Social networking benefits validated
Question of the Day By Karen Goldberg Goff - The Washington Times - Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Texting, blogs, Facebook, gaming and instant messages might seem, to some, to be just more reasons to stare at a computer screen.
Thinking like that is so 2008, any middle schooler will tell you. Now a study that looked at the online habits of 800 teenagers backs them up.
Researchers in the study, titled the Digital Youth Project and conducted primarily at the University of Southern California and the University of California at Berkeley, found that in our increasingly technological world, the constant communication that social networking provides is encouraging useful skills. The study looked at more than 5,000 hours of online observation and found that the digital world is creating new opportunities for young people to grapple with social norms, explore interest