Industry News
Children 'spending too much time' on Facebook in school
Posted on 18th March 2008
Pupils at private schools may soon find themselves cut off from popular social networking sites like Bebo and Facebook, as reports today suggest that schools are considering banning them.
Apparently schools are concerned that pupils are wasting lesson time, after a survey of 1,000 children aged between 13 and 17 revealed 52 per cent of them use Facebook for at least one hour of every ten spent in school, according to the Argus.
Council bosses are therefore considering banning the sites, in an attempt to force children to focus on their studies.
West Sussex county councillor Gillian Joyce, a governor at St Wilfrid's school in Crawley, told the newspaper: "It's not advantageous for kids to be doing that during school time."
Businesses have also been affected by the nation's obsession with Facebook - earlier this year it was revealed social networking sites were costing UK firms almost £6.5 billion in lost productivity annually.
Some independent schools, particularly boarding schools, have wireless network which allow pupils to access the internet from their personal computers, so it is not clear how those institutions would regulate the use of networking sites. 