Football gear technology seeks to make game fairer, safer

Among the technologies most likely to make it onto the field soon are wireless sensors in the ball and in players' gear. These technologies will resolve tough referee calls, aid in training and improve safety. New helmet designs should also better protect players from injury.

Off the field, advanced analytics that reveal the statistical wisdom or folly of certain play-calls might already be subtly changing the game of American football.

The NFL's embrace of technology will continue to benefit the game and its fans, Priya Narasimhansaid. She is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and heads the Football Engineering Research Group, the only academic program of its kind.

"Everything [the NFL does] is incredibly progressive without spoiling the spontaneity and fun of the game," Narasimhan said, "because you don’t want technology to get in the way."

A game of inches

Perhaps football's most nerve-racking, contentious plays are short-yardage smashups of the defensive and offensive lines as the ball carrier tries to eke out a first down or "cross the plane" of the goal line for a touchdown.

These nail-biters usually require the referees (often with the aid of instant replay) to try and divine just where in the heck the ball is amid a seething pile of giant men.

The solution: a sensor in the ball that registers when it has indeed crossed the first down or goal line.

At least two companies, Cairos Technologies in Germany and YinzCam, a spinoff of Carnegie Mellon University's program, have developed the necessary technology.

Cairos' method – so far honed just for soccer – involves running a thin electrical cable underneath the goal line and in the goal's frame that generates a magnetic field. A lightweight sensor (or sensors) in the ball detect when a certain amount of the ball has passed this defined line.

In soccer, the whole 8.7-inch (22-centimeter) ball must cross the line for a goal. So the sensor signals a score when it is 4.3 inches (11 centimeters) past the line, indicating that the entire ball is in, explained Oliver Braun, the marketing and communications director for Cairos.

In football, though, only a portion of the oblong ball needs to cross the plane (or be out of bounds), and first down lines can occur anywhere across the field of play.

So instead of wiring the whole field, YinzCam's approach places base stations along the sidelines that pick up a signal beamed by the football's sensor. A gyroscope in the ball's center also transmits precise knowledge of the pigskin's orientation in 3-D space in real-time.

Whether the long axis is nearly vertical in a place kick, or horizontal during a bullet pass from a quarterback, or anywhere in between (poking across the goal line), the referees will know.

The YinzCam sensor weighs just a half-ounce, lasts a half-hour and can be recharged wirelessly viainductive charging – the same technology that powers up an electric toothbrush. Referees would swap the sensor-containing footballs out for charged ones frequently. This shouldn't disrupt the game because footballs get rotated in and out of the game now anyway.

Although the NFL has not made any official statements on when this tech will kickoff, Ray Anderson, NFL executive vice president of operations, told TechNewsDaily: "It’s going to happen. It’s in the works."

Sensors all over

This remote-sensing technology could revolutionize more than just tough calls, said Narasimhan, who is founder and CEO of YinzCam. The company has also created pressure sensors for placement in players' gloves or pads. These "smart" gloves can detect how a receiver catches a pass, for example, or how a running back cradles the ball while dodging and dipping through gridiron traffic.

These sensors could boost practice and game-day assessments, Narasimhan said, at all levels of football, from high school on through the pros.

In the receiver's case, "coaches say you are supposed to catch the ball with your fingertips and not your thumbs," Narasimhan said. "After dropping a pass, a guy will come back to the sidelines and say, 'I swear it wasn’t my thumbs.'" With the gloves, coaches, players, scouts and even parents of pee-wee league players will have answers, and the receiver can work on improving his mechanics if necessary.

Futuristic helmets

Yet another application of sensors is gauging the blows to players' heads that might lead to concussions. Though mostly in the research phase, accelerometer-outfitted helmets already send hit intensity data to sideline medical staff that can indicate the possibility of a concussion.

Research has suggested that these re-engineered helmets, made by Riddell, the official helmet supplier for the NFL, might cut down on concussive events in high school by a third.

Individual susceptibly to concussions varies tremendously, however, so a 100 percent accurate "concussion sensor" for now remains science fiction.

The future of protective headgear in the NFL might lie with unconventional, non-foam padding, such as the adaptive air cell shock absorbers in the new X-1 helmet from Xenith. Air rushes in and out of these cells that adapt to impacts; a harder hit generates more air pressure, and therefore more stiffening to secure a player's head.

