Digital Youth Project Releases an Interesting New Report

Parents concerned about the amount of time their children are spending online may be surprised by the recently released report from the Digital Youth Research Project. Funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and carried out by researchers at the University of Southern California and University of California, Berkeley, the study seeks to analyze and categorize the online behavior of children.

The researchers create three separate categories for describing the behavior of kids online, “hanging out,” “messing around” and “geeking out.” In summary, the report indicates that Internet socializing is actually very positive for children – in fact, according to the researchers, it may well be a key aspect for children to begin using the Internet effectively for learning.

Readers looking for a quick overview can turn to an article at Th e New York Times or to the web site BoingBoing. In addition, OpenEducation offers an in-depth summary of the report including an extensive look at the concept of “geeking out,” a phrase used for the process where Internet behavior moves into a learning mode.

Anyone looking to access the full report can visit the Digital Youth Research Project site. The research team has made several different documents available online including a two-page summary as well as the entire report.