Reexamining Social Networking in Schools....?

Recently David Warlick pointed to an article in which the National School Board Association is encouraging schools to re-examine their social networking policies and the conversation surrounding this has been interesting around the blog-o-sphere. If you haven't read the NSBA's Creating and Connecting Report, I encourage you to do so...Will Richardson looked at some of the statistics and the fact that many districts have their own structured online professional communities.

As I was thinking about the implications of the NSBA article, I came across an interesting article in CNN Money about a report done by Microsoft, MTV and Nickelodeon and while I can't find the report itself, Microsoft's press release was posted globally from AllAfrica.com to IndiaInfoline, and the findings as stated in THIS report were intriguing:

  The report found:
   -- Technology has enabled young people to have more and closer
      friendships thanks to constant connectivity.
   -- Friends influence each other as much as marketers do.  Friends are as
      important as brands.
   -- Kids and young people don't love the technology itself -- they just
      love how it enables them to communicate all the time, express
      themselves and be entertained.
   -- Digital communications such as IM, email, social networking sites and
      mobile/sms are complementary to, not competitive with, TV.  TV is part
      of young peoples' digital conversation.
   -- Despite the remarkable advances in communication technology, kid and
      youth culture looks surprisingly familiar, with almost all young
      people using technology to enhance rather than replace face-to-face
      interaction.
   -- Globally, the number of friends that young males have more than
      doubles between the ages of 13-14 and 14-17 -- it jumps from 24 to 69.
   -- The age group and gender that claims the largest number of friends are
      not girls aged 14-17, but boys aged 18-21, who have on average 70
      friends.

The article goes on to examine each of these trends...with a bit of a marketing twist...
I give this as an example "And for IM, the top topics for 14-24s were: gossiping (62%), making arrangements (57%), talking about the opposite sex (57%) and flirting (55%), work or school (54%) and TV and music (52%). "Given the amount of time young people are spending on instant messenger every day presents a very powerful opportunity for brands to connect with the youth audience. When on IM, teenagers are at their most engaged and interactive," said Vogt. [Caroline Vogt, Head of International Research, Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions.]

For as much press as the NSBA article is getting, I was surprised that this is not getting as much "airtime" Hmmm, the advertising industry is saying connect to kids, the NSBA is saying connect to kids, yes...change is tough and scary, but isn't it time we start to examine how we are connecting to kids in schools? Thoughts?

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