This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I am Christopher Intagliata.Got a minute?
Ten years ago, MySpace did not exist,neither did Facebook. Just one site called 6 Degrees.com dominated the online social networking market. But soon, a bunch of sites sprouted up,LifeJournal, Friendster, LinkedIn, MySpace and in 2004, Facebook. Back then, Facebook was just for Harvard kids. But a new study from the University of Minnesota says these days even the least privileged kids have profiles on MySpace and Facebook. And they're on the Internet all the time. That finding goes against past studies that have found a digital divide between the rich and poor kids. The researchers surveyed 600 urban teens from families making less than 25, 000 a year. Nearly all the kids said they go online, usually from home. And more than 3 quarters of them have pages on My Space or Facebook. The students say they have learnt valuable technology skills in the process. They edit and upload photos, videos and music and some of them even mess with the html to personalize their pages. The researchers say teachers might want to build on that experience, slipping a little MySpace between the reading and arithmetic could be really rewarding.
Thanks for the minute for Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I am Christopher Intagliata. |