Social networks are certainly not evil. There are, of course, many positive and valuable outcomes to using them. However, children and teen sare most vulnerable for a wide variety of reasons (read the above article) and anyone using social networks can assume the following:

1. There is no such thing as privacy, even with accounts that require a login and password.
2. The information we post in our social networks is scrubbed for data valuable to others including scammers and marketers.
3. Teens' "private" pages have been viewed by school administrators, teachers, parents, police, summer camp direcctors, college admissions officers, employers, and others, sometimes resulting in serious consequences for the teen.
4. Social Networks such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn attract a great deal of scams, fraud and theft.
5. People are not always who they say they are and do not always have our best interests in mind.
6. Social Networks are the weapon of choice for teens intent on hurting, humiliating or embarssing someone else.
7. Even in "moderated" social networks designed for younger children and tweens, such as Webkinz, Club Penguin and WeeWorld, children are subjected to bullying, harassment and sexual solicitation.
8. Children and younger teens regularly using social networks are more likely to be exposed to content and behavior that is not age-appropriate.
9. Many Add-On applications (sometimes called widgets) for social networks such as Facebook and MySpace are disguised adware or spyware.