Parents panicking over kids' heavy internet habits?
It used to be the boob tube was parents worst enemy. Now it may be YouTube. According to a study released yesterday by The Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern Californias Annenberg School, many parents are concerned about the amount of time their children are spending on the web. Twenty-one percent of adult internet users with kids think their children are online too long, up from 11 percent in 2000. And 47 percent of those adults have actually withheld online privileges as a form of punishment. Parents still think TV is a bigger problem, however. About 49 percent think their kids watch too much TV, and 57 percent have banned TV watching to punish the young ones. Overall, internet use continues to grow. The 77.6 percent of Americans who use the internet spend an average of 8.9 hours a week online, about an hour more than last year, according to the study.

For a select few, NFL streaming games on the web
The NFL Network has limited distribution, available in fewer than 50 million households. Thus more people may be able to watch its Thursday and Sunday night games after the league announced yesterday it would stream them live online. Or so you would think, but not so fast. The online broadcasts, to launch sometime over the next few weeks, will only be available to subscribers of Verizons Fios high-speed internet service and DirecTV customers who also have Verizons internet service. The league will test the technology with tonights game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Cincinnati Bengals, then roll it out publicly, though no date has been set. NFL Network has less than half the number of subscribers as ESPN, and so its regular-season NFL debut on Thanksgiving was among the lowest-rated games in history.

Students suspended after MySpace-facilitated brawl
MySpace has made it easier for people to connect online, but thats not always a good thing. Twelve students at Edwardsville High School in Illinois were expelled on Monday after taking part in a fight that school officials say was set up on the popular social networking site. Nobody was hurt in the fight, which was about who had been invited to a party, but the 11 girls and one boy who participated are done for the year, and the three seniors involved wont be able to take part in graduation ceremonies come spring. There had been bad blood among the students involved for some time, causing seven of them to sign an agreement on Nov. 6 to stop disrespecting each other. But two days later, plans for the brawl were made by way of messages on MySpace, and the throw-down took place the next day in the schools commons area.

Study: Number of folks taking virtual tours is rising
The internet can be a handy way of checking out a place before you actually visit in person, and these online virtual tours are becoming more popular. The Pew Internet & American Life Project Tuesday said that 51 percent of adult internet users took a virtual tour of another place in August, up from 45 percent in November 2004. When looking at internet users of all ages, the growth of online virtual tours was even greater, 33 percent, from 54 million people in 2004 to 72 million in August. Women were more likely to take an online tour with 54 percent of them saying theyd done so in the past, compared with 49 percent of male internet users. And internet users age 30-49 were more likely than those in any other age group to take part in a virtual tour57 percent had done so, followed by 50-64s (55 percent), 18-29s (47 percent) and 65-plus (29 percent).