If children spend a lot of their time online, they may not be gaining the experience they should be having in two important respects. First, most of their interactions online are dyadic rather than involving many individuals in a group. Second, if someone does kick metaphorical sand in their face, they can simply pull the plug; there is no obligation to learn how to compromise. If so, their social skills will be less well developed, and, as a consequence, the size of social network they can handle is likely to be smaller. They may also be less good at dealing with rejection, offence and
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