Teens on Social Networks

Lenhart, A. (2012, June 5). Presentation: Teens, Kindness and Cruelty on Social Network Sites.
    PEW Research. Retrieved July 25, 2014 from http://www.pewinternet.org/2012/06/05/presentation- 
    teens-kindness-and-cruelty-on-social-network-sites/.

Out of the 779 teens Ms. Lenhart interviewed for this presentation 77% of them have cell phones and out of that 1/3 have smart phones.  These teens were broken up into two groups; one was ages 12-13 and the other was 14-17.  They are mainly using their phones to stay connected to their friends and searching the Internet.   They are staying connected with their friends mostly by using Facebook.  On Facebook they will send messages to their friends, post on their friends page, post status updates or photos, maybe even send private messages to their friends, and playing games.   Playing games was done mostly by the 12-13 group.

When asked about teens being kind or unkind on social media, the 14-17 group said teens where mainly kind while the 12-13 group said they where mainly unkind.  The study asked how they handled the unkind remarks and most of the teens said they ignored what was going on, but there was a small number of teens who said that they would tell the person to stop it.  I was real happy to see that 79% would not join in on the harassment.

We have all heard of "sexting" done on cell phones, I was glad to see that from 2009 to 2011 less teens are sending these messages, but the number went up on those who are receiving them.  I am hoping since we haven't heard as much about this lately that these numbers have dropped on both ends; receiving and sending.

I was glad to see that parents are talking to their teens about what is appropriate and not appropriate behavior on these social media sites.  I notice one question was asking who talked to you about appropriate behavior or safety on using the Internet or cell phone and the librarian was close to the bottom and the parent was the first one, which I think is how it should be.  I also believe that librarians or the technology person should do a lesson on the use of the Internet and maybe even more so on social media sites.

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