Prós e contras do uso da Internet pelos adolescentes

Num número especial da publicação "Developmental Psychology", da Associação Americana de Psicologia, seis artigos analisam os benefícios e os malefícios do uso da Internet pelos adolescentes.

O artigo
Internet use involves both pros and cons for children and adolescents
Some youth benefit from Internet use while for others it can exacerbate self-destructive behaviors
WASHINGTON, (EurekAlert): Between 75 and 90 percent of teenagers in the United States use the Internet to email, instant message (IM), visit chat rooms and explore other sites on the World Wide Web. According to the latest research presented in a special issue of Developmental Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA), spending a lot of time on the Web can have both negative and positive effects on young people, i.e., the sharing of self-injury practices by some and the improvement of academic performance and health awareness by others.
"A major goal for this cumulation of research is to show the good and bad sides of the Internet as it relates to children," said coeditors of the special issue Patricia Greenfield, PhD, of the Children's Digital Media Center, University of California at Los Angeles and Zheng Yan, PhD, of the State University of New York at Albany.
In a series of six articles, leading researchers examine normal behavior in chat rooms and the use of message boards by adolescents who self-injure, uses of the Internet to improve academic achievement among low-income youth and ways to provide health information to youth living in developing countries. Researcher Yan examines the importance of age in understanding the social and technical aspects of the Internet; Subrahmanyam and colleagues look at why adolescents reveal their identities and sexuality online differently when in monitored versus nonmonitored virtual environments; while Cassell and colleagues investigate how language use and linguistic styles of adolescents in an online community can predict leaders.

in The Hindu - Sci. & Tech.