Mom on MySpace Embarrasses Teen

Posted on August 4, 2006

Youth Radio has recorded a conversation between Youth Radio's Bly Lauritano-Werner and her mother. The two are discussing blogging and social networking tools like LiveJournal and MySpace. In the recording, Bly says these sites are becoming less cool now that they are being used more frequently by teachers and parents.

BLY
My mom always uses the excuse about the internet being "public" when she defends herself. It's not like I do anything to be ashamed of, but a girl needs her privacy. I do online journals so I can communicate with my friends. Not so my mother could catch up on the latest gossip of my life.
The truth is many of these sites are becoming lame because everyone is on them. It's not so cool anymore as teachers and parents like my mom are doing their own pages.
MOM (on tape)
Yes I did have a site on MySpace. I had a few pictures of myself...they were very candid shots that I might not normally hang up in my house or show to my friends. And I am an adult, so I put my true first name and my true age, but I didn't give too much personal information.
BLY: Did you make friends on MySpace?
MOM: Yes I did. And I didn't even do it to make friends, I did it to stay in touch with some friends. And I was a little weirded out the first time someone I didn't know contacted me.
BLY
She might have been creeped out at first, but Mom ended up going to a hockey game with one guy. What a hypocrite! Especially since Mom is always warning me about strangers online. My mom having a Myspace? So embarrassing!

Anastasia Goodstein at Ypulse says the conversation is an example of these kinds of sites reaching a tipping point.

It also speaks to the tipping point that I think is happening with a lot of the social networking sites that have been getting the most media coverage -- now that everyone (parents, teachers, police, etc.) has discovered them, they are losing their allure with teens. Bly, the teen in this conversation, also talks about how her mom now has a MySpace page (and even went on a date with someone she met there), and how it's SO embarrassing.

It could be a tipping point meaning teens will move to some other kind of service. It could also mean more teens might start password protecting their blogs and profiles to keep parents and teachers out.