Social Networking benefits teens

November 20, 2008 by markhopper

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A study by the MacArthur Foundation said time spent by teenagers on online social networking is not lost. According to the “Living and Learning With New Media” report the hours young people spent on their MySpace accounts or even sending text messages provide them technological skills and literacy required for them to succeed in the contemporary world.

“They’re learning how to get along with others, how to manage a public identity, how to create a home page,” said Mizuko Ito, lead researcher of the study.

Vicki Rideout, vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, agreed that studies like the one made by the MacArthur Foundation are good at describing how social media fits into the lives of the youth, but she called for more surveys on the same topic to document the effects of these social networking sites.

Contrary to parental fears that predators and strangers lurk in the Internet, majority of the young people who spend a lot of time socializing online do it with people they met at school, camp or sports activities.

It did not discount the fact that the networks are venues for possible romantic relationships, but interactions in that kind of system are casual enough that lack of interest on the part of the other party is not a cause of embarrassment for the youth looking for a partner through the Internet.

MacArthur Foundation director of education Connie Yowell said in a statement, “This study creates a baseline for our understanding of how young people are participating with digital media and what that means for their learning… It concludes that learning today is becoming increasingly peer-based and networked, and this is important to consider as we begin to re-imagine education in the 21st century.”

The study is part of a $50 million project that focused on digital and media learning. Researchers interviewed over 800 youth and their parents and observed the young people’s online behavior for 5,000 hours.

MacArthur Foundation releases