Vin Ferrara, Xenith CEO, likened the effect to pushing hard on a bike pump and getting more resistance than when softly depressing it.

Only a few NFL players wore the X-1 helmet last year, but this season at least 20 will, Ferrara said, and greater adoption is on the horizon.

Computerized play-calling

As with many other facets of life, computers stand to greatly change how football is played, at least from a play-calling perspective.

A software program called Zeus, though developed almost a decade ago, seems to be gaining traction now in the NFL, according to one of its creators, Frank Frigo.

Zeus simulates hundreds of thousands of game outcomes based on two play choices, for example, or can have two customizable teams play a million simulated games in the span of a minute.

Insights gleaned from Zeus include that NFL coaches call plays far too conservatively. For example, going for it on fourth down and short often increases the chances of ultimately winning over punting or settling for a field goal, and onside kicks should also be attempted more often.

No team has used, or under current rules would be allowed, to use Zeus in making snap game-day play calls. One team – Frigo cannot say who – did experiment with Zeus off the field last season.

The pre-game hints and post-game hindsight the program offers could usher in more aggressive strategies, Frigo said, if coaches could stomach statistical reality.

"You're not going to see [Zeus or simulators like it] during the game anytime soon," Frigo said. But Zeus-approved, bullish play-calling is on the rise, Frigo said.

source: http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0908/Football-gear-technology-seeks-to-make-game-fairer-safer

Modern technology is changing the way our brains work, says neuroscientist

Human identity, the idea that defines each and every one of us, could be facing an unprecedented crisis.

It is a crisis that would threaten long-held notions of who we are, what we do and how we behave. 

It goes right to the heart - or the head - of us all. This crisis could reshape how we interact with each other, alter what makes us happy, and modify our capacity for reaching our full potential as individuals. 

And it's caused by one simple fact: the human brain, that most sensitive of organs, is under threat from the modern world. 

Unless we wake up to the damage that the gadget-filled, pharmaceutically-enhanced 21st century is doing to our brains, we could be sleepwalking towards a future in which neuro-chip technology blurs the line between living and non-living machines, and between our bodies and the outside world.

It would be a world where such devices could enhance our muscle power, or our senses, beyond the norm, and where we all take a daily cocktail of drugs to control our moods and performance.

Already, an electronic chip is being developed that could allow a paralysed patient to move a robotic limb just by thinking about it. As for drug manipulated moods, they're already with us - although so far only to a medically prescribed extent.

Increasing numbers of people already take Prozac for depression, Paxil as an antidote for shyness, and give Ritalin to children to improve their concentration. But what if there were still more pills to enhance or "correct" a range of other specific mental functions?

What would such aspirations to be "perfect" or "better" do to our notions of identity, and what would it do to those who could not get their hands on the pills? Would some finally have become more equal than others, as George Orwell always feared?

Of course, there are benefits from technical progress - but there are great dangers as well, and I believe that we are seeing some of those today.

I'm a neuroscientist and my day-to-day research at Oxford University strives for an ever greater understanding - and therefore maybe, one day, a cure - for Alzheimer's disease.

But one vital fact I have learnt is that the brain is not the unchanging organ that we might imagine. It not only goes on developing, changing and, in some tragic cases, eventually deteriorating with age, it is also substantially shaped by what we do to it and by the experience of daily life. When I say "shaped", I'm not talking figuratively or metaphorically; I'm talking literally. At a microcellular level, the infinitely complex network of nerve cells that make up the constituent parts of the brain actually change in response to certain experiences and stimuli.

The brain, in other words, is malleable - not just in early childhood but right up to early adulthood, and, in certain instances, beyond. The surrounding environment has a huge impact both on the way our brains develop and how that brain is transformed into a unique human mind.

Of course, there's nothing new about that: human brains have been changing, adapting and developing in response to outside stimuli for centuries.

What prompted me to write my book is that the pace of change in the outside environment and in the development of new technologies has increased dramatically. This will affect our brains over the next 100 years in ways we might never have imagined.

Our brains are under the influence of an ever- expanding world of new technology: multichannel television, video games, MP3 players, the internet, wireless networks, Bluetooth links - the list goes on and on.

But our modern brains are also having to adapt to other 21st century intrusions, some of which, such as prescribed drugs like Ritalin and Prozac, are supposed to be of benefit, and some of which, such as widelyavailable illegal drugs like cannabis and heroin, are not.

