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Study: Online Games & Social Networking R Good

[Nov 20, 2008, 01:00 am ET] - Share - Viewing Comments

Online social networks, games can be good for kids on the San Francisco Chronicle reports some positivity about games from a new study sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation: "Rather than wasting their time, children who gab on Facebook or play online games are gaining valuable social skills and learning some technology basics, according to a study released Thursday. The report, sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation, contradicts the idea held by many educators, parents and policymakers that children should be blocked from online social networks and video games like Halo, which allow users in different locations to play together. Instead, children should be encouraged to use the technologies to gain a certain level of digital literacy, the study said. Mizuko Ito, a research scientist in UC Irvine's department of informatics and who led the study, said that children who don't have access to some of today's most popular online diversions risk being social outsiders lacking some of the basic skills necessary to function in the Internet age."

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Re: Study: Online Games & Social Networking R Good

Nov 20, 2008, 13:28

Masa

Utter, fucking, bullshit! I work at many clients, quite a few with younger people in their late teens and early 20's. You're just seeing a decent cross-section of the age groups you deal with. It can't be wholly bad - apparently there's quite a shift going on (at least according to Mark Penn) in how younger people (20's to lower 30's) use technology in socializing. Of course, Penn talked about the possibility of a seriously expanding market burgeoning from clubbers and the like; the recognition was still given that there are a lot of people obviously using their cell phones and Facebook accounts to meet other people face-to-face for social interaction. Again, take my words of "social interaction". This is really bad for the "real" world however as discussion requires some sort of animation (Eyes, hands, arms, body posture) to be effective. You cannot make any effective dialogue by standing perfectly still and straight, it seems robotic. Apparently you've never dealt with Japanese, Korean, or Chinese business men/woman. In the professional sense, they are some of the most robotic creatures I have yet to encounter! Yet...they still manage to get their jobs done very effectively. MySpace and Facebook cause problems with the way people interact. Anyone that says otherwise if a fucking moron. My grandfather was quoted as saying similar things when the telephone and television became hugely relevant in modern society. Then he said the same thing of the cell phone. Times change and so do people and mentalities. It's just the way it is. In a lot of ways, there hasn't been anything like Facebook and MySpace, or even broader - the internet - to compare to.

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