Online Gossip

When we were kids we gossiped the old fashioned way. We passed notes or whispered in the hallway between class. We huddled in the girl’s bathroom or talked to our friends on the phone for hours every night.

Today gossip has gone high tech. There’s no need to pass notes when teens can just text each other. Instead of phone calls teens spend their nights on the computer talking to friends on IM or on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. There are even websites specifically for the purpose of gossiping about classmates, teachers or other enemies.

We thought gossip was hurtful in our day, but it’s even worse today. Today it’s more permanent. Anything on the web is out there for everybody to see…forever. Even if you remove the offending comment it still lives in infinity. There’s no way to scratch it off the bathroom stall or paint over graffiti on the wall. And it’s more anonymous. A teen can write post something from the local library with a fake name and nobody will ever know who did it.

So what should you do if your teen is the victim of online gossip?

• Don’t respond to gossip. A teen’s first instinct might be to defend herself, but it usually ends up just making it worse. Ignore it.
• Stay off the site. If mean girls are gossiping about your teen on MySpace then have her log off and stay away from MySpace for a while. When she isn’t there to take the abuse the mean girls usually move on to somebody else.
• If the gossip continues you may need to step in and talk to the offender’s parents. I don’t recommend this being your first course of action though because it could be embarrassing for your teen and it may not do any good. Some parents just aren’t as diligent in their parenting as you may be.
• Depending on what is said, you may need to get the school involved. Just because it’s online instead of on school grounds doesn’t mean it’s not a school issue.
• If the gossip is threatening take it seriously. You may need to call the authorities.

How can you make sure you teen isn’t the one spreading the gossip?

• Talk to you kids about the dangers of internet gossip. Many kids don’t realize things they write on the internet are there forever for colleges and future employers to see. And often they regret what they wrote three days later when they patch up their friendship.
• Make sure you know what your child is doing on the internet. You should be doing this anyway to prevent predators from reaching your child. Check out his/her MySpace and Facebook page. Ask him who he’s talking to on World of Warcraft. Stay informed.
• Set consequences for harassment. If the gossip is threatening, teens could get in trouble at school or even with the law. But even less severe cases of gossip should have consequences. Make sure your teen knows what those consequences are and that you will enforce them if you discover your teen is being mean on the internet.

The internet is a great tool when used properly. But many people abuse it. It’s easy to forget your manners when you can be anonymous. Make sure your teens know the rules and understand the consequences of being a mean girl or boy on the interent.