Tama’s eLearning Blog

Those researchers and report-writers at Pew have released a short but important paper ‘Teens and Online Stranger Contact’.  The details:

Fully 32% of online teens have been contacted by someone with no connection to them or any of their friends, and 7% of online teens say they have felt scared or uncomfortable as a result of contact by an online stranger. Several behaviors are associated with high levels of online stranger contact, including social networking profile ownership, posting photos online and using social networking sites to flirt. Although several factors are linked with increased levels of stranger contact in general, gender is the only variable with a consistent association with contact that is scary or uncomfortable–girls are much more likely to report scary or uncomfortable contact than boys.

It’s well worth thinking about, especially in terms of how we educate young people. Also notable that gender remains an important factor. Read the full report here.

[Via New Literacy, New Audiences]