represent the perfect intersection of art, commerce and the human need to connect. Musicians, comedians and film studios use the sites to create fan bases. Advertisers buy space on them.

Yet at the same time, there's growing concern among some parents and school administrators that such websites encourage kids to share salacious stories and sexually charged photos and perhaps leave them vulnerable to predators. Many schools have sent notices to parents to be aware of possible problems. Others have lectured students on social etiquette and safety on the Internet.

Kids are certainly enthralled. "I know tons of people who are addicted," said Rachel Beshoff, an eighth-grader at Hewes Middle School in Santa Ana. "When they get home from school, they're like, 'MySpace! MySpace! MySpace!' " On the site, 13-year-old Rachel identifies herself as a 100-year-old Buddhist.

Teens, who have had messages of Internet safety drilled into them for years, give lip service to the idea of keeping safe online. Sure, they say, they know not to make conversation with strangers, not to give out personal information such as phone numbers or addresses. And yet the MySpace profiles of these supposedly sophisticated youngsters, often organized by which school they attend, are full of intensely personal information - height, weight, eye color, hometown, full names and sometimes even phone numbers.

"The problem is when you begin to create an environment for kids," said Costa, "it now is gonna draw in the people who victimize and prey on kids." He is not aware of any L.A. County prosecutions involving predators and MySpace, but in September, a 16-year-old girl in Port Washington, N.Y., was sexually assaulted by a 37-year-old man she'd met on MySpace, according to USA Today. He found her at her job, which she had written about. And in June, according to the Sacramento Bee, a 35-year-old Rancho Cordova man was charged with molesting a 12-year-old Folsom girl he met through MySpace.

Most profiles are accessible to viewers. Many of the youngsters who use MySpace don't realize that. They also may not be mature enough to understand that what they think is funny, predators might see as appealing. And for a 12- or 13-year-old, Costa pointed out, a "predator" can be as young as 16 or 17.

One 13-year-old girl posted a photograph of herself crawling like a vixen across her father's sports car. A male classmate posted a message asking if that was the car in which he'd had sex with her last summer. It was a profane joke, but her parents were not amused and made her take the photo down. The father of a 16-year-old was shocked when he followed his daughter's trail of friends through MySpace and found her joking with them about buying drugs, getting high and drinking alcohol to the point of vomiting. On the nights in question, however, she was at home, which led her father to the conclusion that she was making up stories to seem cool, trying on identities depending on whom she was messaging. He took away her computer privileges.

In one sense, said Turkle, the lying that a site like MySpace tacitly encourages - and authorities like Costa explicitly encourage - is part of the great adolescent struggle for identity. "The job of adolescence is to fall in and out of love with people, to fall in and out of love with ideas, to join and shed organizations and affiliations," she said. "The appropriate job for adolescence is to try things out in a relatively consequence-free zone and see what fits. This is what we do now on the Internet because there's nothing in anyone's life that feels consequence-free anymore." On the other hand, she said, "You only have the illusion of safety ... and privacy."

The bigger problem, as Costa said during an interview in his Santa Fe Springs office, is this: "It's no longer a matter of 'Don't talk to strangers.' The situation right now is no one really knows who is a stranger."

As he navigated the site, Eric Mandel, director of Windward School in Mar Vista, was surprised to learn that many of his students listed themselves by their school affiliation. He sent parents a warning letter: "We are deeply concerned that the pictures, personal information and contact information contained in these profiles leave our students vulnerable to child predators who roam the Internet searching for potential victims." The letter included detailed instructions on how to sign on to MySpace and strongly suggested parents look at their children's sites.

"I always tell parents, don't expect that to be a Kumbaya moment," said Tammy Haylock Clem, the middle school's director of counseling. "The kids are gonna be angry with you. You are the devil. So be OK with that."

Costa suggests that if kids have computers in their rooms, the screens face the door, so parents can see what's online any time they wish. Parents should ask to see e-mail and photographs, too, to make sure contacts are appropriate.

Mostly, though, said Costa, parents of teens need to develop stronger backbones.

"I really believe that parents think that breaks some kind of sacred trust with their child and that they are communicating to their child that they are doing wrong and have to be watched," he said. "I know it's tough, but parents need to get involved."

- From the Los Angeles Times

LEGACY OF HOPE now addresses Internet Concerns - Book a program now