So apparently most people assume that MySpace is only made for teenagers and sexual predators. Let me disagree with that assumption and explain why. First of all, yes I have a MySpace account, and no I am not a sexual predator, nor am I a teenager. So why do I have one? For a couple reasons. First, it lets me keep in touch with people from my past, like high school buddies and neighbors without me having to track down a phone number or mailing address. I can just go online and wonder, “Huh, I wonder what my good friend from high school has been up to.” And boom, there it is. In a sense yes it’s being nosey, but in another sense it’s just trying to keep up with people who were at one time, or still are, involved in my life. It’s just like everything else where if someone doesn’t understand something, they are hesitant to think it’s good. A prime example of this was the beginning of the Internet (if you can remember that time). At first everyone said, “Oh no, you can’t trust what you find on the Internet. It’s not accurate. People just make stuff up there.” Now people don’t think twice about the information they search for. It just took time for the majority of people to use it and form an understanding of it. The same is true for online communities. Most people don’t understand it, so it must be a bad thing.

These sites are not just for predators, they are for everyone (but not for everyone to be predators)! I can check out a friend’s picture, leave them short messages, and even track down other friends thru them. Sure that could be a bad thing to the wrong people, but so can cars, chemicals and even air planes. And we still have those around and people are still using them and not obsessing about how dangerous they are.

So I encourage you Myspace-phobes to test it out and see what these things are all about. You may just meet up with some people you completely forgot about. But don’t be an idiot and create an account just to look at other’s accounts (you know who you people are). That’s called stalking. Want to find out about that old boyfriend or girlfriend of yours, well why not return the favor and let them find out about you. That’s what the Internet is all about. It’s a free trade of pure information. So why not add your two cents worth?