School Kids, Axe the Social Networking

I have yet to see anything remotely resembling “sophisticated” communication from 95% of the correspondents on my Facebook home page. Worse, over half of the ‘friends’ whom I believe are capable of meaningful discourse revert to insipid subjects and horrible sentence structure. Only the organizational posts have any real substance. Worse, Facebook’s terminology and structure are geared to a mindset that stalls at about age 13.

There’s really nothing social or networking about being on the web instead of interacting face to face with people that are your friends or acquaintances. My vote would be to axe the so called “social networking” for school kids. Part of growing as a human being is being around others face to face and out in the world exploring real nature and/or farms if possible. If a child has time to go on to a social networking site for hours, then I would say they are lacking in a lot of other very important activities that lead to overall good personal growth as a person. Video games have led to obesity, and social networking sites will most likely lead to depression, anxiety, and sickness. I guess in one aspect it would good to have them home on their computers. Who’d want to be face to face around those kids? IMHO

Social networking sites, Internet, or even the computer are, in their own way, neither divine nor evil. It’s how the user decides to make use of it. The viewpoints of both the writers’ are correct, and instead of picking a winner, let’s look at the whole picture of reality and possibilities. Therefore, the social networking sites should not be axed or made a culprit in any way. Instead, like all media, they should be monitored. We should explore ways to use them constructively.

I can see both sides of this well articulated debate. Facebook and the like are potentially useful learning tools, but meanwhile, they are very distracting, especially for students whose parents may be working full time and unable to provide the guidance and supervision necessary.

The problem isn’t Facebook. The problem is the educational system’s seriously misplaced priorities that demand rote memorization. Additionally, trying to keep kids “away from keyboards” makes about as much sense as trying to stop the wind from blowing by holding up your hand.

LOL at online social networking. Facebook is for parties.

How do Facebook activities differ from a phone use in promoting intelligence?
Nobody debates if the kids (and perheps adults, too) should chat for hours on their phones (cellular or otherwise) discussing pure nothings with their buddies.
The discussion levels stall at the age 13 sophistication only because humans who are a bit more mature find more productive ways to spend their time.
I think that technology plays an incredibly small role in development of a person’s mind. Einstein came up with his theory without any computers after all.
All technology does is make whatever we want to do more time efficient—either research or blubbing or reading. So the kids must learn time management and do their homework before they waste the rest of their time communicating pure nothings with each other.

Facebook is like a tool—a knife for example, that can be used for any other purposes. It depends on the users themselves. If we use it for killing anyone, then it’s dangerous. but if it’s used for cutting onions or something like that, then it’s very useful.

I am a Facebook user and the father of seven, and I have yet to find a single instance of social networking—including chat and texting-that promotes good grammar, sentence structure, language, spelling, or interpersonal communication skills. It isn’t doing our kids any good right now.

Social networking is entertainment, pure and simple. When someone comes up with a way to turn it into something productive, I’ll buy the line that it is the next wave in instruction techniques. Until that happens, however, all I see are teenagers and middle-school kids with their faces glued to a hand-held device that have no idea how to ride bikes or have meaningful face-to-face interactions with others.

I agree that it is incumbent upon the user of these sites to determine their value. However; they are not going away—and perhaps a more constructive approach would be to provide instruction on how to incorporate them efficiently and responsibly.

One must learn how to utilize something before one can evaluate its effectiveness.