Electronic devices and pharmaceutical drugs all have an impact on the micro- cellular structure and complex biochemistry of our brains. And that, in turn, affects our personality, our behaviour and our characteristics. In short, the modern world could well be altering our human identity.

Three hundred years ago, our notions of human identity were vastly simpler: we were defined by the family we were born into and our position within that family. Social advancement was nigh on impossible and the concept of "individuality" took a back seat.

That only arrived with the Industrial Revolution, which for the first time offered rewards for initiative, ingenuity and ambition. Suddenly, people had their own life stories - ones which could be shaped by their own thoughts and actions. For the first time, individuals had a real sense of self.

But with our brains now under such widespread attack from the modern world, there's a danger that that cherished sense of self could be diminished or even lost.

Anyone who doubts the malleability of the adult brain should consider a startling piece of research conducted at Harvard Medical School. There, a group of adult volunteers, none of whom could previously play the piano, were split into three groups.

The first group were taken into a room with a piano and given intensive piano practise for five days. The second group were taken into an identical room with an identical piano - but had nothing to do with the instrument at all.

And the third group were taken into an identical room with an identical piano and were then told that for the next five days they had to just imagine they were practising piano exercises.

The resultant brain scans were extraordinary. Not surprisingly, the brains of those who simply sat in the same room as the piano hadn't changed at all.

Equally unsurprising was the fact that those who had performed the piano exercises saw marked structural changes in the area of the brain associated with finger movement.

But what was truly astonishing was that the group who had merely imagined doing the piano exercises saw changes in brain structure that were almost as pronounced as those that had actually had lessons. "The power of imagination" is not a metaphor, it seems; it's real, and has a physical basis in your brain.

Alas, no neuroscientist can explain how the sort of changes that the Harvard experimenters reported at the micro-cellular level translate into changes in character, personality or behaviour. But we don't need to know that to realise that changes in brain structure and our higher thoughts and feelings are incontrovertibly linked.

What worries me is that if something as innocuous as imagining a piano lesson can bring about a visible physical change in brain structure, and therefore some presumably minor change in the way the aspiring player performs, what changes might long stints playing violent computer games bring about? That eternal teenage protest of 'it's only a game, Mum' certainly begins to ring alarmingly hollow.

Already, it's pretty clear that the screen-based, two dimensional world that so many teenagers - and a growing number of adults - choose to inhabit is producing changes in behaviour. Attention spans are shorter, personal communication skills are reduced and there's a marked reduction in the ability to think abstractly.

This games-driven generation interpret the world through screen-shaped eyes. It's almost as if something hasn't really happened until it's been posted on Facebook, Bebo or YouTube.

Add that to the huge amount of personal information now stored on the internet - births, marriages, telephone numbers, credit ratings, holiday pictures - and it's sometimes difficult to know where the boundaries of our individuality actually lie. Only one thing is certain: those boundaries are weakening.

And they could weaken further still if, and when, neurochip technology becomes more widely available. These tiny devices will take advantage of the discovery that nerve cells and silicon chips can happily co-exist, allowing an interface between the electronic world and the human body. One of my colleagues recently suggested that someone could be fitted with a cochlear implant (devices that convert sound waves into electronic impulses and enable the deaf to hear) and a skull-mounted micro- chip that converts brain waves into words (a prototype is under research).

Then, if both devices were connected to a wireless network, we really would have arrived at the point which science fiction writers have been getting excited about for years. Mind reading!

He was joking, but for how long the gag remains funny is far from clear.

Today's technology is already producing a marked shift in the way we think and behave, particularly among the young.

I mustn't, however, be too censorious, because what I'm talking about is pleasure. For some, pleasure means wine, women and song; for others, more recently, sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll; and for millions today, endless hours at the computer console.

But whatever your particular variety of pleasure (and energetic sport needs to be added to the list), it's long been accepted that 'pure' pleasure - that is to say, activity during which you truly "let yourself go" - was part of the diverse portfolio of normal human life. Until now, that is.

Now, coinciding with the moment when technology and pharmaceutical companies are finding ever more ways to have a direct influence on the human brain, pleasure is becoming the sole be-all and end-all of many lives, especially among the young.

