How beneficial?

Social networking, it's almost become the center of many people's lives. Facebook, Twitter and Bebo a few of the many social networking sites out there. Forget meeting people in real life, meeting people online has become the norms in society, it's made easy for many users, all there is to do is signing up, and setting up a profile a few typed up facts about yourself and voila you're off to a good start.

But what happens when social networking is not all that's cut out to be. Neuroscientist Baroness Greenfield of Oxford University and director of the Royal Instution believes that younger users today are "lacking the ability to communicate and to concentrate away from the screens." Parents are being warned that social networking sites, like the ones mentioned above are the cause to this predicament. Young users are not benefitting at all.

There is nothing educational about networking socially. This may be an exaggeration but how else would people interpret this article. If younger generations are lacking the ability to communicate and concentrate, would you really blame the social networking system? If parents are being warned about this issue, shouldn't they make it their responsibility to administrate what is happening with their child? Okay, fair enough, it's not like they don't have anything against these social network sites, it's just a mere warning to parents who are worried about their children who use these social network sites. 

To add to that "social networking websites are causing  alarming changes in the brains of young users"  Young users are "selfish, have short attention spans and crave sensation." However, due to research done by Christine Greenhow of Minnesota University social networking sites are in fact educationally beneficial, however it's not discussed in the popular media of today. Students are finding social networking sites helpful, indicating the fact that it's sites like Facebook, or MySpace that are impacting the learning of students in and out of the classroom.