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The fact that cell phones pose a great risk when combined with driving cannot be of any surprise to anyone. Let’s face it. First, drivers must take their eyes off the road while dialing. Second, people can become so absorbed in their conversations or other cell phone use that their ability to concentrate on the act of driving is severely impaired, jeopardizing the safety of vehicle occupants and pedestrians alike.

Time Away from Homework. Technology affords teens (and adults) a host of ways to do something other than what they are supposed to, in this case homework.

Mounting Minutes ($$$) Since consumers must be 18 in order to purchase a cell phone contract in the United States, most parents are buying the phones their children carry. This is good news because parents can choose a plan that fits how the cell phone will be used and can review monthly cell phone bills which typically includes a log itemizing phone activity. However, problems still exist. For one, children can quickly go over their allotted minutes for the month which can leave their parents with bills that can easily approach hundreds of dollars for the month.

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."

While there is nothing inherently dangerous in the sites themselves, there is the risk that teens could use microblogs to reveal personal information or engage in a relationship with someone whose intentions are less than honorable. And like any other form of communication, the door is open for a teen to take risks such as talking about sex with strangers (albeit in relatively short bursts) or getting together with someone they meet through a microblog.

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.

Then, social networking started taking off. First came Friendster, then MySpace and Facebook, and now Twitter. The popularity of texting began soaring, too. All of this makes me wonder: What is Time Warner-owned AOL Instant Messenger doing to ensure that aging Millennials like me keep instant messaging a part of their daily routine?

AOL spokeswoman Erin Gifford said she wasn't sure what efforts the company was deploying to keep 20-somethings interested in messaging. That's not to say AOL Instant Messenger, which debuted in 1997, hasn't remained popular. It currently has about 30.4 million active users in the United States, making it the most popular instant messenger service in the country.

AIM's sweet spot is people between the ages of 13 and 24. They make up about 49 percent of all AOL instant messenger users. That leaves 51 percent of us who are 25 and older.

The Atlanta-based parenting columnist, former elementary school teacher, kids' pop culture expert, author, and mother of four spent a couple of weeks in Club Penguin to learn what her eight-year-old son might experience there. She didn't like everything she saw.

Education is the key. Teach children safe practices for online use. Help them learn to spot the dangerous alleyways of that Internet boomtown. They need to learn who the law is, and who the desperados are.