Teenagers Using Mobiles to Network

The introduction of social media on our lives over the past few years has greatly changed the way we go about our day to day procedures. Like it or not Social media is well and truly here and it definitely is not going anywhere. In past times technology hasn’t always been at the forefront of what teenagers are interested in, but with sites such as MySpace, YouTube and many other popular social media sites including the ever growing Facebook, a new trend has been set and teenagers are often the most knowledgeable people when it comes to Social media.

With this in mind it is obvious that young people are spending more time online than ever before but what sort of affect is it having on their learning and is social media actually teaching them anything useful?

It’s safe to say that teenagers are somewhat more in touch with social media than we are, and studies show that around 40% are using the internet daily. With this much time being spent online shouldn’t we be concerned that teenagers are lacking in development in social skills? No, on the contrary, teenagers are becoming experts in collaborative information sharing and are interacting with each other more than ever before.

Its seems the new workforce are a generation weaned on interactive media and young people are making it their habit to be content creators and source great research for them to share with their peers. This generation that expects to be heard and realizes the knock on effect they can have within their community of friends. All of this information shows that young people are at the forefront of developing online technology and interacting online.

A recently published survey by ‘my yearbook’ shows that these teens online popularity translates just as much offline as 40% are more likely to have attended a party over the last weekend than average teens.

Contrary to belief those teens who are the most social online and are the greatest influencers are indeed also the most social offline and have developed and gaining skills that they can  take with them in the outside world.

Some of the most important aspects of business and networking are being learned through social media by teens and in fact social media is teaching them to create strong relationships that they can use to their advantage whether it allows them to get an invite to the latest party, or in the near future allow them to use relationship as a business prospect.

Picture courtesy of  garryknight