The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has designed a website giving recommendations to parents about monitoring their children’s use of social media. This blog report is from that AAP web site. 

Today’s teens and “tweens” are connected to one another, and to the world, via digital technology more than any previous generation. Recent data suggests that social media (SM) venues like Facebook and MySpace have surpassed e-mail as the preferred method of communication in all age groups.

A recent report from the journal Pediatrics discussed the benefits and risks of youngsters using social media: 

Middle and high school students are using social media to connect with one another on homework and group projects. For example, Facebook and similar social media programs allow students to gather outside of class to collaborate and exchange ideas about assignments. Some schools successfully use blogs as teaching tools, which has the benefit of reinforcing skills in English, written expression, and creativity.

A recent report from the journal Pediatrics discusses benefits and risks of youngsters using social media. This series of posts will discuss those positives and negatives. This report comes directly from the report from Pediatrics.

Social media sites allow teens to accomplish online many of the tasks that are important to them offline: staying connected with friends and family, making new friends, sharing pictures, and exchanging ideas.

Social media participation (such as on Facebook) also can offer adolescents deeper benefits that extend into their view of self, community, and the world, including:

This post is the first in a series on social media. The content comes directly from a land-mark article in the journal Pediatrics, a publication of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Engaging in various forms of social media is a routine activity that research has shown to benefit children and adolescents by enhancing communication, social connection, and even technical skills. Social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace offer multiple daily opportunities for connecting with friends, classmates, and people with shared interests. During the last 5 years, the number of preadolescents and adolescents using such sites has increased dramatically.