Yoursphere

By now you know that I'm pretty strict about what pop culture things my kids are exposed to. I'm not swayed one iota when my kids tell me that "everyone" is doing this or watching that. And it's not always what you'd think—for instance, my kids were probably the first ones allowed to watch "The Simpsons" but the last to see "American Idol." Go figure. Anyhow, like most kids, mine are allowed a certain amount of "screen time" each day, some of which is spent watching TV and some on the computer. I find that supervising their TV watching is a lot easier than checking out every page of every website they visit. My kids know what sites they're allowed to go to, and they know that my rules are not negotiable.

The websites they visit are pretty typical—Steph watches a lot of music videos on YouTube, Pete plays medieval battle games and makes stop-motion stick-figure movies, and Julie spends time with her Webkins pals. Steph is the only one with email, and I won't let her get Gmail because I see what horrible spam I get daily in my Gmail inbox! I set up a "white list" of email addresses she's allowed to receive messages from—everything else just bounces back. I still won't let her do IM and certainly not Facebook. These last two are a source of great frustration to her, but I've put my foot down. I'll probably relent on the IMing thing next year, when she's in 8th grade, but I'm going to try to hold firm on Facebook until high school. The main reason is that there's just no way to know what's going on there. The recent revelations about Facebook's ever-changing privacy policy (which is longer than the U.S. Constitution, according to today's NYT article) have me even more convinced that it's not a safe place for my kid to hang out. She is just not savvy about all the bad stuff that's out there, and I don't want to be put in a position where I feel I have to try to monitor her every move.

All of this brings me to an exciting announcement! Mom Central has invited me to be an "ambassador" for Yoursphere, a wonderful new online community created by a mom to fill the need for young people to have a Facebook-like experience without any of the usual danger or worries. Parents have to sign up first and then authorize their kids to join. There are all kinds of games to play and contests to enter (with prizes!); kids can "friend" each other and send messages, start a blog, upload pictures, and more. They can also explore the various "spheres" of interest, such as music or sports or animals or gaming. Even more fun is that kids can create their own spheres depending on their own interests, and then anyone else can join them there! And we parents don't have to worry about inappropriate ads, registered sex offenders lurking in the shadows, bullying, fake profiles, and all the rest of it.

My kids are all signed up and so far loving it. They are eager to get their friends started too, so they can really get the full flavor of it. Membership is completely free, so why not give it a whirl? You can input YSMC-0030 in the referral code field to show that you heard about it from me (Mom Central is holding a contest to see who signs up the most new members!). As part of my agreement with Mom Central, I'll be posting about Yoursphere every couple of weeks for the next 3 months to let you know how my kids are enjoying it and what new things they've discovered there. Come, join us!

I wrote this review while participating in the Yoursphere Test Drive program
by Mom Central on behalf of Yoursphere. I received a free lifetime
Gold membership on Yoursphere.com, Yoursphere t-shirts,
and a $50 American Express gift card to facilitate my review.

Comments

[Steve]

It's interesting you mention this today. I posted a tongue-in-cheek status yesterday about a porn parody of "Jersey Shores" I had read on TMZ (yikes - did I just confess I read TMZ?).

A friend commented to Cliff about his concern that his 13-year-old niece would see my posting - which has raised all kinds of interesting questions for me: Do I censor myself? Should a 13-year-old be friends with the friend of a 41-year-old? How does one monitor/manage content and what kids see?

Sounds like this is a "universal" (i.e., developed countries) problem.

[Margaret]

I'm on Facebook and find it very interesting, but am horrified by some of what I see others posting--statuses, photos,etc... (especially the college kids who don't seem to know how to ratchet up their privacy settings) I'm a friend to both my daughters and make sure to let them know if I see anything inappropriate on their sites, which are usually tagged photos of them where someone else is doing something ridiculous. (however, they are 20 and nearly 24, so it's really none of my business) :)

[Jocelyn @ Hip Mama's Place]

Isn't YourSphere great? My step-son who's 12 is loving it too. And I like the fact that the site is also maintained by law enforcement authorities to make sure no sex predators can access the site. The site is definitely kid-friendly and a much safer alternative to Facebook and MySpace! :)