I just read this enlightening article over at the Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning blog. This is a new idea that I haven’t considered before — do we hear these stories of hysteria because the established social order is threatened by girls empowered by technology?
I know that the media reaction to social networking, MySpace in particular, is excessive. My ongoing study of student achievement in technical courses correlated with social networking use supports the idea that students who are invested in social networks do better in school. But could gender-bias be at play?