Social Media the art of connection for Children

There is much talk of children and young people spending too much time using social media and mobile phones to connect, chat, discuss and share.

Much of this is discussion revolves around them losing the skill of communication, I'm not going to dwell on those discussions, but I've not heard children and young people struggling to find words nor have I seen them have any difficulty making real life connections with people.

What I can see is that they are learning and developing new skills to connect on new platforms of which my grandparents have no concept of,  my parents struggle to keep up with and I have to know in order to do my job and socialise.

I was told that the fax and the video recorder would change my life for ever. I own neither now as I've seen the birth and death of those technologies.

Therefore it is not only good that our children engage on the social media platforms it is essential! or they risk being left behind.

Social Media probably won't be here for ever, and I've no concept of what will come next, just as when I saw the first Fax Machine being installed in to the office in 1989 I had no concept of email, nor any concept of scanning documents and destroying the originals, nor did I have any concept that satnav etc....

Modern life demands that we invent new technologies to make life easier, so I think that not only should we encourage our young people to engage in social media it should be required learning.

I recognise the risks attached to this, and that needs to be mitigated as do the risks of our children walking to school or playing in the park - the dangers of online media hold the same stranger danger...

But careful planning and structured learning of social media is a must, if it can't take place at school, it must take place at home.

I would ask you one question, how many people have you lost touch with because they are not on facebook, Twitter, linkedin etc? There are many for me, I lost touch with loads because they didn't use email, I lost touch with more because there weren't on facebook. But I've made better connections with those who are, I've kept in touch with relatives abroad whom I had little contact with and those who I've met in the real world I've connected with in the virtual world.

So in our brave new world what will come after social media, and will I keep up or will I become "Future Shocked" as described by Alvin Toffler?