Too Young for Facebook

Then there?s the work of Stanford professor Clifford Nass. With a colleague, Nass surveyed about 3,500 girls ages 8 to 12 and found that the girls who used online media heavily had fewer good feelings about their friendships than other girls their age and had more friends whom their parents considered a bad influence. The single predictor in the study of healthy emotional interactions, the study found, was lots of face-to-face communication. I called Nass to ask him what he thought about Facebook?s idea of signing up kids in the young age group he has studied. He?s skeptical, and to explain why, he drew an analogy to child obesity. ?Our research shows a link between face-to-face contact and good relationships because that?s the best way to learn to read other people?s emotions,? he said. ?It?s how kids learn empathy, and they have to practice. So it?s like the in-person socializing is the healthy food, and Facebook is the empty calories. It?s like junk food, and the more of it kids have, the less time they may have for the healthy stuff.?

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