Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

5.4.10 | In a story published over the weekend, the Times examines how psychologists and other researchers are examining how time spent online is really affecting the character and quality of kids’ relationships with their peers.

The Times’ Hilary Stout explains further:

In general, the worries over cyber-bullying and sexting have overshadowed a look into the really nuanced things about the way technology is affecting the closeness properties of friendship,” said Jeffrey G. Parker, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Alabama, who has been studying children’s friendships since the 1980s. “We’re only beginning to look at those subtle changes.”

The question on researchers’ minds is whether all that texting, instant messaging and online social networking allows children to become more connected and supportive of their friends — or whether the quality of their interactions is being diminished without the intimacy and emotional give and take of regular, extended face-to-face time.

The jury is still out, according to the story. Researchers don’t yet have a large enough body of evidence to determine the social effects of these technologies.

Some researchers and parents worry that all this time spent with digital media may mean that kids are spending less time with peers and are “missing out on experiences that help them develop empathy, understand emotional nuances and read social cues like facial expressions and body language.”

Still other researchers who study friendships argue that by allowing them to stay connected to their friends all the time, technology can also bring kids closer together.

Technology, Stout reports, can be both a “facilitator for an active social life” and something that makes it easier for “shy kids to connect with others.”

You can read the full story here.

Plus: For more on how teens are using social media to connect with their peers see danah boyd’s work on Friendship-Driven Practices at Spotlight. boyd’s work was part of “Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media,” which is available for free download from MIT Press.