Besides myspace.com, one of the biggest social communities that children are embarking on in the new generations, there are several new websites that have developed within the past year. Imbee.com, Clubpenguin.com, and tweenland.com are being used by millions of children as young as 8-years-old. The good thing about these new developing websites is that they usually require a parents credit card number or some type of a signature to join. These websites are very censored towards a young audience which is a huge improvement from things like myspace that aren’t censored at all. Children are lying about their ages in order to even join myspace, which cannot be a safe place for such young kids. I have a neice that is 8-years-old and just joined myspace, and her profile says she is 17. According to parents, their children are spending around 2 hours a day surfing the web, which makes it almost impossible to look over their shoulder the whole time they chatting and interacting in these communities. Larry Magid, co-director of blog safety.com claims that these new sites pose few chances of being entrapped by pedophiles, which is very reassuring for parents. Many studies are being conducted to see if this type of developement for kids is beneficial or not, you be the judge.
