{"id":4801,"date":"2011-10-11T03:31:40","date_gmt":"2011-10-10T19:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/email-link-to-boys-popularity\/"},"modified":"2024-08-23T13:09:44","modified_gmt":"2024-08-23T05:09:44","slug":"email-link-to-boys-popularity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/email-link-to-boys-popularity\/","title":{"rendered":"Email link to boys’ popularity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Surveyed boys who used email at home were brighter and more popular than boys who did not – according to a recent study by an educational psychologist from Curtin University.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Genevieve Johnson says most online applications are good for children’s development.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The study* by School of Education<\/a><\/strong> Senior Lecturer Genevieve Johnson analysed responses by 51 boys and 44 girls at a Canadian primary school.<\/p>\n

Dr Johnson likened the situation of boys who did not use email to that of boys from a generation or two before who did not watch TV.<\/p>\n

“Think back to when you were a little kid if one of your friends didn’t have a lunch box with the latest cartoon characters on it – because they didn’t watch TV – they were almost socially isolated because they didn’t know what was going on,” Dr Johnson told Curtin News<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“So when we say that children who use the internet under certain circumstances are more popular – that’s true.”<\/p>\n

The girls surveyed by Dr Johnson were more likely than the boys to use email at home, but at school the girls and boys reported very similar use.<\/p>\n

The similarity between boys’ and girls’ email use suggested internet teaching at school may be closing the technology gender gap.<\/p>\n

It was considered likely that the gap was closing not because of decreased use by boys, but because of greater use by girls.<\/p>\n

Dr Johnson has completed many studies on how communications technologies affect the development of children.<\/p>\n

She said that throughout history parents and teachers had always been wary of how children would be affected by new technologies.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got this impression that the internet, including internet games, is something bad,” she told Curtin News<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“This is totally inconsistent with the vast majority of my research.<\/p>\n

“I cannot say that every single online application is associated with positive developmental outcomes – but most are.”<\/p>\n

Dr Johnson said the same conclusion was broadly applicable to other communications technologies.<\/p>\n

“Any technology is going to have advantages and disadvantages in terms of children’s development,” she said.<\/p>\n

“To immediately assume that technologies like texting, like the internet, like video games, are a bad thing for children is so naive.<\/p>\n

“There’s much more evidence to suggest that technology can be quite a good thing for children.”<\/p>\n

PHOTOGRAPHY: SAM PROCTOR<\/strong><\/p>\n

* Internet Activities and Developmental Predictors: Gender Differences Among Digital Natives, <\/em>Genevieve Marie Johnson, Journal of Interactive Learning, Volume 10, Number 2, Summer 2011.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Curtin researcher considers the ‘technology gender gap’ may be closing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4275,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":4,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-4801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":[{"title":"","qualification":"","link":"","description":"","faculty":""}],"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}},"post_components":false},"featured_image":false,"author_meta":{"first_name":"Curtin","last_name":"University","display_name":"Curtin University"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 02:57:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4275"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4801\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4801"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=4801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}