Journal #8 - Social Networking, Children's Access, and Social Development

Okay. So I JUST wrote about the growing need for library programs on how to manage social network settings and security (see Journal #7 - Social Networks and Security).  And those under 12 years old who are using popular social networks would be even more at risk then others from such security threats.  It's kind of worrisome to me then that 20,000 users under the age of 12 are being kicked off Facebook daily according to its chief privacy adviser ("Banning baby-faces", 3/21/11).  And no wonder that 92.54% of 4,386 people voted "yes" that Facebook needs to introduce tougher privacy regulations ("Banning baby-faces", 3/21/11).

But how do you go about that when access is just a click or date entry away?  I'm sorry but a 6th grader knows how to do enough math to make up a fake birthday.  And I wouldn't automatically go and blame the parents for not monitoring their children either (though there will always be kids out there doing things under their parent's radar).  Some parents do a good job of monitoring their child's use of social networks by supervising who they add as friends and what personal information they put up but they also help them to fudge their birth date details (Gross, 2009).  To me that sends a mixed message that it is okay to lie sometimes, especially when that sometimes is online.  No wonder then that US teens perceive lying online to be an expected occurrence (Hundley & Shyles, 2010).   

And how is this going to affect a young child's social development? I found a lot of conflicting research about youth well-being as it relates to online and social network use when searching for resources for my Literature Review.  Some researchers searched specifically for relationships between youth Internet/social network use and depression, academic achievement, or friendship skills and found no evidence of one affecting the other, while other researchers did seem to find evidence that was more then just coincidence.  The only thing I can truthfully believe is that we need to continue doing research in this area.  So many different outside influences out there and so many different ways that a person can choose to research by.  It is such a gray area of research at times to me.  The methods that we choose to research by can easily miss somethings while accurately recording others.  

Reference:

Hundley, H., & Shyles, L. (2010). Us teenagers' perceptions and awareness of digital technology: A focus group approach. New Media & Society, 12(3), 417-433. Advanced online publication. doi: 10.1177/1461444809342558