Interesting.

MySpace can bring shy kids out of their shells

'When Jessica Kellen was 12 years old, she met a boy on MySpace who said he was 17.

She had pretended to be 16, which allowed her to sneak past the site's rule that members have to be at least 14. Jessica, who's 14 now, describes her sixth-grade self as a "really shy kid." Conversing with a stranger on MySpace about the boy's family farm, parents and adolescent drama came easier than doing so with people she knew. And the virtual friendship helped boost her self-esteem in the real world — allowing her to make more friends at school.

“If I can do this on the Internet, why can't I do this in person?” realized Jessica, who lives in Centennial, Colo.

MySpace anxiety

While horrifying headlines tie MySpace to teen suicide, violence — and especially sexual predators, research tells another story. Larry D. Rosen, a psychology professor at California State University, Dominguez Hills, found that only 12 percent of teenagers actually rendezvous offline with an online friend in his recent survey of 482 teens. That finding jibes with similar nationwide studies.

The kids most at risk for encountering trouble on MySpace are the ones who are looking for it, Rosen said in an interview.

“But they would be the same kids going out there looking for it offline,” he said.

In his recent parenting book “Me, MySpace and I,” Rosen says that parents’ MySpace anxiety likely arises from their lack of understanding of what teens actually do on the social-networking site. A third of parents have never glimpsed their teen’s MySpace page — and three-fourths do so less than once a month, according to his research.

And what parents might not know about MySpace is that it can actually help their kids. Bolstered by interviews of more than 1,000 parents and 2,500 teens, Rosen’s research shows that the oft-stigmatized site can foster adolescent pursuits of true identity, friendship — and validation.'