Dr. Rich said that Facebook can be used in positive ways by kids who are trying to understand themselves, to understand that they're not alone in their challenges and struggles growing up, “whether it's confronting the fact that their parents aren't perfect, or that the world isn't the way they magically thought it should be, or whether they are confused and conflicted about their sexuality. Social media can be particularly empowering for kids who are marginalized or minority groups of any kind. It is a wonderful environment for connecting with 'people like me,' and feeling that you're not alone. And as a social equalizer, they create a fabulous place for kids to develop a sense of participatory democracy, a place where they have a voice. They start to see how their voice can make a difference in the world.”
Some experts suggest that social media are having a certain benefit on the smarts of youngsters. In his 2005 book “Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Making Us Smarter” (New York: Riverhead Books, 2005), author Steven Johnson notes that IQ scores have improved in several different countries around the world in recent years, likely because youngsters are rehearsing the kind of skills required for IQ tests when they play computer games.
However, Dr. Shifrin pointed out that other research has shown that frequent exposure to videos and other screen-based media slows down language acquisition in toddlers.
Social media also have the potential to unite families in shared activities such as playing chess online, tennis on Nintendo's Wii console, football on the Madden NFL video series, or updating the family Facebook page.
For some families, though, social media eat into quality time together, said Dr. O'Keeffe, who has two teenaged daughters and who authors a syndicated blog called “Dr. Gwenn Is In.”
A Different Way of Talking
Dr. Rich authors a blog called "Ask the Mediatrician."
Dr. Greenfield is concerned that children and adolescents who spend too much time on social media may be compromising the proper development of certain cognitive skills. “We know that people are getting good at processing information very quickly and efficiently – the kind of skills you have when you're driving,” she said. “What we're talking about is turning yourself into kind of a computer in a way: making efficient and fast responses as appropriate. This is very different from reading a book, which is very linear and slow. That's what the brain needs to understand something usually; you don't want to have it diluted and distracted, because the brain only has so much power. If it's being employed in attending to lots of different things, it's not going to be able to pursue a linear train of thought.”
The result, Dr. Greenfield offered, “could be an infantilizing of the brain, that we are going to create a generation of Peter Pans who live in a world that is a literal one, dominated by sensory content over cognitive significance, a world where what you see is what you get.”
Dr. O'Keeffe acknowledged the potential for an inattentive future generation, “but I think we can reel them in while they're still teenagers and younger kids. Each generation that passes is going to be more digital. So while we still remember what an offline world is, if we can instill in the current teenagers and elementary school kids what it's like to be unplugged, they'll instill it in their kids, and it should pay forward.”
Much of the onus is on parents, Dr. Rich said, to learn how social media work and to help their kids become good citizens of the digital world. “You can't afford to check out because you don't know the digital world. The default is that your children will be raised by whomever and whatever is in the digital domain. We know from 'Lord of the Flies' what happens when the kids are left in charge of society. We have a responsibility to parent in the digital domain, because our kids are spending most of their time there.” Dr. Michael Rich said, “Social media fundamentally alter how we interact with other people. When you see two kids who are sitting at a table together texting each other, it's a very different dynamic than if they were actually talking to each other.”