Some time ago I posted my review of a new lecture by Howard Gardner on the ‘app-generation’. I suggest that mr Gardner read this article by  Clive Thompson who argues based on evidence that the answer to the question if too much online socialising among teenagers really is creating a generation who can’t relate face to face, is no.

Read the article here, a quote:

New technologies always provoke generational panic, which usually has more to do with adult fears than with the lives of teenagers. In the 1930s, parents fretted that radio was gaining “an invincible hold of their children”. In the 80s, the great danger was the Sony Walkman – producing the teenager who “throbs with orgasmic rhythms”, as philosopher Allan Bloom claimed. When you look at today’s digital activity, the facts are much more positive than you might expect.

Indeed, social scientists who study young people have found that their digital use can be inventive and even beneficial. This is true not just in terms of their social lives, but their education too. So if you use a ton of social media, do you become unable, or unwilling, to engage in face-to-face contact? The evidence suggests not. Research by Amanda Lenhart of the Pew Research Centre, a US thinktank, found that the most avid texters are also the kids most likely to spend time with friends in person. One form of socialising doesn’t replace the other. It augments it.