Friday, August 05, 2005
 
St. Louis Post-Dispatch Warning Parents Like It's 1999
Instant messaging: A threat to you and your kids?
    It's hard to imagine anything online as "old-fashioned" just yet. Nevertheless, that’s how young teens today apparently view the concept of e-mail.

    Recent research shows most teenagers between ages 12 and 17 prefer "instant messaging," or IM, to e-mail in getting their message across. They cite IM's immediacy and its constant connection, especially to friends, as the reasons they prefer it to e-mail.

    Unfortunately, the same things that make IM appealing to teens also draw another crowd: malicious programmers, spam merchants and online predators. These sinister characters don’t use IM to keep in touch with each other; they use it to keep in touch with your kids.

    Scarier still, most parents don’t know it.
Which "parents" are those? Oh, yeah, the ones who get their "news" from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (which could also be known as the Pre-Contemporary,-Ubiquitous-Technological-Advance).


 
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."