What Are Adolescents Showing About Their Health Risk Behaviors on MySpace?

Abstract

Context: MySpace is a popular social networking Web site where users create individual Web profiles. Little data are available about what types of health risk behaviors adolescents display on MySpace profiles. There are potential risks and intervention opportunities associated with posting such information on a public Web site.
Objective: To examine publicly available 16- and 17-year-old MySpace Web profiles and determine the prevalence of personal risk behavior descriptions and identifiable information.
Design: Cross-sectional observational study using content analysis of Web profiles.
Setting: www.MySpace.com
Patients: In order to target frequently visited adolescent Web profiles, we sequentially selected 142 publicly available Web profiles of 16 and 17 year olds from the class of 2008 MySpace group.
Interventions: None.
Main outcome measures: Prevalence of displayed health risk behaviors pertaining to substance use or sexual behavior, prevalence of personally identifying information, date of last log-in to Web profile.
Results: Of Web profiles, 47% contained risk behavior information: Twenty-one percent described sexual activity; 25% described alcohol use; 9% described cigarette use; and 6% described drug use.
97.2% Contained personally identifying information: Seventy-four percent included an identifiable picture; 75% included subjects' first names or surnames; and 78% included subjects' hometowns. Eighty-six percent of users had visited their own profiles within 24 hours.
Conclusions: Most 16- and 17-year-old MySpace profiles include identifiable information, are frequently accessed by owners, and half include personal risk behavior information. Further study is needed to assess the risks associated with displaying personal information and to evaluate the use of social networking sites for health behavior interventions targeting at-risk teens.

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Table 1. Posted Risk Behavior Information on 16 and 17 Year Olds' Publicly Available MySpace Web Profiles
Posted Risk Behaviors	Total Number of Sites Referencing Activity	Sites Referencing Activity (%)
Sexual activity	31	21%
Alcohol use	36	25%
Drug use	9	6%
Cigarette use	13	9%
Total number of sites	142

Table 2. Sample Web Site Entries of 16- and 17-Year-Old MySpace Profile Owners That Suggest Sexual Activity, by Category
Category	Examples From Web Profiles
References sex in response to quiz or survey	Downloads quiz onto Web site -- "what kind of sex should you have" -- and fills out answers	Downloads quiz onto Web site containing the question: "Who was the last person to sleep in your bed?" Writes in answer name of previous partner
Lists sex as hobby or interest	Lists hobbies -- "doing girls"	Lists hobbies: "My interests are boys, sex, and alcohol."
Discusses sex in the context of past or present relationship	Writes about first sexual experience with previous boyfriend	Describes "best time" as sexual experience with boyfriend
Links personal identity with sex	Refers to self on profile as having had an STD	Describes self as a "whore"

STD = sexually transmitted disease

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