Click here for our free newsletter. Five girls sit side by side in a Baltimore middle school library, typing away at PCs, eyes riveted to their screens. Kids love E-mail. An estimated 16 million youngsters under age 18 have Internet capability at home, and surveys show E-mail is their main online activity. They revel in their mastery of a medium that often befuddles their parents, believing they've found the ultimate way to chat in utter privacy.
Kids begin E-mailing early.
Days later, an E-mail reply arrives. From such highly orchestrated starts, many children go on to use E-mail to contact faraway relatives and friends, and ask teachers for homework help. America Online offers IM to its 16 million members and makes it available free to nonmembers. Users compile a list of IM buddies, all of whom can converse online in real time, their comments scrolling down the screen. Children send a goodly portion of the 403 million IMs that go out every day, discussing who's cool, who's a dork, and other similar matters.