Counter intuitive? Michael Masnick at TechDirt:
We’ve been pointing out for a while that the supposed “threat” of online sexual predators has been blown way out of proportion, thanks to the press and politicians’ desire to create moral panics that allow politicians to make themselves look good while passing useless laws. The Berkman Center, at Harvard, is about to come out with a new study that shows just how big a myth this has been. As the internet and things like social networks became more popular, the number of incidents of sexual offenses against children has dropped.
Go to the source, danah boyd:
For the last three years, I’ve been a part of a team of researchers at Berkeley and USC focused on digital youth practices. This project, funded by the MacArthur Foundation, brought together 28 different researchers (led by Mimi Ito and my now deceased advisor Peter Lyman) to examine different aspects of American youth life. As many of you know, I focused on normative teen practices and the ways in which teens engaged in networked publics. We are now prepared to share our findings
[links to summaries and press coverage]
Needless to say, we’re excited by our research and uber excited by the coverage that we’re getting. For years, we’ve been finding that youth do amazingly positive things with the technology that they use. Yet, during that time, we’ve watched as parents and news media continue to focus solely on what is negative. We’re hoping that this report will help adults get a decent sense of what’s going on.
At the MacArthur website, New Study Finds Time Spent Online Important for Teen Development.
Congratulations on a well-done job danah!