Teens' Bold Blogs Alarm Area Schools

But adults do read the sites. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported 1,224 incidents last year of "online enticement" of children by adults and estimates that one in five children gets sexual solicitations online. Staff members of NetSmartz, an arm of the national center, discuss the issue with local students. Staca Urie, a NetSmartz manager, said that after she gave a talk recently at the Lab School in the District, students raced to their computers to delete information.

And yet to many teenagers, the sites are irresistible.

Aftab said that even teenagers who work with her to warn others about the sites have their own sites. "Why in God's name would you have a Xanga site?" she asked one, and the answer was poignant.

"I'm in seventh grade," the girl said. "It's really hard to be in seventh grade these days. It's really hard if you're shy and you're not a cheerleader or extraordinarily popular. I travel, I take pictures, I write poetry. I'm a nice kid, and if I can write a profile that will make people notice me, why shouldn't I?"

To Aftab, "It's a very sad testimonial these days that a kid has to post something on a site where potentially 700 million people can see it in order to attract the attention of a kid two seats down."

Emilie Jackson, 17, a senior at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria and an editor of the school newspaper, has four or five blogs. She doesn't keep an online diary -- "I never really thought that my life was that interesting" -- but she said it can be a form of therapy. "Being able to share with people, I guess, makes it easier to deal with stuff."

Aftab acknowledges that the sites have their good points: Kids get to show off an expertise or be creative. "A kid with a boring life can go on to MySpace and become a punk rocker in two minutes."

Bilqis Rock, 16, a senior at Springbrook High School in Montgomery County, said she tries to make her page look attractive "so that folks want to come back and look at mine. It's kind of like a little show that I'm putting on, trying to put my best and coolest out there."

Her mother, Melanie Rock, said that she and her husband have talked to Bilqis about smart Internet use and that she is not worried. Rock hasn't looked at her daughter's page.

"She hasn't invited me to look, and I figure it's her space," Rock said, adding, "This offers them a way to have a sense of community."

But it can also be isolating. "They do less face-to-face talking, less phone talking, less playing outside than any other generation, and because of that, the Internet is real to them, but the risks aren't," Aftab said.

Neither are some of the worlds they create. Experts, and teenagers themselves, say that much of what is on the sites is made up.

Teenagers often act online in ways they wouldn't off-line -- bullying each other, posing in underwear, using foul language or sporting guns and Ku Klux Klan hoods.

Increasingly, many teenagers feel pressured to show themselves doing more risque things, even if they are not actually doing them. Aftab cited an example of girls who had blogged about weekends of drinking and debauchery, while in reality they were coloring with their younger siblings or watching old movies with Grandma.

"Even if you weren't out drunk and partying on the weekend, you have to pretend you were," Aftab said. "Maybe parents should be relieved."

Staff writer Jamie Stockwell contributed to this report.