Social-Network Hours Benefit Youths, Report Says

December 11, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute

The time that teenagers spend socializing online is actually helping them develop important skills they will need as adults, according to a new report published by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, in Chicago.

“There are myths about kids spending time online — that it is dangerous or making them lazy,” says Mizuko Ito, a research scientist at the University of California at Irvine and the report’s principal author. “But we found that spending time online is essential for young people to pick up the social and technical skills they need to be competent citizens in the digital age.”

Over a period of three years, Ms. Ito and a team of 28 researchers interviewed more than 800 young people and their parents, and spent more than 5,000 hours observing teens on Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and other social-networking sites.

To read the report: Go to http://www.macfound.org/dml.

About the Author

NICOLE WALLACE

Features Editor

Nicole Wallace is features editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy. She has written about innovation in the nonprofit world, charities’ use of data to improve their work and to boost fundraising, advanced technologies for social good, and hybrid efforts at the intersection of the nonprofit and for-profit sectors, such as social enterprise and impact investing.Nicole spearheaded the Chronicle’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast and reported from India on the role of philanthropy in rebuilding after the South Asian tsunami. She started at the Chronicle in 1996 as an editorial assistant compiling The Nonprofit Handbook.Before joining the Chronicle, Nicole worked at the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs and served in the inaugural class of the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps.A native of Columbia, Pa., she holds a bachelor’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown University.