"One in five British children has met a stranger they first encountered online," the BBC reports, citing a survey from British identity-verification company Garlik. "As many as one in four 8-to-12 yea- olds ignore age restrictions to use social-networking sites." Bebo and Facebook have a minimum-age requirement of 13 and MySpace of 14. In its coverage, The Telegraph zoomed in on what parents are … [Read more...] about UK data on youth meeting strangers online
Research
Social networking’s very global growth
While social networking may've reached the saturation point in North America, at just 9% growth among people 15+ over the past year, worldwide it has grown 25%, according to June traffic figures from comScore. Social networking's growth was highest in Africa and the Middle East at 66% from June 2007 to June 2008; Europe was next at 35%, and Latin America a close third at 33% (Facebook grew 1,055% … [Read more...] about Social networking’s very global growth
P2P healing in cyberbullying case
We hear so much in the news about teen meanness and harassment toward each other online that it's quite amazing to find a national story about kindness. In the case of Olivia Gardner, the kindness came from two sisters in a nearby town, Sarah and Emily Buder in Mill Valley, Calif., who read in the newspaper about how Olivia was being bullied and wanted to help, they say in their MySpace video. The … [Read more...] about P2P healing in cyberbullying case
Watch this video, parents
If you want to understand... who digital natives are and what they're doing online how community is experiencing a rebirth online how identity-exploration can be a collective experience and how that can be therapeutic and maybe even why YouTube is the No. 1 site among 2-to-11-year-olds for video viewing (see this)...pour yourself a tall glass of iced tea or something and watch "An Anthropological … [Read more...] about Watch this video, parents
Fictionalizing their profiles
Adults need to take what they see in teen social-networking profiles with a grain of salt. Case in point:Six UK newspapers ran a story about a teenager's "wild party" that her mother said never happened. It was a bit of fiction lifted from the girl's Bebo profile. First there was an invite sent out promising "the party of the year" for her 16th birthday, CNET reports. "Subsequent posts on Jodie … [Read more...] about Fictionalizing their profiles