Last time we looked in outline at social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook. I want to go a little deeper today and look at how these sites are developing, and how we should go about keeping an eye on our young persons use, without becoming a Thought Police!

Social networking sites are peculiar in that they grow and change direction as dictated by their users - that is - as new applications and programmes are put on there - the popularity or otherwise of such applications will determine what type of application will be developed next by programmers - in this way, social networking sites are a great reflection of consensus of opinion, and we should all recognise that.

The main issue for us as parents and responsible adults, is the applications that are geared towards amorous intent. For example, I can 'flirt' with pretty much any member I want to, I can send 'e-flowers' or 'booze-mail' an 'electronic caress or kiss', and the communication is generally private between the individuals involved. Thus, my 14-year-old daughter might be flirted with (or indeed initiate the flirt) with a 30-year-old man. Can we police this? The main issue and concern for us is that, no we cannot really police it.

As a Facebook-friend of your child you will often get a brief notification of certain activities: 'Someone flirted with your friend Suzanne, join up and see who wants to flirt with you!', kind of thing, but the content and 'depth' of the flirting is not revealed. What can we do about it? Really, truthfully, at this stage, very little.

There is draft legislation before governments on both side of the Atlantic to regulate social networking sites, but this is far from certain, and, if it does take effect it is likely to take several years to be implemented...For most of us, our young people will be out of danger in respect of predatory adults at that stage, we need to do something now.

There are only two pieces of advice I would give at this stage (1) If your young person is younger than fourteen, discourage membership of social network sites - simply discourage it - apart from the obvious predation that could take place, they will be exposed anyway to things that perhaps young people of their age should not - after all, these social networking sites are geared towards adults. (2) Monitor closely what your young person does with their social network account - they may indeed inadvertently initiate something - by way of example, I received a message on my Facebook the other day from a 15-year-old-girl in Hong Kong - it was not inappropriate and it was not meant for me, but it illustrates how easy it is for young people to inadvertently commence something with someone a lot older than they are on sites like Facebook.

And so we draw to a close our more-than-six-month foray into young people's use of technology and a look at what this means for us as responsible adults. Before I DO close this topic, I want to draw your attention to a great website, right here in Bermuda, focused on promoting online child-safety. Check out www.cybertips.bm, which is a well laid out and easy to follow site with lots of information for children and adults.

Next time, I want to summarise the past few months and conclude our Digital Kids project, and give you a tantalising glimpse of our next project - 'Computers in everyday Bermuda'.

Bob Mellor is a senior business technologist with more than 20 years experience in the IT industry. He is accredited by the British Computer Society as a Chartered IT Professional, and currently Technology Consulting Manager at Bermuda Microsystems Group. He can be contacted on bob@bmg.bm His views here do not reflect those of The Royal Gazette or Bermuda Microsystems Group, and are based on his own personal experiences and knowledge.