Friends Forever: How Young Adolescents Use Social-Networking Sites
by Barbie Clarke
It is perhaps difficult to believe that the term social-networking site (SNS) was not widely recognized back in 2004, when teenagers in the US first discovered MySpace. Young adolescents have only begun to use SNSs with such enthusiasm in the past three years, with the starting age becoming ever younger, despite these sites' minimum age requirement of 13. In the past decade, there has been immense interest in looking at children's use of the Internet, and in the past year or two, the notion of studying young people's SNSs such as Bebo, Facebook, and Piczo has generated several large research studies. Many parents, perhaps prompted by media headlines warning of the "dark side" of such sites, are fearful of their children's use of SNSs. Mizuko Ito considers this, and argues that although adults might worry that their children are becoming socially isolated, "what's interesting … with the Internet and gaming is that most of these activities are being conducted in a social context, even though the kids may not be physically together."
