5) Abrstract for article 1

This journal article discusses teenagers and how social networking sites are taking over their life's. Livingstone see's these sites as being all about 'people construct their ‘profile’, make it ‘public’ or ‘private’, they ‘comment’ or ‘message’ their ‘top friends’ on their ‘wall’, they ‘block’ or ‘add’ people to their network and so forth.' (Livingstone:394) and yet within this article she tries to show the connection between 'opportunity and risk' (393) with these sites. Many of the facts and figures that she presents to us show how many children as young as 11 are using and viewing these sites however, i get the feeling that even though these sites are 'creating and networking online content is becoming an integral means of managing one’s identity, lifestyle and social relations' (394) she see's this in a negative way - 'social networking is time-wasting and socially isolating,and at worst it allows paedophiles to groom children in their bedroom1 or sees teenagers lured into suicide pacts while parents think they are doing their homework.' (395)