Parents Warn of Popular, Dangerous Cultural Teen Trends
Thursday, Jun. 8, 2006
Posted: 2:23:04PM EST

Teens today are engaging in cultural trends that seem harmless at first, but have resulted in a number of deaths. Many parents, however, are unaware of the dangers or even the existence of such popular activities as conversing on MySpace.com and playing "the choking game."

In the latest report involving MySpace.com, a Chicago 14-year-old faces felony harassment charges for threatening the life of a school official on the highly popularized website. The threat was posted on the Internet site at the beginning of the school year, but discovered only recently, according to the Aurora Police Department.

The report is only one of a long string of cases that brought charges on sexual predators and teens who have made inappropriate postings and other forms of threats since the launch of the new online phenomenon in 2003.

According to Focus on the Family, many parents are in the dark about the widely popular online meeting space. Bob Waliszewski, director of Youth Culture at Focus on the Family, called MySpace.com the "good, the bad and the ugly" in a Focus on Radio segment Thursday. Waliszewski reported 74 million profiles currently on MySpace.com, which is almost as big as Yahoo!. And everyday, around 85,000 new profiles are added to it. the rest