I also watched with surprise -- and pride -- as her flying fingers from memory tapped out HTML, the specialized language of Web page design, to add color and unique script to photo captions.
Using my digital camera, she took dozens of photographs of herself and her friends, posting the best to her site. Over time, I noticed how she became less interested in glamour poses, experimenting instead with shadows, light, composition and unexpected angles. She often shot photographs for her buddies' MySpace Web pages.
I was impressed and found that I was bonding with my daughter in a way that had become difficult of late.
I'd ask questions about how to perform various functions, and she'd help me out. Our technical talks usually segued into discussions of her social and academic problems and worries.
The novelty of MySpace was interesting to me. I didn't have a lot of friends, but I enjoyed chatting with the few I did.
As for predators, six weeks into our experiment, Taylor had not received messages from anyone other than friends or schoolmates.
At one point a couple of teenage boys from local schools sent e-mails asking if they could come to her house after school. When she didn't respond, one of the boys sent an angry e-mail using swear words to demand an answer. With my prompting, she deleted both as friends.
Foul language was a constant, and it annoyed me. Catholic schoolgirl upbringing aside, at 45 I'm not naive or a prude. Still, the mass mailings Taylor received each day were for me a barometer of how easily and often young teens are exposed to crude images, thoughts and words.
Some of it was the type of notes my own generation passed around when the teacher wasn't looking. An ominous story, followed by the warning of misfortune: "If you don't repost this within 10 minutes, you will have bad luck for 7 years and no one will love you EVER IN YOUR LIFE!!!"
But other posts were truly disturbing, such as the cautionary, and detailed, tale of a young girl who was raped by her father, died from a sexually transmitted disease and now haunts those who read her story.
Surveys are also popular and contain such telling questions as "Have you ever taken drugs?" "Are you a virgin?" and "Abortion -- for or against?"
Talk about a permanent record!
I reminded Taylor that she shouldn't leave any identifying information in her writings, even if she was writing to a friend.
