First it was the predator panic, and now it's sexting terror.

With these constant techno-panic messages going out to parents, it's time to question if kids can really be scared into safer behavior in the first place.

To promote a true change in behavior, society and the online safety industry need to empower young social media users and their parents with education -- not scare them to death. (For more on this, see "A new online safety: The means, not the end.") For example, if teens get the true facts about current child porn laws and sexting, (see "Tips to Prevent Sexting"), they can also be the ones to end the disturbing trend.

Young people are not afraid of technology and are the Innternet's most active, fluent users -- its drivers, in many ways. If we parents get scared and react to online mischief by attempting to ban the Internet, teens will inevitably find a way around it. And youth going "underground" (away from home, at friends' houses, public hot spots, using mobile and gaming devices, etc.) can actually put them at greater risk.

Some more reasons technopanics are bad

• Fear interferes with parent-child communication, which puts kids at greater risk.
• Schools may focus on fearfully blocking digital media instead of teaching good cyber citizenship and career oriented uses of technology.
• As schools ban technology, they become more irrelevant to active young social-technology users.
• Less tech for American youth reduces their competitiveness among countries that do effectively employ educational technology and social media. (For an international view, see Joan Ganz Cooney Center/Sesame Workshop's "Pockets of Potential: Using Mobile Technologies to Promote Children's Learning.")

What am I missing? Feel free to add your ideas about how techno-panic is bad for us and our kids.