A Note to the Wise on MySpace Helps

By ERIC NAGOURNEY
The New York Times
Published: Jan 06, 2009

Teenagers often use social networking sites like MySpace to post intimate personal information they come to regret, as it lets future employers (or online predators) learn about sex activity and substance abuse. Enter “Dr. Meg.”

When teenagers got a note from “Dr. Meg” warning them about what they had posted, many thought twice about their postings, a new study says.

Dr. Meg was Dr. Megan A. Moreno, the lead author of two studies about networking sites in the January issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

In one study, the researchers looked at 500 publicly available MySpace profiles posted by people who said they were 18. More than half contained what the researchers described as “risk behavior information,” including talk of sex and alcohol use. Some also discussed violence.

For a second study, the researchers built a MySpace page for Dr. Meg that identified her as a doctor. They searched the network for users who identified themselves as 18 to 20 and talked about sex activity and substance use. (Dr. Moreno, then at the University of Washington, is now at the University of Wisconsin.)

The researchers sent them a note about the risk of disclosing personal information, with a link to a Web site about sexually transmitted diseases. Three months later, they found 42 percent of the MySpace pages had been changed.

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