When teens get hands on mouse, they connect in many ways

Kayla McGraw first went online when she was in the fourth grade, and she's still there.

"It's played a huge role in my education," said the 17-year-old senior at Bishop Maginn High School in Albany and parishioner of St. Catherine of Siena parish.

For many teens, the internet is more than just a repository of information; it's also a social necessity, an academic tool and a facilitator of fun. It shapes their conversations, buoys their schoolwork, presents new challenges and solves old problems.

Online chats

Instant-messaging (IM), according to Kayla, is increasingly where teens go to talk about the latest news, gossip and schoolwork while simultaneously doing research and writing papers.

"The internet is the new get-together space," agreed Peter Carlisi, 16, a parishioner of St. Clement's Church in Saratoga Springs and junior at Saratoga Central Catholic High School. "You don't even have to leave your house."

AOL Instant Messenger, for example, allows teens to trade text messages over their internet connection while they share files and photos, and play games.

All at once

Teens like the ability IM gives them to chat with a number of people at the same time, and reach faraway friends and family at no cost.

"All I have to do is click on their name and write whatever I want, and they can instantly reply back to me. It's simpler than calling them up, and you can talk to multiple people at one time, and keep in touch with people you don't see on a daily basis," Kayla said.

Some teens, like David Nopper, a 17-year-old senior at Bishop Maginn High School and parishioner at St. Mary's in Clinton Heights, sign on for short periods. Others, like Kayla, keep IM running on their computers constantly.

In touch

Becky Schubmehl, 17, a Maginn senior and a parishioner of St. Thomas the Apostle parish in Delmar, uses IM to speak with her sister, who is away at college.

Genevieve Henel, a junior at Spa Catholic, relies on IM to speak with her five older brothers, who no longer live at home, and a cousin studying abroad.

Veronica Janssen, 16, a parishioner of St. Catherine's Church in Albany, said that, with IM, "I feel like I'm more open, like I'm more myself. It's easier to say what you're really thinking."

On the other hand, Karissa Seeberger, a 16-year-old parishioner of St. Vincent de Paul Church in Cobleskill, prefers one-on-one communication, saying that IM "detracts from real conversation, and it takes so long to get one point across. It's so much easier to explain things when you're face to face with someone or on the phone."

Drawbacks

The openness they feel on IM may have a dark side, some teens acknowledge.

Lauren Fealey, 15 and a St. Catherine's parishioner, said, "You can get into big fights online" because of misinterpretations that can sometimes happen when there's just text on a screen.

Peter doesn't use an IM service because of problems he's seen involving internet gossip, "where one person says something and then it gets sent all over and everyone knows what you said."

Teens also know the dangers of the internet. Gwen Janssen, 16, from St. Catherine's, said, "I would never go to chat rooms. That's so sketchy, and you never know what's on the other end."

Knowledge resource

For many students, the internet has replaced the card catalogue as the first place to go for research. Search-engine technology puts traditional resources like books and academic papers at teens' fingertips alongside new-media solutions like web-sites, blogs and online archives.

"It's so easy," said Kayla. "It's convenient. You can search for very specific things, and there's an unlimited amount of resources."

For example:

* Kayla checks every Monday and Friday for stock quotes to help her do well on an economics project meant to help her class learn about the stock market;

* When David wants the definition of a word, he checks webster.com, the home of the Merriam-Webster dictionary, instead of running to a bookshelf;

* Becky periodically refers to sparknotes.com, which archives resources about fiction and non-fiction for assistance with her English homework; and

* Andrew Christian, a 17-year-old Maginn senior and parishioner of St. James Church in Albany, found himself stuck on an AP English project involving Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" until a five-minute visit to a search engine gave him resources he needed. "All you have to do is click here, click there, and there you go," he said.

Classroom rules

Genevieve said that some of her teachers in Spa Catholic use the internet to facilitate learning by posting online classroom resources, such as class notes, homework assignments and resource listings.

Teachers often adopt policies that limit the amount of internet resources students can use and codes of conduct that assist students in differentiating good sources of information from faulty ones.

"My school tells us to be cautious about what we find on the internet," Karissa explained. "It's really important to make sure you get it from an actual source, because anybody can start a website."

Church on web

The Catholic presence on the internet is known to teens. For example, many of the Maginn students go to the web for information about the lives of the saints.

In April, Karissa went online to find out more news about the election of Pope Benedict XVI. Becky, who goes to St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Delmar, relies on the internet to help her develop a curriculum for the first-grade religious education class she teaches.

"I use religious web sites a lot," she said, to find crafts and prayers that are age-appropriate for her students. "It helps me make class more fun."

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