We could be raising a hedonistic generation who live only in the thrill of the computer-generated moment, and are in distinct danger of detaching themselves from what the rest of us would consider the real world.

This is a trend that worries me profoundly. For as any alcoholic or drug addict will tell you, nobody can be trapped in the moment of pleasure forever. Sooner or later, you have to come down.

I'm certainly not saying all video games are addictive (as yet, there is not enough research to back that up), and I genuinely welcome the new generation of "brain-training" computer games aimed at keeping the little grey cells active for longer.

As my Alzheimer's research has shown me, when it comes to higher brain function, it's clear that there is some truth in the adage "use it or lose it".

However, playing certain games can mimic addiction, and that the heaviest users of these games might soon begin to do a pretty good impersonation of an addict.

Throw in circumstantial evidence that links a sharp rise in diagnoses of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and the associated three-fold increase in Ritalin prescriptions over the past ten years with the boom in computer games and you have an immensely worrying scenario.

But we mustn't be too pessimistic about the future. It may sound frighteningly Orwellian, but there may be some potential advantages to be gained from our growing understanding of the human brain's tremendous plasticity. What if we could create an environment that would allow the brain to develop in a way that was seen to be of universal benefit?

I'm not convinced that scientists will ever find a way of manipulating the brain to make us all much cleverer (it would probably be cheaper and far more effective to manipulate the education system). And nor do I believe that we can somehow be made much happier - not, at least, without somehow anaesthetising ourselves against the sadness and misery that is part and parcel of the human condition.

When someone I love dies, I still want to be able to cry.

But I do, paradoxically, see potential in one particular direction. I think it possible that we might one day be able to harness outside stimuli in such a way that creativity - surely the ultimate expression of individuality - is actually boosted rather than diminished.

I am optimistic and excited by what future research will reveal into the workings of the human brain, and the extraordinary process by which it is translated into a uniquely individual mind.

But I'm also concerned that we seem to be so oblivious to the dangers that are already upon us.

Well, that debate must start now. Identity, the very essence of what it is to be human, is open to change - both good and bad. Our children, and certainly our grandchildren, will not thank us if we put off discussion much longer.

SOURCE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-565207/Modern-technology-changing-way-brains-work-says-neuroscientist.html

Material Culture and Technology III

Architecture Adobes (sun dried mudbrick) were the most commonly used Moche building material. Stone set in mud, however, as well as cane and mud (quincha) were used to construct the homes of poorer people. Urban settlements are typified by public buildings constructed on platforms, with enclosures decorated by richly-colored murals or friezes, and gabled or shed roofs supported by pillars, pilasters or columns. Windows were set low or high and, in general, doorways had high thresholds. These buildings served either public or private ceremonial functions. Around and among these buildings stood the residences of the governing elite, built of adobe with plastered walls and carefully finished floors. Many walls had niches. Next to these houses, some of which may have been grouped together to form districts, were the homes of artisans, such as potters and metal workers. We don't know where administrators and traders had homes, although these types of structures are more evident in the final phase of Moche at the site of Galindo in the Moche valley and at Pampa Grande in Lambayeque.

Agriculture Without irrigation canals, life in the coastal valleys would have been impossible. In the Lambayeque valley alone, scholars estimate that 35 less land is cultivated today than by ancient Peruvians 1,000 years ago. There are several reasons for this: first, the characteristics of the irrigation canals and depopulation following the European conquest, coupled with accelerated desertification. The variety of field systems indicates that the Moche controlled the quantity of water for their crops. Crops cultivated by the Moche include all those domesticated in the Andes in general, such as m aize, squash and beans. SOURCE: http://www.huacas.com/page22.htm

Material Culture and Technology II

Metallurgy

Moche metallurgy was extremely sophisticated. Moche smiths worked primarily with sheet metal which they hammered into three-dimensional shapes. Copper formed the basis of Moche metallurgy, and smiths created gold-copper and silver-copper alloys. They were also familiar with sweat welding as well as repoussé and casting. Lost wax casting was known but not as commonly used as in other parts of the Andes. Smiths also developed bronze. Objects in metal not only had ritual uses, such as headdresses, masks and jewelry, but also served as weapons, agricultural tools and tweezers, etc.

