How Safe Are America's Teens?

A Reality Check On Teens, Crime And The Internet

(CBS)  Since 1998, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says more than 16,000 cases of online enticement of children for sexual acts have been reported to its CyberTipline.

John Shehan, the CyberTipline’s program manager, says teens aged 14 to 17 are the most common targets of these cyber predators.

"As children get older they have more freedom online," Shehan says, which can translate into greater vulnerability.

While most of these contacts never progress past e-mails or instant messages, sometimes they cross into the real world. In March, for example, federal authorities arrested two men on charges that they had illegal sexual contact with Connecticut minors whom they first met on MySpace.com.

"We teach kids 'don't talk to strangers' when they go to the library or walk down the street," Ron Teixeira, executive director of the National Cyber Security Alliance, says. "The same is true online. Don’t talk to strangers. Protect their privacy. Keep their personal information personal. Information can be used not only to hurt them but to hurt their families as well."

But kids, of course, don't always do as they're told – and don't always tell their parents what they're doing. Nearly two-thirds of teens surveyed by The Pew Internet & American Life Project said they do things online that they wouldn’t want their parents to know about. That includes, for many, corresponding with strangers.

Teixeira tells a story about his own niece, whom he describes as "a pretty average teenager" with a profile on MySpace.com.

Concerned about who she may be communicating with, Teixeira checked out her profile and found she was lying about her age, calling herself 17 when she was really 14.

Teixeira decided to test her. He put together his own profile, posing as a 14-year-old, and asked his niece where she went to school and where she lived. She e-mailed him right back with the information.

"This scared the hell out of us," Teixeira says of the fact that she so quickly shared this information with a complete stranger – information that could be used to harm her. His niece was "shocked" that she was so easily fooled.

But Teixeira's niece is typical. Nearly 60 percent of teens in the Pew study said they've received an IM or e-mail from a stranger, and 50 percent said they've written the strangers back.

Teens' tendency to trust the people who contact them online and their willingness to share personal information is also making them increasingly susceptible to fraudsters and hackers.

A Federal Trade Commission survey, for example, found the number of victims of identity theft under 18 doubled from 2004 to 2005. It also found young people between 18 and 29 were the age group most often victimized.

Despite these threats, a survey by i-SAFE, a nonprofit organization dedicated to keeping children safe on the Internet, found 75 percent of teens say they actually feel safer online than off. Convincing them that these perils are real is the biggest challenge for parents and educators.

"The number one thing they need to know is that there are dangers online," Teiuxeira says. "There are people who want to hurt them and people who want to steal their money."

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