A study has found that all those hours that teenagers spend networking and playing games online are good for their development.

The three-year study, carried out by the MacArthur foundation on 800 American teens, contradicts the conventional view held by many parents and teachers that such activity is a waste of time.

"It may look as though kids are wasting a lot of time hanging out with new media, whether it's on MySpace or sending instant messages," said Mizuko Ito, lead researcher on the study Living and Learning With New Media.

"But their participation is giving them the technological skills and literacy they need to succeed in the contemporary world. They're learning how to get along with others, how to manage a public identity, how to create a homepage," Ito said.

The study found that for 21st Century teenagers 'hanging out' does not just mean gathering in shopping centres or on the street, but also on social-networking sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook.

From the 5,000 hours researchers spent observing teenagers online, they also identified a behaviour which they called "geeking out", whereby the internet lets teens explore and further their own creativity by "taking a deep dive into a subject".

"In one of my own case studies around fans of Japanese animations, some kids got involved in different video production groups or online discussion groups," said Ito.

www.macfound.org

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