Children's ability to "roam" was destroyed, and they gather on social media sites

From The NYTimes:

Danah Boyd, a senior researcher at Microsoft and an Assistant Professor at New York University: "children's ability to roam is basically been destroyed. Leaving the child out to bike around the neighborhood is seen as terrific now, although by all measures, life is safer for children today. "

Children are of course on social media sites for relatively unattended conversations, flirt, immature humor and social exchanges that are a normal teenager stuff hang-out, he said.

In addition, the great panic behavior on-line teenager distracts from potential benefits.

Let children be children-the unstructured play time can be more important than homework, suggests a child psychologist. "Children have lost 8 hours per week of free play, unstructured and spontaneous in the last 2 decades because of homework. Reduction of unstructured play time is partly responsible for slowing cognitive and emotional development of children. 5 Years now had the ability to self-regulation of a 3-year-old in the 1940s; the critical factor seems to be discipline, but he hasn't been playing. "

Video: A life cycle in 90 seconds:

References:

Cracking teen codes online. NYTimes, 2012.

Image source: OpenClipArt.org, in the public domain.