Teens, Texting, and Social Isolation | Pew Research Center's Int. By Rich Ling Our recent report, Teens and Mobile Phones, found that more teens report contacting their friends on a daily basis using texting (54%) than interacting with them face-to-face outside of school (33%). Some recent commentary suggests that this is evidence that teens are becoming less social.
There are several points to be made. First, as noted above, the question on face-to-face interaction with friends was limited to only asking about this type of interaction outside of school. If school-time face-to-face interaction were to be included in the data the picture would be somewhat different. Second, Pew Internet data shows that face-to-face interaction is holding relatively steady. Finally, other material in the report indicates that texting is happening in addition to other forms of social interaction. Teens and Mobile Phones | Pew Research Center's Internet & Ameri. Text messaging explodes as teens embrace it as the centerpiece of their communication strategies with friends. The mobile phone has become the favored communication hub for the majority of American teens. Cell-phone texting has become the preferred channel of basic communication between teens and their friends, and cell calling is a close second.
Some 75% of 12-17 year-olds now own cell phones, up from 45% in 2004. Those phones have become indispensable tools in teen communication patterns. Fully 72% of all teens – or 88% of teen cell phone users — are text-messagers. That is a sharp rise from the 51% of teens who were texters in 2006. Among all teens, their frequency of use of texting has now overtaken the frequency of every other common form of interaction with their friends (see chart below). Fully two-thirds of teen texters say they are more likely to use their cell phones to text their friends than talk to them to them by cell phone.
Teens typically make or receive 5 calls a day. How Does Technology Affect Kids’ Friendships? Peter DaSilva for The New York Times FACE TO FACEBOOK John Shumaker, 17, on Facebook at his home in Lafayette, Calif. Erik S. Lesser for The New York Times Andy Wilson, 11, left, and his brother Evan, 14, go on Facebook in their treehouse in Atlanta. “Thanks!” “Just kidding,” said the girl with another smile. They both laughed. “See you tomorrow,” said the boy. “O.K., see you,” said the girl. It was a pretty typical pre-teen exchange, one familiar through the generations. Children used to actually talk to their friends. Last week, the found that half of American teenagers — defined in the study as ages 12 through 17 — send 50 or more a day and that one third send more than 100 a day.
To date, much of the concern over all this use of technology has been focused on the implications for kids’ intellectual development. It is far too soon to know the answer. “These are things that we talk about all the time,” said Lori Evans, a psychologist at the Child Study Center. College students struggle to go without media for 24 hours. Internet and media addiction is not officially a psychiatric disorder, but many college students still seem to be suffering from it. In a recent study done by the University of Maryland, students who were asked to give up their media connections experienced withdrawal symptoms similar to those seen in drug and alcohol addicts, including cravings, anxieties, and preoccupation to the point of being unable to function well.
The students were asked to give up all media for 24 hours, including text messages, TV shows, music, e-mail, and Facebook, and to do so on all sources, including cell phones. Some of the students equated the stipulation to being entirely socially closed off from friends and family. Many experienced cravings and anxiety because of their temporarily cut ties. The results of the study are hardly surprising, and on their face appear to support the notion that Internet addiction could be classified as a disorder. Parenting the Digital Native Generation - David Houle - Oprah.co.
Pew: 71% of Young Adults Change Online Privacy Settings. The same day on which Facebook has rolled back changes to its default privacy settings, Pew Research has released a report on privacy and reputation among young adults that has some interesting results. Though many have proposed that older generations of Internet users are more concerned with privacy online, Pew's study found that young adults aged 18 to 29 are more likely to monitor their online reputations by changing settings and deleting items on social networks.
According to the study, 71% of young adults have changed their default social network privacy settings to limit the information they share with others, compared to just over half of the users aged 50-64. Additionally, 47% of young adults said they have deleted comments from their profiles, and 41% say they have removed their names from photos that they were tagged in. "Search engines and social media sites now play a central role in building one's identity online," said Mary Madden, lead author of Pew's report. Creation & Design: What Kids Want From Tech. Yesterday, we posted part one of the findings for "Children's Future Requests for Computers and the Internet" (PDF summary), an open innovation study by Latitude Research and ReadWriteWeb.
The study asked children aged 12 and under to illustrate their ideas for new Web and computer technologies. In our previous post, we looked at the findings from an interaction angle. We discussed how younger generations expect to have increasingly intuitive interactions with technology - and not just localized to swiping and tapping an iPad, but really moving things in the world of physical activity and objects. This represents "a shift from smartphones that can go anywhere to The Internet of Things which is everywhere," said Jessica Reinis, the analyst who headed up the study. Kim Gaskins is Director of Content Development at Latitude, an international research consultancy. Confidence Through Creation and Creativity Study participant, Dylan, age 6, killing time on his visit to Latitude HQ.
Computer-savvy students cheating more, getting caught less - The. Those vintage forms of academic dishonesty - crib notes scribbled on a palm, or cheat sheets tucked into a sleeve- haven't gone away, but a generation of students more computer literate than their parents is forcing teachers to re-think the way they test students and blurring the definition of cheating. Students are more likely than ever to employ deceit to earn high grades, from text-messaging quiz answers to hacking into school networks and less likely than their teachers to call it cheating, according to a survey of 20,000 students conducted by the Canadian Council on Learning. Based on those survey scores, The Globe and Mail composed a report card on the moral fabric of Canadian students. Academic Integrity: D+ Nearly three-quarters of first-year university students reported that they cheated at least once in written work, such as an essay or assignment, while in high school.
Slightly less, 60 per cent, admitted to serious acts of cheating on a test. Original Thought: D-