Undergraduate Researcher Tara Brito Plays a Key Role in MySpace Study
Senior Tara Brito, a Science Preprofessional major, was a key researcher in a descriptional study of social networking published recently in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, a JAMA/Archives journal. The study of several hundred 18-year-olds’ public online MySpace profiles showed that about half mentioned sex, substance abuse or other risky behaviors on the site. The results have been widely publicized in dozens of national and international media outlets.
Brito, who worked on the study in the summer of 2007, collected data on an account set up by Megan A. Moreno, M.D. – known as “Dr. Meg” – who was at the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital Research Institute in Seattle and has since moved to the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Other researchers in the study were Malcolm Parks, Frederick Zimmerman and Dimitri Christakis. Searching for 18-year-olds living in the United States, Brito collected a random list of some 750 profiles and selected 500 that met the criteria for the study. Brito coded categories of risky behavior such as drinking, sexually explicit language or activity, and drug abuse she found in the profiles as well as other interests such as hobbies, sports, and religious or devotional life, so the study could find correlations.
“I helped her track the network,” Brito says, recalling the sensory overload of blaring music and flashing colored screens on the site. “I did a lot of the data collecting. I never had a MySpace account myself, but I’ve been exposed to it. I never used it before I participated in the study.” About one-fourth of the 25 million MySpace users are minors.
Fifty-four percent of the profiles mentioned risky behaviors, including 24 percent that referred to sexual behaviors, 41 percent to substance use, 37 percent to alcohol use and 14.4 percent to violence. Women were less likely than men to display references to violence. Reporting a sexual orientation other than “straight” was associated with more references to sexual behavior. Teens whose profiles mentioned church or religious involvement, or indicated active participation in a sport or hobby, were less likely to display any type of risky information.
Brito, who is applying to medical schools, says she was surprised at how unaware most people seem about the public nature of their postings. “I think one of the things people don’t realize is how easily the information they put online can be accessed by other people,” she says. “I was floored at how easily I could access personal information about people online,” including address, school, contact information and details of life that show up in notes, comments and blogs. “They think it’s not going to affect them. We’re just starting to see the repercussions of this right now.”
She hopes that publicity about the risks – including news reports of a suicide in Missouri as a result of online bullying – as well as more studies on the issue will raise awareness. In a later study by Moreno, a significant number reduced their references to risky behavior and switched their settings to “private” after a single email from “Dr. Meg” warning them of the potential trouble from the references in their profile and providing a website address with information about sexually transmitted diseases.
