All right, let’s all be adults. We ALL belong to some sort of social networking club, site, or forum. Oh wait… isn’t blogging a public networking forum too? Guilty as charged. I will even admit that I met my husband and the Director of our current feature in Brazil, Thomas Hale, on Myspace. But…that was before Myspace was cool right? So that doesn’t count as lame? Regardless..

These sites including Myspace and Facebook are so popular that even your five year old now wants his own page. Disney and Nickelodeon have both recently launched their own “kid-friendly” networking services, and there are more to come. Club Penguin and Webkinz World lets kids talk to another and also to their favorite characters or pets.

Most of these sites are free, although a parent can sometimes spend money on computer games, add ons, and upgraded membership fees. The sites are full of advertising, FULL OF IT, as if we don’t get enough of that on television. So Mommy-Daddy beware that begging may begin.

Keeping kids safe on the internet is a big concern for a lot of parents, especially with the rise of “internet-stalkers” and the like. Most of these sites have privacy filters and parental control that block kids from exchanging personal information without explicit permission and allow parents to monitor their childs’ activity. I think this is great, this is laying a solid, safe foundation for internet and networking skills which they will require to be “up to date” on later on in life.

Reading, Writing, Online play, games, interaction and problem solving are a positive and direct by-product of the new generation of Tech-savvy kids. Since we haven’t assigned this group of children a
Gen “XY” label, I think it’s probably safe and practical to predict that this generation will be labeled as “Gen T.”

“But Don’t take my word for it…” -Reading Rainbow