[Infowarrior] - School Boards Assn: Internet and social network danger over-rated

[Richard Forno]

Schoolboards: net dangers over-rated; bring social networks to school
By David Cassel

Schoolboards: net dangers over-rated; bring social networks to schoolThe
internet isn't as dangerous as people think, and teachers should let
students use social networks at school.

That's the surprising new recommendation from the National School Boards
Association ‹ a not-for-profit organization representing 95,000 school board
members ‹ in a new study funded by Microsoft, News Corporation, and Verizon.

It warns that many fears about the internet are just overblown. "School
district leaders seem to believe that negative experiences with social
networking are more common than students and parents report," the study
reports. For example, more than half the districts think sharing personal
information has been "a significant problem" in their schools ‹ "yet only 3%
of students say they've ever given out their email addresses, instant
messaging screen names or other personal information to strangers."

In fact, the Association and resesearchers at Grunwald Associates LLC
surveyed 1,277 students online (between the ages of 9 and 17) ‹ along with
1,039 parents, and 250 school district leaders "who make decisions on
internet policy." And the students reported big differences from the adults'
concerns. Only 20% said they'd seen "inappropriate" pictures on social
networking sites in the last 3 months. (And only 11% of parents concur, even
for the last 6 months.) Only 18% of the students said they'd seen
"inappropriate" language, and just 7% reported they'd been "cyberbullied,"
or asked about their personal identity on a social networking site.

Furthermore, the numbers got even smaller when the students were asked about
more worrisome situations. Only 4% of the students said they'd ever had an
online conversation that made them uncomfortable, and only 2% said an online
stranger tried to meet them in person. In fact, after surveying 1,277
students, the researchers found exactly one who reported they'd actually met
a person from the internet without their parents' permission ‹ and described
this as "0.08 percent of all students."

"Only a minority of students has had any kind of negative experience with
social networking in the last three months," the study concludes. "Even
fewer parents report that their children have had a negative experience over
a longer 6-month period."

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http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2007/08/07/schoolboards-net-dangers-ove
r-rated-bring-social-networks-to-school/