It seems like everyone is social networking these days. Whether its Facebook, Linked In, Goodreads or one of the many other options out there, everyone is doing it, young and old. But is it appropriate for everyone? Last week, Scholastic launched a social networking site, You Are What You Read, geared toward kids. Users are asked to create their own "bookprint" by choosing the five books that mean the most to them. The home page also includes a "names you know" section that displays celebrity bookprints from stars like Whoopi Goldberg and Taylor Swift. The books included on the site are not limited to Scholastic titles and all the information posted by an individual is public. There are other features too, including "book links" that show what books users have in common and a "pass it on" section that allows users to display books they've handed off to others.
Clearly, you could spend a lot of time simply observing on this site, let alone participating in the community aspect of it. And if you've done even five minutes of social networking yourself, you know that once you start communicating and interacting with others online, you can easily get drawn in for endless amounts of time. It's like you've entered a time machine and you think ten minutes have passed, only to look at the clock and find it's really been hours. So much for that list of things you had to do, right?
If adults can find it difficult to manage their time online, how can we expect kids to do it? This leads me to ask, at what age is social networking appropriate? Of course, a site about books seems more reasonable than some others out there - I mean we're talking about books, right? Who doesn't want their kids to get excited about reading? But what impact will these sites have on our kids? Will sites like "You Are What You Read" distract kids from their studies or reduce the already limited time they have to play outside, do sports or just sit with friends enjoying "old-fashioned" board games? I guess what I'm really wondering is, are sites like these really about books at all, or are they just about the art of social networking?
