Have you ever wondered what MSN, Piczo and Nexopia are and how they are used by your youth? The following is information from two 13 year old female students in Victoria . It was gathered in April 2007 via questions and prompts for elaboration with the intent of writing an article about How to Keep Yourself Safe on the Internet. The conversation is a transcribed and abridged, but all of their words.
What is MSN?
MSN is an easier more efficient instant messaging way to talk to your friends. You have to download MSN. It’s free and fast. I don’t know what MSN stands for but if you google ‘download messenger’ you can find it. At the bottom you add a contact, type in their MSN and add them. I have a lot of MSN accounts then I import my old contacts. I’ve been on MSN for 5 years. I make new accounts because I get bored. I have about 400 people on my MSN....
Right now I hate MSN. It’s overrated. Everyone is obsessed with MSN. There is way more drama on MSN than there would be in person. People take an argument to the next level and make it more harsh than they would say in person. The difference is you know who you are talking to, but you don’t know exactly who you are talking to. When people are over at other’s houses you can say stupid things using their account and make it sound like its coming from them. I’ve done this before. And lots of peoples make MSN names that are ridiculous, labelling themselves and using inappropriate names like: slut69 or pimpinparadise. What happens is they get labelled so they label themselves on their MSN names.
What is Nexopia
Nex is putting a profile about yourself and letting your friends come in and comment messages about it. This is not a website like Piczo. On Piczo, creeps cannot get onto your website because there is no listing of websites. Especially if you don’t have links from other sites and someone wouldn’t just randomly find the name of your site. I have about 4000 hits (visitors) on my Piczo site. At first I was into Piczo sites, then it was MSN and now it’s Nex. I’m all about getting more and more hits on Nex. I made a new Nex account about a week ago and I have about 500 hits. I had an old Nex profile but it got deleted because my profile said I was 13 and someone reported me, so it got deleted. You have to be 14 to put your profile on Nex. So I made another one and I didn’t like it, so I made another one. I only have about 100 on my friends list, but I know a lot of the hits are not from my friends. Nex is just another chatting form, but unlike MSN that only has a name and a display picture, Nex has 12 pictures and a profile about you and your likes, dislikes and a friends list. I have Nex as my home page and I have automatic sign in. You can pay for Nexopia plus which is better because you can see which people have creeped your account, it tells you whose visited your site, and you can add more pictures and different skins (backgrounds). It costs $5 per month or $30 for 5 or $60 per year. You have to do it by credit card. My mom is getting me Nex plus because she’s seen my profile and knows I’m being safe, so she will get me the plus.
You can leave comments on the bottom of the profile like ‘hey beautiful’ or ‘you’re gorgeous’ and you can private message back. Most of the time I have guys aged18-25 asking me to hook up, seduce them, or cybersex. I don’t answer them back. I get about 50 messages a day from older guys. At first they’ll say ‘you’re really hot’, and they’ll start messaging me. But they are never my age. On Nex you can go to the main page: www.nexopia.com and see everybody. You can click on a user or you can go next to next to next, creeping them and find me. You can’t not be a part of the menu. You’re supposed to be 14 to go on Nex. When you sign up you say you are either over 18 or over 14 with your parent’s consent. You can click on ignore user so that they can message or comment you. Or if they creeped your page you go into your properties and on your profile and click only allow friends list to see your own profile. People you add can see you, but people you don’t add can’t see anything. I don’t have this clicked off on my profile. It doesn’t bother me when guys say I’m hot- its kind of fun. My thing says I’m 15 and I think I might look older in my pictures.
If parents read this they shouldn’t take away MSN or Nex from kids. You can talk to about 30 of your friends instantly without picking up your phone. You can still do your homework on the computer and talk to your friends. It keeps your kids busy. If you take MSN away they are going to be so mad at you.
Advice to students using Nexopia:
MSN advice:
SVIYFCA
http://www.schoolyfc.ca/article.php?story=2007050109111316