or degrade the image the reader has of the Linux community.
          • Avoid hyper
        • Keep in mind, though, that we will always end up with better hardware. This alleged Windows bulk may or may not outrun Moore's Law - only time will tell. My own school (UVA), however, is starting to head up nanotech research. If quantum computing ends up working, it may or may not form a singularity of computing power in itself. But once again - only time will tell.
        • You start off with some batshit insane "one of the largest companies in the world will die because of Vista" shite, and move on to something so unfunny it makes me want to shoot myself.

          Please, shut up.
        • Surely by now you've realised that your humor is about as effective as your "evangelism"? If you haven't, consider this the heads-up.
  • When I was younger and first venturing into the "scary" cyberscape moderated chats existed.

    I remember hopping onto AOL 3.0 (this was right after the Eddie Werner case in NJ, so the internet was espescially scary) and there was a ton of moderated chat rooms for kids. Then again back then there wren't a lot of MMOs or various other things to actually do online. Unless you were the entrepeneuring [wikipedia.org] sort.
  • Am I the only person who read the headline and expected some quotes from the movie "The Sandlot"?

  • Most kids who want MySpace already use it. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gblues ( 90260 ) on Saturday September 23, 2006 @03:42PM (#16169255)
    They just lie about their age when they sign up. I know half a dozen local kids who have done this. Since MySpace doesn't do any verification, the admins essentially have to catch 'em in the act--not hard since most of the kids who do this are up-front about it, but first you have to find the profiles in a sea of legitimate ones.

    Nathan
  • Quoted from the article, Computer skills such as social networking...

    My pr0n collection pwnz j00!! ????

  • Parents' support of these sites stems in part from the idea that it's better for their kids to get their online introductions in a controlled environment -- as many of these sites promise -- than venture into the cyberjungle alone."

    Sounds more to me like "the first hit of crack is free!"

    I mean, what's wrong with the actual playground? Or actually exploring the physical world on your BMX bike, going down to the ol' swimmin' hole? I guess with the fear-mongering society we live in, parents would rather thei

  • Social networking website "skills" an important factor in a child's future success? Walden Pond is looking better every day.

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