The other day, one of my more “out-there” customers called me in a tizzie. She is a widowed mother of two teenage daughters, and was expressing serious concerns about their online activities. Specifically, she was concerned about, ahem, certain photographic exploits that may or may not have taken place, and may or may not have involved her youngest daughter.

She went on to tell me about a schoolmate of her daughter who had a, shall we say, unflattering photo plastered on some Web site. This wasn’t an isolated incident, there was a lot of that type of stuff happening. Then she dropped a bomb by asking me if I could help her log into her daughter’s AOL account. I immediately, but respectfully, declined. I explained to her that it would be an ethical problem for me to be involved with something like that. She understood, but still tried to needle me for ways of guessing the password or hacking into her account.

I then spoke to her about the popularity of social Web portals like MySpace.com and how there’s no real way to police her daughter’s online activities, short of taking a Taliban-style approach. I also went on to tell her that with the enormous popularity of camera phones, it is all too easy for kids to take photos stealthily and zap them to friends in the blink of an eye. The proverbial genie had long left the bottle.

Despite not being a parent myself, I can understand her paranoia. I don’t know how parents do it… especially in the teen years. Even with all the good things technology can do, it can be used in such a negative way. I hoped she understood my point that trust must triumph over technology in her case.

[tags]myspace,parental advice,trust,online privacy,raising teen,tribe.net[/tags]