Prevent your kids from getting e-conned

Your teenage son offers to help you do the background research for the family's pending computer purchase. And since he's much more conversant in computerese than you are, you're only too happy to take him up on the offer. It doesn't take him long to come back to you with his pick: the ultimate machine for power gaming and-apparently-power academics, too.

You do your own digging and reach a very different conclusion: the machine has more bling than brains. It appears that what's sold your son on the system are the glowing video reviews-über-hip computer owners talking about how this particular purchase allowed them to morph from Joe Uncool to Joe Too-Cool. Naturally, the reviewers boast all the must-have lifestyle accessories and impossibly attractive friends.

E-literacy

It's yet another responsibility that falls to us parents of this generation of highly wired kids: teaching them how to think critically about all the sales pitches they encounter online: what's editorial vs. what's advertorial, which online reviews are legit and which ones are review spam, and what techniques marketers use to market specifically to kids and teens.

You may want to talk about:

• how word of mouth is generated by people who generally love a product vs. how marketers create word of mouth artificially in order to spread the word about their products (astro-turfing comes to mind);
• how brands are marketed to kids from impossibly early ages — from which point onwards the brand chatter never ends; and
• how kids are recruited by large corporations to pitch products to their friends.

Here's one final thought: studies have shown that teens and preteens influence many of the purchasing decisions made by their parents. And, for the most part, when they are researching those purchasing decisions, they do their research online. So if they're less-than-savvy online consumers and they're getting conned, you could be getting conned, too.

Now over to you. Have you had "the big talk" with your kids about online hype and online fact? What are the odds of them getting conned when they shop for goods online-or recommend those goods to you?