What's up with Myspace???

There have always been certain trends. Over the last couple of years we've gone from trend after trend after trend. One of the newest things is Myspace. There are over 50 million profiles on Myspace and the majority of those profiles belong to teens age 14-19. Why is it that Myspace is so popular? What about the risk of predators? Wouldn't you think that less teens would be on Myspace considering all of the reports that have on 20/20 would keep teens away?What is it that is so fascinating about Myspace?

THE BEGINNING

Myspace started three years ago in 2003. At first it was mostly 20-somethings who had similar music interests. The age limit was set to 18+ and there were only about 2 million profiles, all of which were public.As time went on the age limit dropped to 16 and then down to the current age, 14. Along with the age change came the option of setting your profile to private so that only your friends could see it. Before Myspace there were similar sites like Friendster, Hot or Not, Xanga, etc, but non of these sites were nearly as popular as Myspace. They all offered the same features, profiles that are used to express personal opinions, thoughts of the day,personal interests, and music, video, and photos are used to make their profile more appealing. So why is it that the other sites were forgotten while Myspace is now known world wide? I think that it has something to do with the fact that the age limit is so young compared to the others and teens have more of a reason for using the site.

JUST HOW POPULAR IS IT?

Most teens visit Myspace once a day or whenever they can get access to a computer. A lot of the times students who have internet at home keep their profiles open while they do homework or when thet're talking on IM. When the school hasn't banned or blocked Myspace, teens usually visit it during study hall, before or after school, and even during lunch. Not all teens use Myspace, but the numbers of teens that do is growing everyday.

THE PROBLEMS WITH MYSPACE
The number one worry that parents have about their children being on Myspace is all of those reports about predators. The worry about children getting kidnapped or rapped was a big scare. There were a lot of angry parents, but it turns out that there were actually more reports done about predators than there are actual predators on Myspace. But even with the danger of online predators teens continued to sign up.Agian I have to ask, why is that????

WHAT I DISCOVERED

Over the summer I got a Myspace account so that I could simply IM at the public library because they blocked MSN instant messenger. After I got a profile and found some of my friends I IMed for a little while and then got bored with the whole thing and stopped logging on. As time went on though, more and more people were asking me if I had an account and if I was ever on. This made me wonder if I should get back on. As I got new friends more and more people would send me messages asking me to please comment on their pictures. I had no idea why in the world they were contantly sending me these messages. They would also send me messages about my profile and asking me to comment on theirs, and after a while I did. As I looked at my friends profiles I noticed something, the person that their profiles made them out to be was not who they really were. Many of them would say they were older of that they lived somewhere "cooler". Others would lie about where they went to school or what their hobbies where. One of my friends said that he was a skater and made it seem as though he didn't care about school or grades or his future, when in reality, he was a 4.0 student in Science Olympiad who couldn't skate to save his life( believe me, I've seen him try). Why is it that teens get these profiles when they don't even act like themselves. In the news reports they say that Myspace is used by teens to express who they really are when actually, their just using it to pretend to be something they're not. I think that the reason Myspace is so popular is that teens can pretend to be anybody they want to be. They can live wherever they want to , be whatever age they want to be,and be good at whatever they want to be good at. Myspace is basically like one big game of make-believe.