As a mother, I also thought the numbers below from the 2008 Online Safety Survey were very interesting. When parents and their teens were asked the same questions about monitoring teen use of the computer and Internet activity, there were some discrepancies in their answers.

·        52 percent of parents say they sit alongside their teenager whenever they are online to monitor activity; but only 33% of teens in those same households confirm that

·        51 percent of parents say they visit their teen's social networking site; 30% of teens confirm that

Hmm... the numbers just don't quite match up. It seems that parents may think they are monitoring their teens, but their teens are saying that they aren't monitoring as closely as they think they are.

In the Web 2.0 world we live in, being online is a necessity.  But the results from this survey make me stop and think about what kind of questions this raises. What are the implications of this for consumers?  For society?  When we're online, how do we ensure that we are in charge of the information collected about us and how it is used? Are we even aware that what we put out there- either knowingly or unknowingly- compromises our privacy?