Study Recommends Online Gaming, Social Networking For Kids

Blue's News pointed out a report about a study sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation which found that online gaming and social networking are beneficial to children, teaching them basic technical skills and how to communicate in the Information Age. The study was conducted over a period of three years, with researchers interviewing hundreds of children and monitoring thousands of hours of online time. The full white paper (PDF) is also available. "For a minority of children, the casual use of social media served as a springboard to them gaining technological expertise — labeled in the study as 'geeking out,' the researchers said. By asking friends or getting help from people met through online groups, some children learned to adjust the software code underpinning some of the video games they played, edit videos and fix computer hardware. Given that the use of social media serves as inspiration to learning, schools should abandon their hostility and support children when they want to learn some skills more sophisticated than simply designing their Facebook page, the study said."

Comments

Re:Sounds About Right

[0racle]

If simply using the tool lead in any way to understanding, or simply wishing to understand, by now we would have a ton of mechanics, telecom technicians and electricians. Each of these professions deal with something that just about everyone alive in the western world in a position to need to learn a profession has used for all of their lives. The reason their aren't is because simply using your car, phone and electricity teaches you nothing just as using a computer teaches you nothing because the actual details as to how they work have been carefully hidden away from the end user. Those that do go out to become mechanics, technicians, electricians and what not do so because the wanted to outside of any use of the device/service.