The findings of a survey based on 802 teens shows that when it comes to sharing on social network, more might mean better. The survey showed that the more connections young people had on Facebook, the more likely they are to share more information and more active in keeping their online social presence up to date. This has implications on privacy and online safety for young people online.
From the perspective of my work, I look at this and I wonder if there might be a something I can learn from this. Would the young people I work with online be more active in maintaining an online presence and in sharing with other young people in the iScoil community if they had more connections with other students? How could this be encouraged? Efforts at providing a list on online users, a shared forum and a Facebook group have shown that there is little uptake.
This finding does pertain to young people with over 600 connections on Facebook and who check their account several times a day which places them in a category of young people who are highly social and engaged in an online social experience. This type of young person may not be strongly represented among the iScoil population.
Jonathan Walsh 