One friend, two friend, best friend, web friend

ColumbiaMissourian.com

With children online all night and all day, how ever can parents control where they play?

Once upon a time, kids got in trouble with their parents for talking on the phone all day. Those kids grew up and became parents, and their kids talked on their cell phones. But they also sat at keyboards and typed and chatted and instant messaged, and they always seemed to be looking at MySpace.

And the parents marveled, or were aghast, depending on their point of view, at the amount of time their children spent talking to friends online. The Internet had become their kids? favorite way to keep in touch with friends, and they didn?t know how to feel about it.

It?s hard enough to come to terms with the numbers:

A population 2? times the size of Columbia joins the social network MySpace every day. That?s 250,000 new members on an average day.