What’s the 411 on MySpace?

Adolescents’ increasing use of online social networks (e.g., MySpace and Facebook) has raised concerns that child predators could use the posted personal information to lure unsuspecting teenagers into risky situations. MySpace captures about 80% of visits to social network Web sites, and each registered profile is assigned a unique number. Faculty at two universities used a random number generator to examine youth profiles on MySpace.

Of 9282 randomly selected profiles, 2423 were created by people younger than 18. About 40% of the youth profiles were set to “private” (viewing restricted to “approved” friends only). Of the remaining sample of 1475 youth profiles (54% female), 8% had evidence of age inflation in their profiles, perhaps in an …