Adults will forever be playing catch-up with kids when it comes to communica tions. The grownups now being abandoned in e-mail land by young people intent on gravitating to other venues.

That's the word this week from Martha Irvine, a national Associated Press writer specializing in coverage of people in their 20s and younger.

Increasingly, e-mail is losing favor to instant and text messaging, blogs and social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

It's critical that parents keep pace with developments as best they can.

The safety of their children may depend on scrutiny and vigilance and keeping an open dialogue. It's a familiar admonition that cannot be repeated too often.

`` The Internet is a pedophile's dream,'' Attleboro police Detective Sgt. Arthur Bril lon said after the arrest of a 56-year-old man who police allege tried to solicit sex online from who he thought was a 15-yearold girl.

Brillon said child predators often lurk in Internet chat rooms and on Web sites like myspace.com where children post profiles of themselves, often with photographs and other identifying material.

If kids are there, parents need to be also -- checking things out.

Police allege that a Medway man left work at a local company a week ago and headed to Balfour Riverwalk to meet some one he thought was a teenage girl he com municated with online.

Do you know what your child has posted for all the world to see? Home address? Your address? Telephone number? School?

Every time that Internet screen lights up, strangers are provided a potential por tal into your life.

It can be like leaving your front door unlocked with a sign attached: `` Walk in.''

The Pew Internet & American Life Pro ject, a non-profit research center studying the social impact of the Internet on Ameri cans, last year reported that 81 percent of parents of online teens say that teens aren't careful enough when disclosing themselves online and 79 percent of online teens agree.

Sixty-five percent of all parents and 64 percent of all teens say that teens do things online that they wouldn't want their par ents to know about. A certain amount of secret keeping has always been a hallmark of the relationship between many teens and parents.

Homework at a friend's house or actual ly hanging out at the mall?

But the stakes seem higher than ever.

You mastered e-mail.

That's not where the only action is these days.

Time to go wherever your kids are head ed -- sometimes into treacherous waters.