I found an article discussing ways to study the effects of Internet usage. The following link is for the article that I read: http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/dev-423391.pdf. This article basically discusses different ways to study how children and adolescents use the Internet. There are four main areas in which Internet usage can be used to see how children interact with the Internet. As well as, seeing how the children are affected by the Internet.
The first one explains that the internet needs to be seen as a social enviroment in itself. The internet may allow a researcher to see how teens interact with each other without having their presence change the interaction.
Secondly, the article talks about seeing "the Internet as a new cultural tool." It would be cultural because a majority of the world population has access to the Internet. Also, people have the ability to research further into different topics.
The third area the article discussed was that "we must see the Internet as a new objective of cognition." This are really deals with cognitive development and social development. The Internet is not as concrete as other areas such as reading.
Lastly, the fourth area discussed the "Internet as a cource of new methods for developmental research." The Internet is so different than anything that has really been out there before. It can provide opportunities for new methods of conducting research as well as obtaining information.
For me, I found this article very intriguing. In class, we are often asked how would you conduct the research to find this out. By reading this article, I realized that there are many complex things going on with the Internet that can help research but also hinder research. Most people really do focus on the negative uses of the Internet by children, but the article also discussed positive outcome too.
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I agree that the internet is now widely used for research or also looking for something that we are interested in. It is very useful for finding something in a short amount of time compared to having to search for articles in the library. But this also can pose some problems. Also, does the good of the internet really out-weigh the bad?
ReplyDeleteThere's alot of material now posted on the internet that is not true. This can be misleading, and false information can be presented. I almost find it takes longer to try to sift through the data that is not valid than to actually find peer reviewed or scholarly articles that can hold up, especially when trying to do research at home.
Also how "safe" is the internet? We now have to worry about child preditors online, which most parents allow children to use internet without being constantly monitored. Also computer hackers can steal information or identity in a matter of minutes because we are all connected by the internet. My mom works for an internet company and it's scary hearing some stories of what/who is really out there.
Also children can enter chat rooms, facebook, or myspace where what they see or what is being said is not monitored. These were created for adults, so how can we keep them specifically for adults?