There's research and then there's "research." Let's take a look at the latter: the very credible-sounding "National Survey on American Attitudes on Substance Abuse XVI: Teens and Parents," linking social media use to drug abuse in teens. How could the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA) publish a commentary and call it research? I can think of no better … [Read more...] about ‘Research’ aimed at fueling fear: Prime example
social media research
Kids’ virtual worlds thriving
The overall numbers are surprisingly high (more on that in a second), but worth noting about UK-based virtual-world market-research firm KZero's latest data is the growth figure: "the largest quarterly increase since we started tracking in 2008" – an increase of 214 million accounts between Q1 and Q2 2011, KZero says. This is kid virtual-world users we're talking about. The fastest-growing worlds … [Read more...] about Kids’ virtual worlds thriving
Facebook’s new digital-citizenship research grants
Facebook has committed $200,000 to fund "world-class research" at universities and nonprofit organizations that "highlights trends associated with Digital Citizenship, broadly, with an initial focus on bullying prevention," according to Facebook's blog post. Researchers, you have about a month – till midnight, California time, on Monday, Sept. 12 – to apply for $25,000-50,000 grants. Topics of … [Read more...] about Facebook’s new digital-citizenship research grants
Catching up with our kids in social sites: Study
The number of people using social network sites "has nearly doubled since 2008" to 59% of US Net users (47% of US adults in general) and the population of social sites has gotten older, the Pew Internet Project found. "The average age of adult-SNS [social network site] users has shifted from 33 in 2008 to 38 in 2010. Over half of all adult SNS users are now over the age of 35." As for which sites, … [Read more...] about Catching up with our kids in social sites: Study
Various fresh findings on Facebook use
There used to be two bodies of research most relevant to kids online: social-media research and youth-online-risk research (as co-chair of an online-safety task force last year, I tried to bring more of the former into the discussion). But that binary is fading fast, as it should; since the Internet mirrors virtually all of human life, what's happening on it should be looked at by researchers in … [Read more...] about Various fresh findings on Facebook use