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The researchers also discussed opinions, some of them perhaps surprising, on other notable subjects in the online social-networking space. Lawley, who has a 14-year-old son, said she is strongly against some of the restrictive methods used online to segregate adults from children in an attempt to protect kids from predators. On Second Life, for example, she can't interact with her son because he has to be in the teen grid and she has to be in the adult grid.

"So I don't learn from him about how to use technologies, and he doesn't learn from me about how to interact in a social context," she said. Shutting down sites or trying to shut out people won't solve the problem of sexual predators, she said. "We don't talk about shutting down the Catholic Church," she said, referring to the clergy sex-abuse scandal. "Sexual deviancy isn't unique to the online world."

Along with marketed content for the PlayStation Portable, Nicolakis said Playboy started a service called iBod. The service started in 2005 and allows users to download soft porn to their device. Wallpaper of nude photos and explicit ring tones are some of the other materials available through built-in Web browsers in portable devices like the iPhone, Nicolakis said, and parental safeguards are nonexistent or just now becoming available. He said another avenue for pornographic material is user-generated photos or videos sent from cell phone to cell phone. Teens are reportedly taking sexually explicit photos of themselves and sending them to friends, but the images can easily be sent without consent to others, Nicolakis said. "That's child pornography, and that's a felony," he said. "If you think you're immune to it here in Modesto, you're wrong. It's probably already happened, you just don't know yet.

Mobile GPS will open a Pandora’s box of possibilities, say others. “I’d be very concerned about pedophiles or identity thieves hacking into a system and locating me, my wife, or daughter,” says Henry Simpson, who coordinates new technology for the California State University at Monterey Bay (CSUMB). “It raises huge safety issues,” he adds.

But new technologies have always brought new risks – such as identity theft. Philosophically, every technology has both positive and negative values, says Andrew Anker, vice president of development at Six Apart, a Web consulting firm. “In fact,” he points out, “the most positive aspects are what also add the most negative.”

Companies looking to do business on college campuses have paid particular attention to security concerns. Rave Wireless introduced a GPS/MoSoSo enabled phone for students this past year, emphasizing the security value of the GPS feature over its potential to deliver underage victims to predators. While the Rave phones enable students to find like-minded buddies (Bored? Love Indian food? Meet me under the clock!), it also offers a cyberescort service linked to campus police. If the student doesn’t turn off a timer in the phone, indicating safe arrival at a destination, police are dispatched to a GPS location.

"The only intent is to limit the personal communication between teachers and students. We don't need to let it cross the line between professional and personal communication."

A survey of more than 200 Kansas State University students — mostly freshmen — indicates 54 percent of them believe cyberbullying is a "minor problem" or a "common problem" among students at the university.

The survey used the cyberbullying definition provided in Kansas' anti-bullying law, which took effect in January 2008 and was revised in July to include cyberbullying. The law requires schools to develop anti-bullying policies, plans and preventative measures. Cyberbullying is the use of any electronic communication device, such as e-mail, instant messaging, text messages, blogs, mobile phones, pages, online games or Web sites, to create an intimidating, threatening or abusive environment.