I don’t know why but in addition to watching my daughter on her myspace I also get the pleasure of watching all her friends. I actually got in trouble with some people as their daughter had pictures on her myspace in which she was in her bra and panties, attempting to look sexy. I told her parents, I was the one in the dog house. Lesson learned, but it was a sad lesson…

Both, although I could narrow it down to two good examples.

1) I have a very odd sense of humor that I’ve learned doesn’t always translate very well. My friends understand me, but I could see how a co-worker may not. I don’t want to create a false perception mainly.

2) I have a 2 and a half year old son that I love dearly. I have tons of pictures of him on my Facebook page. I’m also not married and I never have been. I travel 2 hours each way almost every single weekend (and have for 3 years) to visit him and say hi to his mommy. My son was an “accident” with a childhood friend, but being a good Dad is the most important thing I’ll ever do with my life. Trying to communicate this to co-workers is difficult. There are alot of questions and honestly I’d rather not have that kind of distraction, or worse, the risk of rumors. Again, my good personal friends know about it and understand.

I also work for one of the Big 4 Accounting firms. The culture is pretty traditional and in some cases conservative. I’d rather avoid the sometimes negative (and false) perceptions people have of non-traditional families.

I moved out at 18, too, and never again lived with my parents. My folks then moved out of state. I can’t imagine them treating me like this, and I’m not sure they really would even care about a MySpace page, if I had one.

I think it might somehow be linked to the recent phenomenon of “Helicopter Parenting.”

I find the premise of the study to be kinda stupid. We let 18 year olds vote and die in our wars and be sent to prison for adult crimes but somebody assumes we have a right to tell them that their Myspace profiles are too risque??? Pul-eese!

I originally thought so too.

When I conducted human research on usability for some software I wrote, I had to fill out a ton of forms and detail the impact on test subjects.

I found this a little absurd since I was just asking people to click buttons.

My guess would be that the researchers made their case by explaining that no harm could reasonably occur and also copy and paste the exact wording of the email to be sent. It would take a while, but if the ethics committee had reasonable assurance against harm and that no ethics are being violated (privacy doesn’t really apply since it’s publicly available information).

Sure, it would take like 6 months to get a human subject testing committee to signoff on this kind of research, but it’s entirely possible with some persistence and being very very careful. =)

On one hand, a lot of people don’t realize or think about the consequences of posting personal information online. I can tell you this; when I get ready to interview and speak with my firm’s interns and potential new hires, I always google them and try to see what I can find. If I come up with something that I think may be cause for concern, I would raise that up to HR.

In this way; there is some good that comes from helping people be more aware of their online presence.

On the other hand, people should have a right to privacy and to express themselves.

On a personal note; I have had managers and senior managers at my firm try to “facebook” me. I have turned down every single invite. =) If you want to have a private life, you have to work to keep it private!