online predators

A new study shows that more than half of teenagers mention drugs, alcohol, sex or violence on their MySpace pages. Yet getting teens to clean up their pages is easier than many might assume, researchers say.

More than 90 percent of adolescents have Internet access, and about half of these use social networking sites, such as MySpace or Facebook, according to the study of 500 18-year-olds in Monday's Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

President George Bush signed two bills into law on Monday that would protect children from online predators, but one group said the bills were rushed to the White House for signature without careful consideration.

While Congress considered the nation's financial bailout plan, other significant bills protecting children were being debated, including the Protect Our Children Act of 2008 (POCA) and Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act (KIDSPA).