RESEARCH: Twitter main social media choice of Japanese youth, says survey (JAPAN)

A poll of young Japanese Internet users showed Twitter is by far their most popular social network, with many saying they want to try Facebook in the future.


The survey shows that 42.5 percent of those around 20 years of age use Twitter more than any other networking site. Only 13 percent of respondents said Facebook was their favorite. The survey was jointly conducted by Nifty, a Japanese search engine, comnico, an online marketing firm, and Lifemedia, a service that pays users to take online polls.

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ARTICLES / IT / SOCIAL MEDIA: Children learn the ABC of Twitter

LONG-running ABC program Play School is teaching children who can't even read or write how to use social media.

The popular preschoolers show has tackled space exploration and homosexuality - and now is explaining to toddlers about communicating via Twitter and Facebook.

In a recent episode, presenter Matt Passmore tweeted, blogged, texted, emailed and checked his "play book" on a cardboard computer. "What can I do while I wait, I know - I will Twitter," Passmore said. "Everyone loves my Twitter."Play School executive producer Jan Strandling said the cyber world was increasingly relevant to preschoolers.

Research showed that children as young as one could use smartphones. And preschoolers are becoming so tech-savvy that Play School now has iPhone apps and online games for under-fives, she said.

full article on the Herald Sun website

GAMES / EDUCATION: Reading, Writing, and Good Digital Citizenship: A Future Tense Event Highlights the Promise of Tech in Elementary Education

Kids love video games. And iPads. And even Twitter. But what can they learn from high-tech tools—and, perhaps more importantly, can the ways they use technology give us insight as tohow they learn?

Those were the guiding questions at “Getting Schooled by a Third-Grader,” a Future Tense event on technology in early education held this afternoon at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. During the introduction, New America Foundation fellow Lisa Guernsey, author of Screen Time: How Electronic Media—From Baby Videos to Educational Software—Affects Your Child, noted that we frequently think of educational technology as the realm of middle or high school. But research currently suggests that children between the ages of 6 months and 6 years spend an average of 120 minutes a day with screens. Meanwhile, teachers—and companies producing educational software and games—are increasingly bringing technology into the classroom to appeal to kids who enter kindergarten already familiar with iPads, smartphones, and Microsoft Kinect.

full article at slate.com

RESEARCH / SOCIAL MEDIA: Youth sickened by social media (INDIA)

New Delhi, Jan 22: Youngsters in urban India have started experiencing social-media fatigue as excess use of these sites has started telling on their mental and physical health and even their professional, academic and personal lives.

The youngsters said they tend to log onto social networks like – Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Orkut, Linkedin, Myspace, Friendster, Hi5, BigAdda and others less frequently than earlier when they had initially signed up, according to a recently concluded survey carried out by apex industry body ASSOCHAM.

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) conducted a survey under the aegis of ASSOCHAM Social Development Foundation (ASDF) to examine current usage trends vis-à-vis social networks among youngsters and time spent on these websites.

Majority of all the respondents said that compulsive social networking has led to insomnia, depression, poor inter-personal relationships, lack of concentration, high level of anxiety, ignorance and rudeness in their general behavior as they tend to replace real-life social interactions with online social media.

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NEWS / IT: Region turns to Twitter to engage youth - New website survey is collecting feedback until Aug. 23

Posted By JULIE GRECO/QMI Agency

THOROLD — Niagara Region is turning to the internet and social media to engage local residents, and particularly youth, in its long-term planning process.

As part of its Sustainability Niagara Initiative, a new survey on the Region's website is asking residents for feedback on its developing vision for the next 50 years.

"It's important for us to take a long-range view to see the bigger picture of what we're shooting towards," said Kirk Weaver, director of community and corporate planning.

Eight one-minute videos have been posted to the site, highlighting the region's goals for a sustainable future. Topics include heath and security, economy, culture, learning and social development, infrastructure systems, agriculture and food, governance, ecosystems and natural areas, and built environments. Residents are asked to provide their input after viewing the videos.

"By making it available on the web, and you can see the people in the videos are students, we're trying to attract the young people that will hopefully be here 50 years from now, but not to the exclusion of others," said Weaver.

"We're also using Facebook and Twitter."

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OPINIONS: Twitter/Facebook: Time Well-Spent for Child/Youth Advocates?

Twitter/Facebook: Time Well-Spent for Child/Youth Advocates?

by Ray Schultz, Child Advocacy 360

This year’s Nonprofit Technology Conference drew standing-room only crowds to sessions on social media. But one question remained unanswered after hours of talk: Can Twitter and Facebook perform miracles for hardworking child advocates?

That’s dubious, based on the evidence.

Take the area of fundraising. “Very, very little money is raised through social networking sites,” says Mal Warwick, chairman of Mal Warwick Associates, an agency serving nonprofits.

His view is confirmed by research from the software vendor Blackbaud. Of the nonprofit groups with positive return on investment online, 63 percent use e-mail and 46 percent use social media. “Everything we’ve seen shows that e-mail has more proven value than social media,” says Allison Van Diest, senior product marketing manager for Blackbaud.

Nor are the social networks good for interaction with colleagues. Advocates typically use Facebook and Twitter “to communicate with a few of their friends, but not professionally,” Warwick says. And government employees, though part of many nonprofit constituencies, often lack “access to current technology or are limited by policy,” adds Nedra Kline-Weinreich, president of Weinreich Communications, an agency and consultancy.

Next is the issue of resources. Do your overworked staffers have the time to be tweeting people? And even if they do, can they write in the more personal tone required in social media?

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NEWS: Pupils to study Twitter and blogs in primary schools shake-up (UK)

Children will no longer have to study the Victorians or the second world war under proposals to overhaul the primary school curriculum, the Guardian has learned.

However, the draft plans will require children to master Twitter and Wikipedia and give teachers far more freedom to decide what youngsters should be concentrating on in classes.

The proposed curriculum, which would mark the biggest change to primary schooling in a decade, strips away hundreds of specifications about the scientific, geographical and historical knowledge pupils must accumulate before they are 11 to allow schools greater flexibility in what they teach.

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