Let’s explore these findings in more depth. Teenagers may not be reading books, but they are clearly interested in social networking. So the question becomes whether social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube are harming students or helping them. Social networking sites, which began as social communities, are becoming increasingly important. Barack Obama, for example, used such sites to great advantage during his successful campaign to become United States president.
But do social networking sites have any educational benefits? Aside from helping students to make new friends, do social networking sites facilitate learning? The answer seems to be that they do. The National Literacy Trust found that social networking sites and blogs help students to develop more positive attitudes toward writing and to become more confident in their writing abilities.
According to one of the studies, 49 per cent of young people believe that writing is “boring.” However, students who use technology-based texts such as blogs have more positive attitudes toward writing. Whereas 60 per cent of bloggers say that they enjoy writing, only 40 per cent of non-bloggers find writing enjoyable.