Weaving

Although few Moche textiles have survived, those that are known are finely woven. Moche weavers were familiar with tapestry, brocade and openwork weaves. Cotton was the most frequently used material, followed by alpaca fiber. Feathers were often used to decorate textiles, especially headdresses and mantles.
source: http://www.huacas.com/page21.htm

Material Culture and Technology

The Moche produced technologically sophisticated ceramics and works in metal; nonetheless, ceramics continue to command most of the attention of specialists and nonspecialists alike.

Pottery

Generally, Moche ceramics are two-colored: red on cream. These colors exhibit a range of hues, which became darker in the final phases of Moche culture. Moche potters used molds for the bodies of the pots as well as for attachments or seals which they applied to create decorations in relief. The sculptural ceramics are notable for their realism and size and some are inlaid with mother-of-pearl, bone or even small pieces of gold. The pictorial scenes, though only two-dimensional, are complex and were created with fine brush strokes that traced incisions made before painting. The most common shapes are bottles with globular bodies and stirrup spouts; vessels with flaring rims; flaring bowls, also called flower vases; figurines, whistles, etc. The majority of decorated Moche ceramics were intended for ritual funerary uses.

source: http://www.huacas.com/page20.htm

Digital Photography Technology

Digital Photography Technology has taken over the world. Everyone wants a digital camera. The advantages of Digital Photography Technology are phenomenal. You have the ability with a digital camera to take a picture and immediately look at the finished image, so it can then be sent it anywhere in the world within minutes or make a print. That is something that was not even considered just a few years ago.

There is no reason why any person can not take a good picture with the wide range of digital cameras that are available. Cameras for Digital Photography Technology are available in a price range starting from one hundred to thousands of dollars and will all take quality pictures.

Digital cameras are so popular today because they are so much fun to use and so versatile. Just pick up the digital camera, point and shoot and in a matter of seconds you have a high-quality digital photo.

Digital cameras as to film cameras use electronic devices to record the image as binary data. This facilitates storage and editing of the images on personal computers and also the ability to show and delete unsuccessful images immediately on the camera itself.

Digital cameras now outsell film cameras and include features not found in film cameras, such as, to shoot video and record audio. Some other devices, such as mobile phones, now include digital photography technology features.

Taking pictures with a digital camera is no different than with a film camera, except there is no film to change. Inserting a new memory card can be changed in the brightest of light. Hundreds to over thousands of pictures can be taken on a single digital memory card depending on its size.

Some advantages of digital photography are.

• Instant review of pictures, with no waiting for the film to be developed. If there is a problem with a picture, the photographer can immediately correct the problem and take another picture.

• Only acceptable or quality pictures need to be printed. This allows you to take numerous shots of the same scene with slightly different settings, and choose the best one. This review and revise process is impossible with traditional film because of the time and equipment to develop the film.

• Minimal ongoing costs for those wishing to capture hundreds of photographs for digital use, such as computer storage and e-mailing, but not for printing.

• If you already own a newer computer, permanent storage on digital media is considerably less expensive than film.

• Images may be copied from one media to another without any degradation in quality.

• Pictures do not need to be scanned before viewing them on a computer.

• Ability to print your own pictures using a computer and consumer-grade printer.

The capability to print your own digital photos using printers that can communicate directly with the camera, or its memory card, for printing without a computer.

This web site will attempt to tell you everything about digital photography. This will include digital cameras and their features, the variety of accessories that can be used to enhance your photography and the different types of photography.

There will be a variety of articles on all the facets of photography with credits given to the writer.

source: http://www.digital-photography-technology.com/

Teenagers and technology: 'I'd rather give up my kidney than my phone'

"I'd rather," deadpans Philippa Grogan, 16, "give up, like, a kidney than my phone. How did you manage before? Carrier pigeons? Letters? Going round each others' houses on BIKES?" Cameron Kirk, 14, reckons he spends "an hour, hour-and-a-half on school days" hanging out with his 450-odd Facebook friends; maybe twice that at weekends. "It's actually very practical if you forget what that day's homework is. Unfortunately, one of my best friends doesn't have Facebook. But it's OK; we talk on our PlayStations."

Emily Hooley, 16, recalls a Very Dark Moment: "We went to Wales for a week at half term to revise. There was no mobile, no TV, no broadband. We had to drive into town just to get a signal. It was really hard, knowing people were texting you, writing on your Wall, and you couldn't respond. Loads of my friends said they'd just never do that."

