2 Cents Worth » Social Networking Examined

2 Cents Worth » Social Networking Examined: "The principal finding of that study revealed that 55% of online teens use social networks. To some degree, this percentage, though high, seems to contridict society’s notions about teens and their online world.

“There is a widespread notion that every American teenager is using social networks, and that they’re plastering personal information over their profiles for anyone and everyone to read,” says Amanda Lenhart. “These findings add nuance to that story – not every teenager is using a social networking website, and of those that do, more than half of them have in some way restricted access to their profile.”(”55% of online teens”)

Findings of the study indicate that 66% of social networking teens have their profiles blocked from view by anyone but their friends."

So should we be scared? Maybe the numbers are not as bad as media makes them out to be. Warlick goes on to ask the more profound question though: "what should we be doing to embrace that 55% number?" After all what other activity do you know of that 55% of the population do? Not sports, not painting, not chess. His point is a good one...55% may be less than we thought, but 55% is a lot more than anything else.

How do we make it meaningful and educational? Can social networking be used as a learning environment? We are hoping to answer that with the creation of an e-learning community at our school in which teachers and students will interact with their students on course matter. Not that revolutionary, but at the same time we want to provide RSS and other features that allow for some customizability and some pursuit of personal interests - without turning it into a MySpace clutterfest (though our visually-literate students don't seem to mind).