In a matter of months, social networking sites have gone from little-known internet backwaters to a daily feature in millions of young people's lives. Tristan Donovan asks whether youth workers should view such websites as an opportunity or a threat.

Two key extra elements to add to this:

#1: The National Youth Agency has commissioned research into how Youth Work should respond to the growth of Social Networking. The first stage of that research was a survey and I'm taking a quick break from writing up the results to type this... so they should be available soon...

More details on the research at http://blogs.nya.org.uk/ywsn/

#2: Plans are starting to form for an informal gathering/conference on Saturday May 17th to bring together the many discussions around this topic.

Details at http://www.timdavies.org.uk/2008/02/14/developing-barcampukyouthonline 

The event will be run along the style of a 'BarCamp' participant organised conference - so do get in touch if you'd like to be involved in shaping that gathering.

Great to see the feature on social networks and their potential positive uses. Would just like to take the opportunity to clarify a couple of things as I was misquoted: - I challenged the APYCO audience on their social media strategies not social network activities; - I also discussed with the author of the article the fact there is no uk-based statutory youth worker blogging, not as implied no-one using social networks (two very different things). Peace DK MediaSnackers Founder

I think social networking is a big messy place and a sure way to use up a whole lot of time achieving very little (in terms of 'youth work') - the aspect thats of real interest is what the technologies in social networking sites allow people & groups to do (some of which is in the article). Almost certainly whatever platform you choose to use it will rapidly change or another will soon supersede it in terms of functionality/popularity. DK's clarification on the distinction between 'social networking' and 'social media' is very important - what professionals working with young people need to develop skills in is not using social networking sites, but an understanding of the potential the technologies offer and how they can take advantage of this in their work with young people. To a degree this can be achieved on some social networking sites but it also needs experimentation with the very many different online resources for video & photo hosting, project management, research, communication tools & so on. The angle of the original article that social networking may somehow be in competition with youth work I find a bit silly - if youth work is truly desperately wondering why young people aren't attending they should first look inwardly - the research would have been better looking at how to take advantage of technologies and resources. Theres also some suggestion that social networking may have hit its peak: http://www.bbc.co.uk/1xtra/tx/social_networking.shtml Not that its likely to go away - but in a years time it certainly won't be what it is now......