I thought I was chatting with a teen ... Brittany had lots of friends on MySpace. One was Matt. But the "New Teen in Town" turned out to be someone who gave Brittany the shock of her life.

BY BRITTANY, 16, AS TOLD TO SANDY FERTMAN RYAN

My Space is great. You basically have your own website, and people read your stuff, look at your photos and ask to be listed as your "friend"--which means they can go to your personal pages. The more friends you have, the more popular you feel. Most pages have photos, quotes, likes and dislikes, hobbies, anything and everything you want to put on there. Although MySpace doesn't require you to write your age, city or real name, practically everybody does it because, if you don't, you could look boring and no one would want to be listed as your friend.

When I first started using MySpace, I submitted everything about myself--my town, school, age, photo and interests. I thought it was literally "my space." I never told my mom I was on MySpace because I didn't know what she would think. At the time, I wasn't close to her. I figured since all of my friends were doing the exact same thing, it had to be safe. Even so, I did get unwanted sexual solicitations, like this guy who messaged me, "I need nude pictures of you." I deleted messages like that, but I didn't think it was a big deal. I thought I had handled it. Looking back, though, I can't believe I was so naive. Right before I started using MySpace, there had been seven incidents of girls ages 12 to 17 in my town who were sexually molested through meeting people on MySpace. I even knew one of the girls! I just believed nothing bad would ever happen to me.

After two months on MySpace, I got a message from a 19-year-old named Matt who said, "I'm new in town and looking for friends." He said he lived at the nearby college but had a cartoon character instead of a photo posted. He asked to be added as my "friend," and I accepted him after I saw that all the friends listed on his profile were people I knew. After chatting with him every night for two weeks, I thought Matt was cool and pretty decent. It wasn't like a crush or anything, but he felt like a good friend. We talked about everything: baseball, my favorite coffee shop and lots of other stuff that made me feel like we had so much in common. I never even considered that he could be making me believe we were so much alike because he was reading about me on my personal page.

I became so comfortable with Matt that I told him we should meet sometime--still, I wouldn't have gone by myself. I was brought up to never meet strangers, so I don't even know why I suggested it. I guess it was because I felt I could trust him--and I thought MySpace was safe.

One day, my mom told me a couple of my friends and I were randomly selected from our school to teach adults about MySpace. On the day of the event, we all walked into this room at school--and we were shocked to see nine TM cameras set up. Our interview was to be televised on Dateline NBC. The interviewer asked us about MySpace and whether we talked to strangers. He asked, "Do you think you'd know if a stranger were trying to con his way into your life?" We all said, "Probably." He said, "Well, there's this new kid in town named Matt. Do you know him?"

My jaw dropped, and my heart was pounding. The interviewer then asked if we'd like to meet Matt, and we said "No!" We were so scared since all of us had been talking to him online. But then he said, "Matt's just outside the door." This man in his 40s wearing a badge walked in, and I was like, "He's a cop!" Matt sat down, introduced himself and told us he was using us as an experiment to see how easy it was for teen girls to get conned online. I thought, "How could I have been so stupid?" It really was the biggest shock of my life. When the interview was over, I thought my mom would kill me. But when she saw me, she broke down in tears. This whole experience has made us closer and, now, I really have no secrets from her. That night, I went home and removed all the "friends" I didn't know. I also took off my city, school and photos. Since then, I speak at high schools with Matt, who is actually Detective Frank Dannahey, about the dangers of meeting people online. It's great to teach other kids how to be safe online. The point is not to be afraid to use the Internet. It's to learn to protect yourself.