The Birds, the Bees, and the Internet

It's a classic tale; Boy meets girl. Boy and girl flirt. Boys asks girl... to be friends on Facebook?

Adults are increasingly perplexed by communication via the internet, and with good reason.  Technology and online social networking has changed so quickly from it's onset it is hard for even computer literate adults to keep up with the changing paradigms.  The general consensus is usually that kids do it wrong.  Don't they know it is better to get to know people in real life? Why can't they do things the right way, like we did before Facebook and Twitter and email?
But, the reality of the situation is that internet social media are not going away.  Every day they are becoming a bigger part of children's and adolescent's relational developement.  In light of that perhaps we should examine internet social media as a different, not subservient, means of socializing.
A 2010 study shows that online interactions may provide an important role in young people's development of cross-gender relationships. Despite common fears of parents most adolescents in the study did not seek to have offline interactions with those they meet in chat rooms.  Moreover, the on social networking sites the participants frequently expressed that they did not accept friend requests from those they did not know offline, thus eliminating much of the worries over "Dateline: To Catch a Predator" type incidents.

Still it is the relationship that youth have with social media that is troubling to many parents.  It may sound strange, even alarming to hear that young people have "relationships" with media but "relationship" is perhaps a better way to describe the nature of the nature of social media use than "consumption".
Young people's use of social media is a relationship in that they contribute to the medium (Facebook, chat room, etc.), the medium is influenced by their contribution and gives them something in return.  One of the possible thing that young people receive in return is the means to achieve their social goals, goals that would otherwise be unattainable, or more difficult to attain without the use of social media.
Girls for instance, were found in the study to use internet social media as an opportunity to experiment with different behavior. This is not to say that they took on another identity, in fact quite the opposite.  They explored facets of their own identities they may have been more difficult in their offline lives because of cultural norms or family expectations.

In the 2010 study's look at cross gender conversations on internet chat rooms found that girls took advantage of the fact that they could not be judged based on their physical appearance, an all too common concern for young girls.  They were able to express themselves with more self confidence and assertiveness than they were normally able to in offline life.This was, in fact, noticed by boys in chat rooms who were often confused by the ways girls talked to them online, sometimes thinking the girls didn't like them. 
This is a minor social discomfort, which has the potential for cultural impact.  Since young people are often still developing their expectations for the opposite gender, challenging these expectations early may provide more open mindedness for offline gender related cultural changes (ex.: fights against gender discrimination).  Such interactions are not likely to occur offline where  there are more concrete disadvantages to going against cultural norms. 
Additionally, adolescent cross-gender conversations online help on personal levels, giving boys and girls more dynamic views of the opposite gender, which will help them as they continue on into higher education, the working world, and adult family life. 
Yes, it is wise to educate children and adolescents about the dangers online, and the importance of things like fresh air, exercise, and physical human interaction, but social media are beneficial in their own way.  As it turns out, they might not be the unproductive time suck we thought they were.

Waechter, N., Subrahmanyam, K., Reich, S. M., & Espinoza, G. (2010). Youth Connecting Online: From Chat Rooms to Social. At the Interface / Probing the Boundaries, 151-178.