Social-networking benefits for youth

The benefits of social networking "can far outweigh the potential dangers," wrote Dr. Brendesha Tynes in the latest issue of the Journal of Adolescent Research. The assistant professor of African American Studies and Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign further argued that "banning adolescents from social networking sites - if this were even feasible - as well as monitoring too closely might close off avenues for beneficial cognitive and psychosocial development that are available to young people in the online social world," reports the Wilkes University Beacon (in Pennsylvania) about the study. Among the upsides cited in the article were "beneficial cognitive and psychosocial development"; global political and cultural awareness (because many social sites have international memberships); and "perspective-taking, argumentative, decision-making and critical thinking skills."