Researchers Find Most Teens Limit Personal Information on MySpace, but Some Youth Still at Risk To: National Desk Contact: Dr. Justin Patchin, 715-836-4058 or patchinj@uwec.edu; Dr. Sameer Hinduja, 561-799-8227 or Hinduja@fau.edu, both of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

EAU CLAIRE, Wis., Dec. 4 /U.S. Newswire/ A majority of teenagers are responsible when using the online social networking site MySpace, but some do share personal information that could put them at risk, a first-of-its-kind analysis of teenagers' MySpace profiles found.

"Our research shows problems with MySpace aren't as widespread as people assume," said Dr. Justin Patchin, assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. "The media and parents have demonized MySpace, but we found an overwhelming majority of adolescents use the site responsibly."


Researchers found that only a small percentage of adolescent users include identifying information in their profiles, but that small percent may represent more than a million vulnerable youth since MySpace reports 130 million registered users, Patchin said.

MySpace - the Internet's most popular social networking site for teenagers - allows people to create personal Web pages. Users can post pictures, video and journal entries. Visitors leave messages, and users connect to friends who also have profiles.

The media has reported on cases where MySpace profiles have been linked to stalking and assaults against teens, and parents worry that predators can find potential victims via MySpace, Patchin said. Those fears are largely based on the assumption that adolescents post identifying information on their sites, he said.

To determine if those assumptions are accurate, Patchin and Dr. Sameer Hinduja, assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice at Florida Atlantic University, randomly selected 2,423 adolescent MySpace profiles to analyze.

MySpace users must be at least 14 years old, and profiles of 14-16 year olds must be set to private so only approved friends can view them. Researchers found that almost 40 percent of the sites in their sample were set to private. That left about 1,500 public teen profiles in the sample.

In their analysis, researchers documented how many teens included in their sites their first name, full name, birth date, telephone number, address, e-mail address, instant messaging name, city, state and school name. They also looked for evidence of alcohol, tobacco or drug use; photos; pictures of teens in swimsuits/underwear; and profanities.

Findings included:

Almost 57 percent included their photo. Others provided detailed descriptions of their personal appearance.

About 5 percent included photos of themselves in a swimsuit or underwear, and 15 percent included photos of friends in a swimsuit or underwear.

Almost 40 percent included their first name, and 9 percent included their full name.

About 81 percent included their city name, and 28 percent named their school.

For more information about the research, contact Dr. Justin Patchin at 715-836-4058 or patchinj@uwec.edu; and Dr. Sameer Hinduja at 561-799-8227 or Hinduja@fau.edu.

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