Social Networking Fears Unwarranted

Summaries of a recent survey of students, parents, and educators concerning social networking have been appearing on educational blogs (e.g., 2 Cents Worth, TechBlorge). The reason the results of this survey interest these other bloggers and me is that the survey seems to indicate the response of schools to the assumed dangers of student social networking exaggerates the dangers as reported by students and parents.

The survey, titled “Creating and Connecting makes” (pdf available from National School Boards Association) three main points:

• Use of social networking among age group is increasing (some data from present study contrasted with 2002) and students make a surprising amount of use to accomplish educational tasks on their own.
• Safety issues and inappropriate experiences associated with social networking do exist, but are lower than many adults assume – especially educational officials.
• Online experience may help students learn to deal with inappropriate experiences.

Those looking for recent statistics may find the report helpful. The survey data include:

• reports of the frequency of social networking activities and changes since 2002
• frequency of several categories of inappropriate and dangerous experiences
• proportion of schools blocking or forbidding various types of online experience while in school.

I wish research of this type were more commonly funded to be conducted by researchers at educational institutions whose goal was to publish their data in peer reviewed goals. To gain full access to the data collected by Grunwald Associates it appears you must pay several thousand dollars. More information about the questions asked in the survey are available from the Grunwald Associates site. What I wish I had the opportunity to review are the details of the methodology. The published pdf describes the student sample as consisting of 1277 9-17 year olds who responded to an online survey. The Grunwald associates site describes a nationally representative sample of 1000 teens/children. An online survey could mean different things and many approaches would not really generate a representative sample of all youth.

To have the National School Boards association behind the position that schools are overreacting to the dangers of participatory web activities and missing out on activities that interest students seems a good thing.

P.S.

Andy Carvin’s post in response to this report.

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