FTC's Game Teaches Social Networking Skills

narramissic writes, "Your tax dollars at work. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has launched an online quiz-show style game called Buddy Builder to test young users' abilities to spot potential threats on social networking Web sites. Naturally, the teen audience this is intended to reach is not going to go near the game except as a joke."

A step in the right direction

[jcarkeys]

It might not be good at all, but someone needs to teach kids about the threats and hazards of social networking sites. It might seem cheesy, but at least we're getting people working on solutions to help teach children.

Re:A step in the right direction

[lawpoop]

This mentality reminds me of a sig I saw somewhere:

Public: "Something must be done!"

Politician: "This is something; therefore, it must be done!"

Doing something, anything, even if it's bad, is a bad idea. I think Americans suffer from a hysteria of action -- if there is a problem, we must act, immediately, screw the consequences! Any problem we encounter in any facet of our life is a result of someone not doing their job or something not working right, and it must be fixed immediately.

Sometimes you have to take the time to think and plan things out, and take the best course of action. Sometimes the best course of action is to *do nothing for the time being.* Haste makes waste.

I'm not saying that this is a good idea or not, just that I think that the mentality of 'we must do something' is wrong.

Re:what a waste of taxpayer $$$

[AP2k]

I think teaching a course of critical thinking skills would do kids far more than teaching them heuristics of bad things on the webbernet. You know, the "teaching a man to fish" thing.

Then again a great portion of graduates cant add 1 and 1, much less spell the equation in English...

Re:A step in the right direction

[Breakfast Pants]

I think you are wrong. It is more like:

Public: "Something is happening!"
Politician: "Everything must be done!"

Cue the Bear Patrol.

Oh My God!

[xQx]

My god?! Did anyone actually play that game??!! It was boring and crap! I've sat through Occupational Health and Safety lectures that were more fun and exciting than that.

The only thing that's good for is so the grade three students can have some "educational time on the internet" and play with the computers..

Really, I feel dumber having played that game -- seriously it says someone saying "hey baby - you look hot :) wanna chat?" is a threat?? That's never a threat, that's someone who's just found out they can message anyone in the world and say what they want without consequences.

If the aim is to make kids think that every educational authority wants to make piss weak applications and call them 'games' in an effort to push their conservitive views onto them... JOB WELL DONE!