Study Confirms Parents' Net-Illiteracy, But What Does It Mean?

Studies

from the lacking-lesson-plan dept

A conference panel of kids in the U.S. recently concluded that students are not getting adequately schooled in the ways of the internet. Well, a study in the U.K. now says the same thing is happening overseas, finding that most kids have online access but often don’t get useful guidance from their net-illiterate parents. The conclusions here, however, appear to be slightly different. The U.S. students warned that a lack of internet savvy is putting the privacy and safety of students at risk. The U.K. study says that kids with computer-clueless parents are more at risk for being left behind — in school and life. True, not knowing how to use the internet properly can affect a kid’s prospects, but for big-picture questions of success and failure, it seems like a leap to claim causation here. Of course, that doesn’t mean that parents and educators should continue to unleash kids on the internet without teaching some basic surfing and critical-thinking skills.