Teens, eh? Not how they were when I was young. Nor the way they talk to each other. Let's frighten ourselves, first: for a decade, the Pew Internet & American Life Project has been the world's largest and most authoritative provider of data on the internet's impact on the lives of 21st-century citizens. Since 2007, it has been chronicling the use teenagers make of the net, in particular their mass adoption of social networking sites. It has been studying the way teens use mobile phones, including text messages, since 2006.

This is what the Project says about the way US teens (and, by extension, teenagers in much of western Europe: the exact figures may sometimes differ by a percentage point or two, but the patterns are the same) communicate in an age of Facebook Chat, instant messaging and unlimited texts. Ready?

First, 75% of all teenagers (and 58% of 12-year-olds) now have a mobile phone. Almost 90% of phone-owning teens send and receive texts, most of them daily. Half send 50 or more texts a day; one in three send 100. In fact, in barely four years, texting has established itself as comfortably "the preferred channel of basic communication between teens and their friends".

But phones do more than simply text, of course. More than 80% of phone-owning teens also use them to take pictures (and 64% to share those pictures with others). Sixty per cent listen to music on them, 46% play games, 32% swap videos and 23% access social networking sites. The mobile phone, in short, is now "the favoured communication hub for the majority of teens".

As if texting, swapping, hanging and generally spending their waking hours welded to their phones wasn't enough, 73% use social networking sites, mostly Facebook – 50% more than three years ago. Digital communication is not just prevalent in teenagers' lives. It IS teenagers' lives.

There's a very straightforward reason, says Amanda Lenhart, a Pew senior research specialist. "Simply, these technologies meet teens' developmental needs," she says. "Mobile phones and social networking sites make the things teens have always done – defining their own identity, establishing themselves as independent of their parents, looking cool, impressing members of the opposite sex – a whole lot easier."

Flirting, boasting, gossiping, teasing, hanging out, confessing: all that classic teen stuff has always happened, Lenhart says. It's just that it used to happen behind the bike sheds, or via tightly folded notes pressed urgently into sweating hands in the corridor between lessons. Social networking sites and mobile phones have simply facilitated the whole business, a gadzillion times over.

For Professor Patti Valkenburg, of the University of Amsterdam's internationally respected Centre for Research on Children, Adolescents and the Media, "contemporary communications tools" help resolve one of the fundamental conflicts that rages within every adolescent. Adolescence, she says, is characterised by "an enhanced need for self-presentation, or communicating your identity to others, and also self-disclosure – discussing intimate topics. Both are essential in developing teenagers' identities, allowing them to validate their opinions and determine the appropriateness of their attitudes and behaviours."

But, as we all recall, adolescence is also a period of excruciating shyness and aching self-consciousness – which can make all that self-presentation and self-disclosure something of a perilous, not to say agonising, business. So the big plus of texting, instant messaging and social networking is that it allows the crucial identity-establishing behaviour, without the accompanying embarrassment. "These technologies give their users a sense of increased controllability," Valkenburg says. "That, in turn, allows them to feel secure about their communication, and thus freer in their interpersonal relations."

"Controllability", she explains, is about three things: being able to say what you want without fear of the message not getting through because of that humungous spot on your chin or your tendency to blush; having the power to reflect on and change what you write before you send it (in contrast to face-to-face communication); and being able to stay in touch with untold hordes of friends at times, and in places, where your predecessors were essentially incommunicado.

But what do teenagers make of this newfound freedom to communicate? Philippa reckons she sends "probably about 30" text messages every day, and receives as many. "They're about meeting up – where are you, see you in 10, that kind of thing," she says. "There's an awful lot of flirting goes on, of course. Or it's, 'OMG, what's biology homework?'. And, 'I'm babysitting and I'm SOOOO bored.'" (Boredom appears to be the key factor in the initiation of many teen communications.)

Like most of her peers, Philippa wouldn't dream of using her phone to actually phone anyone, except perhaps her parents – to placate them if she's not where she should be, or ask them to come and pick her up if she is. Calls are expensive, and you can't make them in class (you shouldn't text in class either, but "lots of people do").

Philippa also has 639 Facebook friends, and claims to know "the vast majority" (though some, she admits, are "quite far down the food chain"). "I don't want to be big-headed or anything, but I am quite popular," she says. "Only because I don't have a social life outside my bedroom, though." When I call her, 129 of her friends are online.

