Is your kid buying alcohol on the ‘net?

There’s a chance that one day, in the future, you’ll sit down with a kid and say, “In my day, you’d have to bribe a friend’s older brother to buy you alcohol down at the store.”

Your kid will look at you, scratch his head and say, “Someone else had to buy it? Why didn’t you just do it yourself on the Internet?”

Two percent of teens surveyed in 2006 have admitted to buying alcohol online while 12 percent say they have a friend who does. Even if your kid isn’t buying the alcohol, there’s a chance they’ll drink some bought by a friend.

Why? Well, with states expanding laws broadening online liquor sales and really no way to verify the age of someone buying said beverage, it is easy for a teen to purchase alcohol online.

Unfortunately, since not many are trying to address this problem, you can probably assume that more and more teens will buy their alcohol on the ‘net unless liquor companies are required to sell only to authenticated users.

Can this be a possibility? Sure. As more and more schools are discussing authenticating children when they enter school, by the time they turn to the internet to buy a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black, the liquor purveyor could easily have set up a way to authenticate purchasers to ensure that they are of age. One more way to keep those kids in line!

Marines recruiting on MySpace

The Marine Corps entrance into the hangout of 94 million mostly-teenage users is stirring up controversy.

In an effort to “fish where the fish are”, the United States Marine Corps has set itself up with a profile on MySpace in an effort to pique the interest of potential new recruits.

A Marine Corp representative said “The Internet is a great way to show what the Marine Corps has to offer.”

But some object to these tactics to recruit teenagers, noting that it’s not fair for the Corps to be using something that’s kind of like a youth domain, to “sucker youth into something they’re not really explaining fully.”

The US Army, originally leery of MySpace because of well-publicized report of online predators, plans to set up a profile soon.

Now, I’m not sure of the legalities around recruiting teenagers in the US, but this does seem a little stealthy to me, kind of like recruiting in a high school parking lot. I think perhaps I’d be more comfortable with the notion of a paid ad space on MySpace, rather than a “profile” set up as a member of the MySpace community.

What do you think? Is this just really savvy advertising or an unethical way to recruit teenagers?

Text Messaging alerts parents of truants

Skipping school just got a bit harder for some Tucson-area students. Several high schools in the area are using a text-messaging system to alert parents of truant students.

The system, called “Messageyou,” is already in use in Australia. Messageyou sends a text message to parents that have signed up for the program, telling them the child has an unexcused absence.

Oftentimes, parents are hard to reach by phone and cunning students erase messages left on the voice mail.

Or the kids could just do what I did and have ahem, “valid” excuses, as to why they were absent.