Responsible parents share a common anxiety about the teen years: Will their kids take up with the wrong crowd?
Juveniles once socialized by just "hanging out" with classmates and friends they knew. Now they connect with new "friends" via the Internet's Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, plus telephone texting.
Therein lurks possible trouble for incautious young people eager to share what often should be kept private.
Wood River High School is now beset with the mystery of who's behind two Facebook names claiming to be valley students and that have attracted well over 1,000 student responses, many sharing information about themselves without even knowing whether the names are legitimate.
Some students insist the names are fronts for school administration "spies." The school heatedly denies this, adding that a few students may even be attempting to create fears of school surveillance with phony names.
No matter. The mystery is a perfect example of the trap young people can fall into when connecting with new "friends."
Internet social networking, which is mostly harmless chit-chat, can sometimes turn deadly. Adults posing as young people have been involved in stalking or seductions leading to murder and shakedowns, suicides and fraud.
Future careers also have been destroyed by injudicious Internet postings that employers discovered and used to deny jobs to applicants.
Parents should use the Wood River High whodunit as an instructive warning for teens to take special care when venturing into new friendships with people they can't see and who may be imposters.
