"Rather than relying on life experiences, educational travel and face to face interaction with others, children are becoming obsessed with social networking and this is shaping their attitudes instead.

The report concludes that the children with the poorest grades at school are the ones who spent most time on social networking.

Seven in 10 British teachers believe children are becoming more and more obsessed with websites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

Half of the 500 teachers polled believe this fixation is affecting the children's ability to concentrate in class.

'They enjoy using this tool but there is a danger that these virtual interactions filter out problematic or emotional issues, which in real life, support social and emotional development. ''Social networking has become so much the norm, for adults and children alike, that non-participation can result in feeling excluded or even socially ostracised. ''The time invested in social media versus real life interpersonal interaction can detract from that available for real human contact and contribute to delayed and/or distorted social and emotional development.''

It is also claimed that children who are online at every available opportunity are less willing to communicate with adults.

''Currently there is little empirical research and related guidance on how to integrate social media into school-based learning, although I am aware that many teachers are grappling with this challenge in their day to day practice and some are managing to use this new media very constructively.

One important element of this is the security of the service itself. Although the consumer rarely suffers directly when online services are exposed, scary media stories do mean that everyone in the dot.com world has to work that bit harder to build the necessary trust.

And there is a growing divide between the digital haves and have-nots

Users may be posting information that they believe will be viewed only by their friends, but instead, it is being viewed by government officials or pulled in by data collection services like the Riot search."

Brilliantly the study also broke down what specific things during a good old social media stalk could break a date: an ugly mug shot, lack of humour, aggressive online behaviour, excessive flirting with others online and, my favourite one, oversharing

However, this light-hearted poll provides further proof of how we are increasingly judged every single day by our online personas.

Of those honest souls, 77 per cent claimed they had turned down a date as a result of something they found out about the said babe or hunk through social media.

However, while it’s important for both professional and increasingly personal reasons to be conscientious about what you post online, we do also need to remember that societal attitudes are still playing catch-up with the web.

All it takes is for one negative comment, or silly photo to be shared by someone else, and then a digital identity can be marred – giving a falsely negative impression of somebody.

The web can be unforgiving and is often out of our control.

he internet can do many things – but it simply cannot tell you whether you will get those unexplainable stomach butterflies when you meet your date in person.