Facebook rush-hour is straight after school, and around nine or 10 in the evening. "You can have about 10 chats open at a time, then it gets a bit slow and you have to start deleting people," Philippa says. The topics? "General banter, light-hearted abuse. Lots of talk about parties and about photos of parties." Cred-wise, it's important to have a good, active Facebook profile: lots of updates, lots of photos of you tagged.

Sometimes, though, it ends in tears. Everyone has witnessed cyber-bullying, but the worst thing that happened to Philippa was when someone posted "a really dreadful picture of me, with an awful double chin", then refused to take it down. "She kept saying, 'No way, it's upped my profile views 400%,'" says Philippa. It's quite easy, she thinks, for people to feel "belittled, isolated" on Facebook.

There are other downsides. Following huge recent publicity, teens are increasingly aware of the dangers of online predators. "Privacy's a real issue," says Emily. "I get 'friend' requests from people I don't know and have never heard of; I ignore them. I have a private profile. I'm very careful about that."

A 2009 survey found up to 45% of US companies are now checking job applicants' activity on social networking sites, and 35% reported rejecting people because of what they found. Universities and colleges, similarly, are starting to look online. "You need to be careful," says Cameron Kirk, astute and aware even at 14. "Stuff can very easily get misunderstood." Emily agrees, but adds: "Personally, I love the idea that it's up there for ever. It'll be lovely to go back, later, and see all those emotions and relations."

Pew's Lenhart says research [by Danah Boyd of Microsoft Research] has revealed a class distinction in many teens' attitudes to online privacy. "Teens from college-focused, upper-middle-class familes tend to be much more aware of their online profiles, what they say about them, future consequences for jobs and education," she says. "With others, there's a tendency to share as much as they can, because that's their chance for fame, their possibility of a ticket out."

The question that concerns most parents, though, is whether such an unprecedented, near-immeasurable surge in non face-to-face communication is somehow changing our teenagers – diminishing their ability to conduct more traditional relationships, turning them into screen-enslaved, socially challenged adults. Yet teens, on the whole, seem pretty sensible about this. Callum O'Connor, 16, says there's a big difference between chatting online and face to face. "Face to face is so much clearer," he says. "Facebook and instant messaging are such detached forms of communication. It's so easy to be misinterpreted, or to misinterpret what someone says. It's terribly easy to say really horrible things. I'm permanently worrying – will this seem heartless, how many kisses should I add, can I say that?"

He's certain that what goes on online "isn't completely real. Some people clearly think it is, but I feel the difference. It's really not the same." Emily agrees: "It's weird. If I have a massive fight on Facebook, it's always, like, the next day, did it actually matter? Was it important? I always go up to the person afterwards and talk to them face to face, to see their emotions and their expressions. Otherwise you never know. It's complicated."

Emily is fairly confident that social networking and texting aren't changing who she is. "I'm the same online and in person. All this is an extension to real life, not a replacement." Olivia Stamp, 16 and equally self-aware, says she thinks social networking actually helps her to be more herself. "I think of myself as quite a shy person," she says. "So it's actually easier to be myself on Facebook because you can edit what you want to say, take your time; you don't feel awkward. I definitely feel more confident online – more like the self I know I really am, beneath the shyness."

These new communications technologies, Olivia says, are "an enhancement, an enrichment actually. They bring people even closer, in fact, without replacing anything. We're not socially abnormal. Look at us!" And the experts seem to back that up. Valkenburg says: "Our research gives no reason at present for concern about the social consequences of online communication – but it's early days. What if the constant self-confirmation teens experience online turns into excessive self-esteem, or narcissism? We don't know yet."

Lenhart puts it another way. "Our research shows face-to-face time between teenagers hasn't changed over the past five years. Technology has simply added another layer on top. Yes, you can find studies that suggest online networking can be bad for you. But there are just as many that show the opposite."

We should, she suggests, "Step back. The telephone, the car, the television – they all, in their time, changed the way teens relate to each other, and to other people, quite radically. And how did their parents respond? With the same kind of wailing and gnashing of teeth we're doing now. These technologies change lives, absolutely. But it's a generational thing."

SOURCE: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/16/teenagers-mobiles-facebook-social-networking