Children fail to learn social skills due to multitasking

Jeremy Stein

This article is about how young children fail to learn social skills because of the multitasking. The web has too many distractions and ways to interact, and these interactions cannot be substitutions for real social interaction. Chatting on Skype or FaceTime, even though one might think they are the same as personal interaction, lack a few key aspects. You need direct eye contact and need to be able to observe body language, which is difficult over a computer. Also, people are easily distracted when communicating over the computer and close attention must be paid to learn social skills. Even in person, kids who are fiddling with Ipods and texting on cell phones don't pick up on social skills as easily.

They conducted a study of girls through a survey in Discovery Girls magazine. I don't know how much we can trust such a study. They didn't say what the survey consisted of, but I believe it might be hard to assess girls social skills through survey that readers of a magazine chose to respond to. Also, I doubt the readers of Discovery Girls Magazine are an accurate representation of the American youth. Plus it is a girl's magazine, so I doubt many boys responded to the survey. This also makes the study and title misleading. It is an interesting point though nonetheless.