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Social Networking Sites and Children: Helpful or Harmful?

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Social Networking Sites and Children: Helpful or Harmful?
Social Networking Sites and Children: Helpful or Harmful?
Social Networking Sites are one of the most popular applications for people to use. These social networking sites are usually focused on different kinds of relationships, for example, LinkedIn for professionals, YouTube for entertainment, or MSN and Facebook for personal users. Through social networking sites, people can communicate with people instantly, check the news quickly, and receive daily updates from family. Why are Social Networking sites popular?
Consumer Reports shows that more than 7.5 million American kids under the age of 13 have joined Facebook in 2011. As posted by CNN in May 21st 2012, “Is the Internet hurting children?”, Chelsea Clinton and James P. Steyer also say that more than 90% of all American children have an online history when they are two years old; more than 50% regularly interact with a computer or tablet device when they are five; many kids start to play video games when they are seven or eight. The author also asserts introduces that teenagers send messages an average of 3,400 times a month. These figures are really amazing, aren’t they?
Nowadays, children use the Internet very often. Thanks to the social networking sites, children have more ways to learn about the world. In fact, there are a lot of advantages for kids that use social networking sites, such as spending less money, staying in touch with friends and developing needed skills.
The first advantage of social networking sites for children is spending less money. Children grow up very fast. As posted by ATA WEBSITE DESIGNS, Benefits of a Social Networking Site for Kids, the author said “These sites can keep children entertained for hours without costing parents too much. Many of the games that are offered online cost users to play them. On social networking sites, kids can play free online games.” In my opinion, children love to shop because they don’t know how much the toys are. If parents don’t want to buy,



Cited: “Benefits of a social networking site for kids”. ATA Website Designs Clinton, Chelsea & Steyer, James. “Is the Internet Hurting Children?” CNN, May 21st 2012 Fox, Zoe. “This is How Much Time You Spend on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr”. Mashable, Nov.28 2012 Mackey, Robert. “Is Social Networking Killing You?” The New York Times, Feb.24 2009 Panaccione, Vicki. “The Benefits of Social Media.” Parenting Today’s kids. Vedder, Anton & Wachbroit, Robert, “Reliability of Information on the Internet: Some Distinctions.” Ethics and Information Technology, published in 2004.

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