Is The Internet Damagin Teen Brains

Question 1

What percentage of internet users aged 10 to 17 saw online porn in the last year (majority saying they did not seek it out and were very disturbed by it)?

Answer 1

42%

Question 2

What are the recommended ages for various internet activities proposed by Common Sense Media and Media Wise from the National Institute on Media and the Family?

Answer 2

1) Children aged 2 to 6: keep away from internet (even games)
2) Children aged 7 to 9: e-mail and web surfing with filter is okay but not IM, chat rooms, or downloading
3) Children aged 10 to 12: need close supervision for Web surfing and and IM; social media is inappropriate
4) Children aged 13 to 16: can do everything so long as they follow the rules of internet safety

Question 3

How much as the time that teens spend on the internet grown since 2012?

Answer 3

37%

Question 4

What are teens most commonly using the internet and social media for?

Answer 4

• to get feedback about identity (2010 study from York University found that people with lower self-esteem spent more time online and posted more “self-promotional” content to sites like facebook)
• 2010 study from Girl Scout Research Institute found that 74% of girls said they felt their peers used social media to make themselves look cooler then they are and 41% said that also describes them

Question 5

What are the two problems identified by Steiner-Adair and Greenfield regarding teen identities (online and real)?

Answer 5

• teens view their online and real-time identities as identical (difficulty differentiating, lots of time spent crafting an identity that others will respond to favourably)
• poor impulse control leads teens to do and say things online they wouldn’t do or say in real life

Question 6

What is digiphrenia (Douglas Rushkoff)?

Answer 6

• The experience of trying to exist in more than one incarnation of yourself at the same time

In an effort to individualize on the web, teens use different accounts in different ways (branded selves)

Question 7

What is app-dependency?

Answer 7

• Not just looking for facts for a homework assignment, but also looking for an analysis rather than thinking for themselves; or perhaps relying on feedback from facebook before making decisions

Question 8

What is an important protective factor for children’s use of internet?

Answer 8

• Involved parents
• How the parents model good technology usage
• Help children to understand the power they have with smartphones so they can use responsibly

Question 9

Why has adolescence been proposed as a sensitive period for social development?

Answer 9

• because teens are good at absorbing and creating sociocultural information

Question 10

Why is it difficult to study the effects of the internet on teen brains?

Answer 10

• the internet is not a single, homogenous identity (there are games, social media, web browsers)
• how teens use it matters (to learn, to avoid class, to communicate)
• understand what digital media is replacing (Mills found that time spent online does not displace time spent doing other activities associated with health and well-being, including sports and clubs)
• just because something changes our brains (and anything done consistently will), does this mean it is a bad or dangerous thing?