MySpace and Facebook: The Web's Gift to the World or a Dangerous Disaster?

Technology is taking over social interaction, introducing virtual stalking and has severe implications for sexual predators - Read this and give us your opinion!

Facebook and MySpace: These terms need no introduction or explanation. They have become parts of our daily routines somewhere between waking up and breakfast, and then again at lunch and dinner. For those of you living in an alternate universe, these networking sites have replaced the once acclaimed email communication phenomenon with added bonuses such as the freedom to persue the profiles of bands, social causes and your best friend's boyfriend's cousin.

But of course, with freedom comes responsibility and consequence. Blurring that line between reality and virtual reality abolishes the privacy we may not wish to share. Communications Minister Helen Coonan shares the concerns of many parents who fear their children will expose their identities to unwelcome viewers.

"It only takes someone to put their photograph on a site together with a list of their friends and where they are playing netball on the weekend and bingo, you've got the potential for stranger contact and some danger," she said.

Sexual predators and pedophiles have been identifying and exploiting children through these networking sites. It is because of this danger that the Consultive Working Group will be sponsored by the federal government's $189million crack down on online pornography and predators. The program - NetAlert is free to download from Netalert.gov.au and aims to provoke awareness and provide Internet filtering and safety advice.

On the one hand, finding out what your fourth-cousin-once-removed is doing in South Africa at the moment is only a click away - The days of 30 digit overseas phone numbers are over! However, is this phenomenon taking its toll on social interaction? Is it inhibiting us from forming 'proper' social relationships and leaving the comfort of our computer chairs? Furthermore, do the dangers of stalking and sexual predators browsing these sites outweigh the positives, or not? Have your say!

By Lindi Levinsohn