Okay, so Who Knew?

In The Palm Beach Post on Monday was an article titled Online Sites Nurture Kids' social skills, by Verne Kopytoff from the San Francisco Chronicle. Its information came from am study sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation.

Some more information is here under Web Socializing.

Part of the article reads:

"Good news for worried parents: All those hours their teenagers spend socializing on the Internet are not a bad thing, according to a new study by the MacArthur Foundation. 'It may look as though kids are wasting a lot of time hanging out with new media, whether it's on MySpace or sending instant messages,' said Mizuko Ito, lead researcher on the study, 'Living and Learning With New Media.' 'But their participation is giving them the technological skills and literacy they need 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.' The study, conducted from 2005 to last summer, describes new-media usage but does not measure its effects."


the in between part of the articles does reflect some of the concerns, but seems to say they are given more life than what they really have.

Here is the last paragraph of the article:

Although Internet socializing may not be a "bad thing," the full consequences of things like instant messaging have yet to be determined. For years college professors and business leaders have lamented that writing skills of students and employees have been deteriorating. I'm sure that learning to write things like, "OMG iono lol/well I left you a comment ... u sud feel SPECIAL," is going to improve those writing skills in the future. My advice to parents: see what skills your children are learning on the computer and encourage them to use them -- then identify what skills they are not learning and establish a program to help them gain those skills. I don't worry too much about the future and the affect that information age technologies will have on societies, but I do believe we need to understand what is happening so that training and education in the future makes the right adjustments to ensure that future generations grow up cultured and productive.

So, it sounds like - this is a real situation, the whole internet making friends thing, so then parents, now, it's up to you to find a way to deal with it that wll bring success to those in your family who are currently affected!

And then, before you know it, It's All Good!