Is The Internet Replacing Parents As The Go To Place For Curiosity Questions?

from the why-is-the-sky-blue dept

Earlier this year, we noted that the rise of Google may have been helping parents answer the tough questions of childhood (of the "why is the sky blue?" variety). Because parents knew they could easily research the answers, they would no longer shy away from the questions, helping kids feel more comfortable about being curious. Of course, it apparently didn't take those curious kids much time to figure out that they could skip the parent altogether and just head straight to Google by themselves. A new study is suggesting that most people turn to the internet first, before asking a parent or teacher about something. Of course, parents still do have a role in teaching their kids how to find information and how to view the information they find.
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  1. identicon
    thatguy, 11 Aug 2005 @ 10:28am

    relevant link

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    David Oh, 11 Aug 2005 @ 11:38am

    I run a dance orientated site

    I run a dance orientated community based site and because it's youth orientated a lot of kids from 16 and up are on my site along with the older veterans. It's certainly true that the community has given advice on everything from making the transition to college to how to know whether that girl in class likes the guy. In addition, community based forums such as mine can also act as people who can suggest different keywords to search or to directly link to the "best-of" web sites to find a certain question (for example, I graduated college and I linked people to web sites that rate professors, buy books on the cheap, look for roommates etc)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    August Jackson, 11 Aug 2005 @ 12:32pm

    New Yorker Cartoon

    This post reminds me of a New Yorker cartoon I used in a presentation on search engines. It comes courtesy of the New Yorker (which licenses use of their cartoons for presentations and the like). It shows a young (perhaps 10 years old or so) boy standing in front of his dad with a hopeful, inquisitive look on his face. His dad is sitting in his La-Z-Boy, reading the newspaper. The caption, obviously uttered by the father is "Go ask your search engine."

    It's funny because it's true.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Ivan Sick, 11 Aug 2005 @ 4:27pm

    No Subject Given

    I think this is a good thing. Not enough people learned that self-sufficiency in life is good and important.

    Although this is just plain stupid:/
    "more than two thirds of Britons often gave up looking for information on the web if they could not find what they were looking for quickly enough."
    (I assume that "quickly enough" means within the first two or three tries.) The article doesn't mention, however, if those people go to another source, person or otherwise, after failing to find their information on the internet. That context would be helpful.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    mattyatty, 12 Aug 2005 @ 5:39am

    Problem

    the internet can pose problems when finding answers to childrens questions e.g. when i was about 7, i was called "gay" by classmates, and i did not know what it was. if i had typed "what is gay" into google, i would have most likely found a dirty site.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    DeAnn, 27 Sep 2005 @ 6:16pm

    Never second guess a kid!


    Kids are bright, and will find out what they want to know via whatever means are available to them. But they will invariably follow the 'path of least resistance' in question asking, as they timelessly do in nearly everything else.

    So if you are a parent, and you want your kids to come to you first... make it easy! Invite questions from the time they are small and asking so many it's driving you crazy. Remember, it's the ones that they won't ask you that you want to answer most! So keep them asking YOU, and you will get the tough ones when they come up too.

    However... if you need a little help, and don't know where to start looking yourself. Here are a good couple of sites to start with. I'm talking about helping kids learn about themselves and their growing bodies and personalities here. After all... that what is being subtly referenced when we talk about 'what kids want to know.' Isn't it?

    http://www.scarleteen.com/
    http://sxetc.org/

    link to this | view in thread ]


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