Danah Boyd has conducted 10 years of research and hundreds of interviews for her new book, “It’s Complicated,” about how teens use social media. She found that while SOME kids have unhealthy addictions with computers and phones a more serious problem s that teens today have fewer places to socialize. A need filled by social media. She found that most teens today are using social media as means of typical socializing.
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20140319/NEWS01/303190196
http://www.amazon.com/Its-Complicated-Social-Lives-Networked/dp/0300166311
And another study on parenting strategies and online adolescent safety, the researchers found evidence that suggests that parents should try to establish a middle ground between keeping their teens completely away from the internet not monitoring their online activities at all.