Teenage Socialising – Moving online…
In response to Maree’s question above… I am related to 5 little people (brothers and sisters) who are still at school… They are all VERY big internet users and will be on Facebook, My Space and personal emails until very early hours of the morning. Many parents, mine included, think that their kids waste too much time socialising online at the expense of their studies, which I can agree with after seeing my brother who is “studying for the HSC” online still at 4am most mornings these holidays!
According to Danah Boyd, kids on MySpace and the like are simply “hanging out”. She states “For many teens, hanging out has moved online”… so it comes to the end of the school holidays (as it is now… school goes back on tuesday for most of NSW) and you get back to school and ask eachother, who did you see during the holidays??? and the response is “well i just hung out online”… where are kids expected to learn to be social beings, interactive beings… how are they going to learn people skills or skills to deal with different situations? We are not all going to get jobs sitting behind computers all day and I dont think it’s healthy for kids these days to be on the net all holidays “hanging out” with a computer and not running around outside with friends or family…
And on that note… in response to another question… “What are your thoughts about blogging as a tool for communicating in classrooms?” - Kids these days spend enough time on the computer at home that I dont think they need to use it at school simply as a “tool.” I mentioned Blanton’s article in my last post and my response is therefore… if teachers are only using blogging for the sake of using blogging and its not making any effects on the teaching or learning strategy of the students then should they really be using it?
Photo from http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/08_03/031junksleep_468×563.jpg
