Teens smarter about using MySpace than believed: Study

PARIS: Fears that teenagers using the social networking website MySpace are exposing themselves to sexual predators by disclosing too many personal details are probably overblown, researchers say.

Criminologist Sameer Hinduja of Florida Atlantic University and Justin Patchin, a political science researcher at the University of Wisconsin, randomly selected 9,282 profiles out of the 100 million purportedly available on MySpace.

Of the 2,423 profiles created by individuals aged under 18, 948 were set to "private," meaning that they could only be viewed by friends.

Of the remaining 1,475, one person in 12 revealed their full name, 57 per cent included a picture, 27.8 per cent listed their school, 81 per cent identified their city and 0.3 per cent provided their phone number.

Four per cent included an instant messaging name, and one per cent an email address.

Hinduja and Patchin, writing in the latest issue of the Journal of Adolescence, say that predators can glean important personal snippets from these "shop window" postings.

But, overall, the situation is not as alarming as critics of MySpace have suggested, they say.

"When considered in its proper context, these results indicate that the problem of personal information disclosure on MySpace may not be as widespread as many assume, and that the overwhelming majority of adolescents are responsibly using the website," they say.