I’ve been signing emails to loved ones with “LOL,” thinking that I was sharing “lots of love.” Guess what? You probably already know that LOL doesn’t mean “lots of love.” Yeah, I’m still learning the online slang.

Recently, I caved and let my 11-year-old daughter get an IM account. Most of her close friends have joined AIM (AOL’s instant messaging network.) These girls are all overbooked, with little or no time, for play dates. Since they rarely see each other, they grab whatever moment they can find to communicate online. AIM has become the new virtual mall.

They would prefer to hang out live, but that isn’t always an option. What’s really interesting is the studies indicating that adolescents’ strongest relationships are with friends who connect in person and online. Supposedly, online communication allows girls to be nurturing and to show their “true selves.”Hmm… Here is one of my daughter’s typical chat sessions: One girl said, “waz up” (What’s up?) Another girl replies, “nmu” (Not much, how about you?) This goes back and forth for hours. Well, maybe they’ll be engaging in deep philosophical debates when there is no POS (Parent standing Over Shoulder.)

So, now that I’ve released the genie from the bottle, what are the risks of IMing?

Parental Responsibility

The minimum age for AOL’s AIM membership is 13 years old. Obviously, a lot of parents like me are ignoring this and allowing tweens to sign up. If you do make a similar choice, be sure to have your child sign an online pledge such as Kim Komando’s 10 Commandments for Kids Online. Talk to your child about the dangers and try out the IM environment yourself.

I’ve set up an AIM account and I am using it to send messages to my daughter. I won’t be chatting with her friends. That’s just weird. Plus, this is their space. However, I may use it to send messages to my Girl Scout troop. Like most adolescents, these girls ignore their email while being addicted to IM. Yeah, they’ll probaby ignore my IMs too; unfortunately, it’s not just the medium, it’s also the message.

Predator Danger

As with any online social medium, kids need to be beware of predators. Teens know to ignore “buddy requests” from strangers, but tweens may not always recognize the danger. Last year, my daughter was convinced that Zack (of TV’s Zack and Cody) was her Imbee pal. It could have been the actor; however, it is not unusual for predators to pretend to be a celebrity. For now, this danger is minimal. Our tech-savvy kids claim to be ignoring all buddy requests and only chatting with their circle of known friends, but I’m checking just in case.

Other safety precautions:

• Keep the computer in a public space.
• Install the free ImSafer software in your computer to be alerted when “conversations go astray.”

Emotional Growth

Don’t let IMing replace face to face time. In Can You Hear Me Now?, Sherry Turkle, a professor of the social studies of science and technology at MIT, argues that allowing adolescents to spend too spend too much time online “comes at the expense of cultivating the ability to be alone and to manage and contain one’s emotions.” She also argues that it diminishes the quality of relationships:

And what of adolescence as a time of self-reflection? We communicate with instant messages, “check-in” cell calls and emoticons. All of these are meant to quickly communicate a state. They are not intended to open a dialogue about complexity of feeling… The culture that grows up around the cell phone is a communications culture, but it is not necessarily a culture of self-reflection–which depends on having an emotion, experiencing it, sometimes electing to share it with another person, thinking about it differently over time. When interchanges are reduced to the shorthand of emoticon emotions, questions such as “Who am I?” and “Who are you?” are reformatted for the small screen and flattened out in the process.

Cyberbullies

Kids who are bullies offline have an opportunity to be bullies online, with little risk of discovery. Even kids who would not usually be bullies, take advantage of the anonymity and emotional distance online to be bullies. Cyberbullies may start false rumors that spread like wildfire. The entire school community may hear a lie in under an hour. Those same girls who crave online social interaction may initiate or be victimized by the “relational aggression” of girls bullying girls.

Learn more at Cyberbully411 and make sure your child knows how to deal with cyberbullies:

• Don’t reply to messages from cyberbullies. They are trying to mess with your mind. Don’t give them that pleasure.
• Don’t keep this to yourself! Tell an adult. You are not alone and you didn’t do anything to deserve the bullying.
• Inform your Internet or cell phone service provider.
• Inform your local police if the behavior seems to call for it.
• Do not erase or delete messages from cyberbullies.

Loss of Sleep

Experts recommend that adolescents get 8-9 hours of sleep every night, but many are losing sleep to text message. I suspect that some kids are also IMing late into the night.

On a Saturday evening, my daughter joined eight friends IMing on a virtual slumber party. Since it wasn’t a real slumber party I was able to get her to go to sleep before midnight, but she would have liked to stay on much longer.

This led to my instituting the first of many IM etiquette rules.

IM Etiquette

• Don’t IM after hours. In our home, that means that we don’t place phone calls - or IMs- after 9pm.
• Some conversations should be done face to face. Don’t risk a misunderstanding. If it’s important, do it in person or on the phone.
• Be kind.
• Think before you text.
• Don’t say anything inappropriate.
• Don’t lie.

Can you think of anything else?

IM Language

A whole new language is evolving in IM, and not everyone is thrilled. IM translation lists are growing longer everyday, and some of the slang is slipping into every day language. Click to hear the NPR report OMG: How IM SlangIs Invading Everyday English. You will hear Professor David Crystal observe: “I see a brand new variety of language evolving, invented really by young people… within five years! It’s extraordinary.” Professor Crystal thinks Shakespeare would love IM.

David Pogue, the New York Times technology columnist, and his interns have come up with The Next Generation of Online Shorthand with a special list just for parents:

* WIWYA — when I was your age
* YKT – you kids today
* CRRE — conversation required; remove earbuds
* WDO? — what are you doing online?
* NIWYM — no idea what you mean
* NCK — not a chance, kid
* B2W — back to work
* AYD? — are you drunk?
* LODH — log off, do homework
* DYMK? — does your mother know?
* IGAT — I’ve got abbreviations, too

BTW (by the way) LOL means “laughing out loud” gt2g (got to go)

If you would like to receive free articles from On Living By Learning by email, click this link.