Posts tagged with facebook.
Should we ban our kids from Facebook?
I'm always amazed by how much my 13-year-old son can multitask. Like every other middle- or high-school student, it seems, David never just does his homework. While he types his English assignment in Microsoft Word, he has Facebook up along with a small window for MSN messenger. There's also usually a YouTube video loading in the background.
One time I saw David wearing earphones while typing on his laptop. The screen was divided into four windows: one for Word, one for MSN messenger, and two different YouTube videos (one was a song that he had playing through the headphones, and the other was "How to build a paper hang glider.")
And the dog was sleeping on his lap.
According to an article from University World News, one British parent worried that this sort of multitasking was compromising his daughter's studies, as she gave too much of her time to Facebook and not enough to studying.
The solution for Billy Fitzgerald? Creating a website that has social network tools along with research tools, allowing students to interact with their friends while finishing homework or studying.
The website, www.studentsandacademics.com, is described by Fitzgerald as a, "one stop site for all students and academics."
To be honest, I feel like I'm missing something. Either your child has two web pages open at once - one for research and one for a chat room - or, using this new website, they only have one web page open, which combines the research and the chat room. What's the difference?
That's not to say I don't think Facebook or MSN are distracting some of our kids from studying, and that we need some sort of solution. But I wonder if this new website isn't the same sort of distraction, just under the guise of being "for school." I suppose it saves them the 0.7 seconds it takes to switch from one window to the next.
Of course, there's always the old-fashioned parental approach. The one I usually use.
"David, get off Facebook. NOW."
Tagged with
homework,
multitasking,
studentsandacademics.com,
facebook
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