When I was speaking last night at the Fanueil Branch library in Brighton, MA, my friend Melina, who used to work at Teen Voices (that's how we met), raised a really important point about youth media organizations and other after school programs. In my talk, I was saying that "the digital divide" still exists for many low-income families that don't have internet access or high speed access at home. For these teens, schools and libraries are the primary places they go online. This is why it's so important for libraries to keep social networking sites unblocked -- otherwise a whole segment of the youth population is missing out on what most of their more privileged peers are doing at home.

Melina reminded me that after school programs like Boys & Girls Clubs are also places where low-income teens are able to go online, and that the staff at these programs are really on the front lines of teaching them ethical and appropriate use (especially in homes without internet access or where English is a second language).

The challenge for librarians and youth workers is to not be reactive when incidents happen (and they will) where a teen either goes to an inappropriate site or posts something they shouldn't have. Sometimes it's the parents who will apply pressure to "do something about it." The impulse may be to block or ban to appease parents or prevent stuff from happening again. Hopefully, these incidents can become opportunities to develop curriculum or even an hour-long orientation teaching teens appropriate use before they log on at your site.

The Totally Wired Parent/Educator Tour is sponsored by Beinggirl.com.