IF THE web was once an enormous library, it is now a vast conversation. Transmitting information from one person to another has never been easier. Everyone can participate. Young people now communicate more through social networking websites than through email. Instead of keeping diaries, they keep blogs; instead of photo albums, they have Flickr.

While older adults go online to find information, the younger crowd go online to live. The boundaries between private and public and between offline and online are blurring, and there is a widening generation gap between adolescents growing up with social technology and adults who find it foreign and unsettling. Welcome to the MySpace generation.

It all happened remarkably quickly. The first social networking websites were born just three years ago, aimed at providing online forums where friends could connect. A year later online social networking was a fully fledged phenomenon. Today it is the face ...