Doc, I doubt you read me, but I wonder how you feel about Xanga and MySpace and the fact that for many, many 13 year olds these days, spending time participating is as important as what takes place in the lunchroom or in the school yard?

Because this makes me think you have no idea what’s going on:

I think letting small children watch TV is like giving them Quaaludes. I also think kids in their most formative years need to interact with each other, nature, and themselves. They need to read and play and feed their curiousity about the world. They need to use their minds and their bodies to explore the Real World.

Is the Net real too? I don’t think anybody loves the Net more than I do; but I don’t want my kid doing much more than using it as an educational resource every once in awhile. If you’re going to get sucked into an activity, let it be reading a book, shooting baskets or playing an instrument.

TV and computers have never been big in our 9-year-old’s life. Starting when he was about 5, however, we began limiting his TV watching (and ours as well) to an amount that rounds to zero. As a result, his main indulgence is reading. He plows through several books a week. He has a delightful imagination and an adult vocabulary. Yet he still has plenty of time to play. It’s amazing how much a kid can do if he or she isn’t watching 6+ hours of tube a day.

I think the time will come when we’ll look back on massive media consumption by kids in the same way we look back today on ubiquitous smoking and blasé attitudes toward drunk driving.

We’ve been building something that encourages people of all ages and background to share, to live their identities online.

I don’t think anybody loves the Net more than I do; but I don’t want my kid doing much more than using it as an educational resource every once in awhile. Blogging and other social media services on the web are evolving to enable, empower, and encourage the web’s use as a primary social hub in our lives, that when disconnected from, we are disconnected period. And an element of this that gets short shrift is just how public all this is.

How will you handle it when your son starts to share not only what music he loves, but who in his classroom is “cool” and why? With oh… 20 million other people. Permanently. Cached and indexed. That day is already here for parents across the country.

Read Danah Boyd’s “Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace”:

Adults often worry about the amount of time that youth spend online, arguing that the digital does not replace the physical. Most teens would agree. It is not the technology that encourages youth to spend time online – it’s the lack of mobility and access to youth space where they can hang out uninterrupted.

In this context, there are three important classes of space: public, private and controlled. For adults, the home is the private sphere where they relax amidst family and close friends. The public sphere is the world amongst strangers and people of all statuses where one must put forward one’s best face. For most adults, work is a controlled space where bosses dictate the norms and acceptable behavior.

Teenager’s space segmentation is slightly different. Most of their space is controlled space. Adults with authority control the home, the school, and most activity spaces. Teens are told where to be, what to do and how to do it. Because teens feel a lack of control at home, many don’t see it as their private space.

To them, private space is youth space and it is primarily found in the interstices of controlled space. These are the places where youth gather to hang out amongst friends and make public or controlled spaces their own. Bedrooms with closed doors, for example.

Adult public spaces are typically controlled spaces for teens. Their public space is where peers gather en masse; this is where presentation of self really matters. It may be viewable to adults, but it is really peers that matter.

Teens have increasingly less access to public space. Classic 1950s hang out locations like the roller rink and burger joint are disappearing while malls and 7/11s are banning teens unaccompanied by parents. Hanging out around the neighborhood or in the woods has been deemed unsafe for fear of predators, drug dealers and abductors. Teens who go home after school while their parents are still working are expected to stay home and teens are mostly allowed to only gather at friends’ homes when their parents are present.

Additionally, structured activities in controlled spaces are on the rise. After school activities, sports, and jobs are typical across all socio-economic classes and many teens are in controlled spaces from dawn till dusk. They are running ragged without any time to simply chill amongst friends.

By going virtual, digital technologies allow youth to (re)create private and public youth space while physically in controlled spaces. IM serves as a private space while MySpace provide a public component. Online, youth can build the environments that support youth socialization.