Social network sites encourage creativity

A blog post by Jackie Marsh has alerted me to Ofcom's recent study on the media literacy of children and young people.

The section of the executive summary on media creation is particularly interesting when looking at the role of social network sites and is worth quoting in full:

Social networking sites increase creative activity

Social networking sites are a key driver of children’s desire and ability to create content online, and we have seen a significant increase in this type of creative behaviour since 2005 as a result of the rise in popularity of social networking sites. The increased prevalence of recordable devices such as camera phones, digital cameras, MP3 players and webcams are also a factor in this trend. Over half of 12 – 15s who have the internet at home state that they have a social networking profile.

Girls are more likely than boys to engage in a range of creative online activities, particularly those related to communicating or sharing content with other people. Participating in social networking has quickly become a popular activity and social currency among children. Although social networking sites are mainly used as a communications tool to manage existing relationships a significant minority are using them to communicate with people that they do not know (11%).

Among many social networking site users there is a lack of awareness of, or concern about, potential safety and security risks. Many feel that they are immune to any potential risks, and that even if they were to have problems, they would be able to deal with them.

At the same time, a significant proportion of children continue to express a lack of interest in creative activities; a third say they have no interest in setting up a social networking site profile and half are not interested in creating content such as making short films, producing photo albums or writing blogs.

The way in which social network sites have lowered the barriers to creating, publishing and sharing content online is a significant factor in both their success, and in understanding their impact. It is not an unqualified good thing - some writers argue that social network sites put up too many boundaries to creativity - particularly encouraging people to create their online identity through form filling, rather than by starting with a blank canvas and creatively building their own independent websites.

One of the challenges for youth work is to recognise the positive offering of online social networking - whilst being critically conscious of the impact social network sites have on young people, and keeping in mind the requirement to 'start where young people are at - and through challenge and support to encourage young people move beyond that point'.