MySpaceSafetyTips.com

In one sense, MySpace is a massive online role-playing game, probably the world’s biggest. Each member makes a page that represents how the person wants to appear to their friends and (if their profile isn’t set to “private”) to the rest of the world.

But does the “profile” displayed on a MySpace page really tell you anything about the person who created the page? In many cases, it does. In other cases, the page is a selective representation of the person who created it. In still other cases, the MySpace page portrays something entirely different from what the person who posted it is really like.

How can you tell which is which? If your only contact with the person is on MySpace.com, then it’s almost impossible to know to what extent the posted profile represents the real person. That is the problem with treating online contacts with the same trust you would treat someone you see and talk to in the physical “real” world.

In the real world, when you communicate, your contact has an important physical component: you can see facial expressions and hear vocal intonations, and there are other clues as well that inform you about the meaning and degree of truth behind the words the person says. In the virtual, online world, these clues do not exist. All you can see is the image the author of the page or site has chosen to display to your eyes.

In the play “As You Like It” Shakespeare’s character Jacques states:

All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players.

Could anything be truer of the virtual world we encounter when we go online?

[Excerpted from the book MySpace Safety: 51 Tips for Teens and Parents. If you'd like to read more of the book, please visit the publisher's site, HowToPrimers.com.]