Tag Archives: youth

The Unintended Consequences of Obsessing Over Consequences (or why to support youth risk-taking)

Developmental psychologists love to remind us that the frontal lobe isn’t fully developed until humans are in their mid-20s. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for our ability to assess the consequences of our decisions, our ability to understand how what we do will play out into the future. This is often used to explain why teens (and, increasingly, college-aged people) lack the cognitive ability to be wise. Following from this logic, there’s a belief that we must protect the vulnerable young people from their actions because they don’t understand their consequences.

This logic assumes that understanding future consequences is *better* than not understanding them. I’m not sure that I believe this to be true.

Certainly, when we send young people off to fight our wars, we don’t want them to think about the consequences of what they have to do to survive (and, thus, help us survive). It’s not that we want them to shoot first and ask questions later, but we don’t want them to overthink their survival instincts when they’re being shot at.

Reproduction is an interesting counter-example. There’s no doubt that teens moms do little in the way of thinking about the consequence of getting pregnant. But folks in their 30s spend an obscene amount of time thinking about what it means to reproduce. Intensive parenting is clearly the product of constantly thinking about consequences, but I’m not sure that it’s actually healthier for kids or parents. I would hypothesize that biology wins when we don’t overthink parenting while the planet (as a delicate environmental ecosystem that can barely support the population) wins when we do overthink these things. Just a guess.

Creativity is another interesting area. We often talk about how older people are more rigid in their thinking. I love listening to mathematicians discuss whether or not someone who has not had a breakthrough insight in their 20s can have one in their 40s/50s. Certainly in the tech industry, we’re obsessed with youth. But our obsession in many ways is rooted in risk-taking, in not thinking too much about the future.

As I get older, I’m painfully aware of my brain getting more ‘conservative’ (not in a political sense). I am more strategic in my thinking, more judgmental of people who just try something radical. I spend a lot more time telling the little voice of fear and anxiety and neuroticism to STFU. I look back at my younger years and reflect on how stupid I was and then I laugh when I think about how well some of my more ridiculous ideas paid off. I find myself actually thinking about consequences before taking risks and then I get really annoyed at myself because I’ve always prided myself on my fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants quality. In short, I can feel myself getting old and I think it’s really weird.

Most people judge from their current mental mindset, unable to remember a different mindset. Thus, I totally get why most people, if they’re undergoing the cognitive transition that I’ve watched myself do, would see young people’s risk-taking as inherently horrible. Sure, old folks respect the outcomes of some youth who change the world. But since most people don’t become Mark Zuckerberg, there’s more pressure to protect (and, often, confine) youth than to encourage their radical risk taking. And, of course, most risk-taking doesn’t result in a billion dollar valuation. Hell, most risk-taking has no chance of paying off. But it’s a weird, connected package. The same mindset that propelled me to do some seriously reckless, outright dangerous, and sometimes illegal things also prompted me to never say no to other institutional authorities in ways that allowed me to succeed professionally. This is why I don’t regret even the stupidist of things that I did as a youth. Of course, I’m also damn lucky that I never got caught.

I’m worried about our societal assumption that risk-taking without thinking of the consequences is an inherently bad thing. We need some radical thinking to solve many of the world’s biggest problems. And I don’t believe that it’s so easy to separate out what adults perceive as ‘good’ risk-taking from what they think is ‘bad’ risk-taking. But how many brilliant minds will we destroy by punishing their radical acts of defying authority? How many brilliant minds will we destroy by punishing them for ‘being stupid’? It’s easy to get caught up in a binary of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ when all that you can think about is the consequences. But change has never happened when people simply play by the rules. You have to break the rules to create a better society. And I don’t think that it’s easy to do this when you’re always thinking about the consequences of your actions.

I’m not arguing for anarchy. I’m too old for that. But I am arguing that we should question our assumption that people are better off when they have the cognitive capacity to think through consequences. Or that society is better off when all individuals have that mental capability. From my perspective, there are definitely pros and cons to overthinking and while there are certainly cases where future-aware thought is helpful, there are also cases where it’s not. And I also think that there are some serious consequences of imprisoning youth until they grow up.

Anyhow, fun thoughts to munch on this weekend…

“Teen Sexting and Its Impact on the Tech Industry” (my RWW talk)

In a cultural context where Congressman Anthony Weiner foolishly published salacious content on Twitter, it’s hard to ignore sexting as a cultural phenomenon. Countless adults send sexually explicit content to one another, either as acts of flirtation or more explicit sex acts. And yet, when teenagers do so, new issues emerge. Teen sexting gets complicated, especially when images or videos are involved, because it butts up against child pornography laws. Unfortunately, teens have been arrested on child pornography charges for taking or sharing images of themselves or their peers.

Teen sexting isn’t just an issue for parents, teens, and the law; it’s also a challenge for the tech industry. Because technology companies are required by law to work diligently to combat child pornography, sexting creates new challenges for them. In this talk for the Read Write Web 2WAY conference, I outline some of the challenges that the tech industry faces with respect to teen sexting. I also invite those in the tech industry to engage about this issue, either out of goodwill, monetary interest, or fear of legal liability.

“Teen Sexting and Its Impact on the Tech Industry”

Publicity and the Culture of Celebritization

In this month’s “Rolling Stone,” the magazine published an article called “Kiki Kannibal: The Girl Who Played With Fire”. The article tells the story of a 14-year-old teen in Florida who used MySpace to create a digital persona that attracted a lot of attention. An insecure and awkward teenager, Kirsten used MySpace to perform a confident, sexy persona named Kiki, sharing artistic photos that reveal a lot of skin. Not surprisingly, her sexy digital persona attracts a lot of attention – good, bad, and ugly. On one hand, she loves the validation; on the other, the stalking and personal attacks get increasingly severe and scary. This article raises all sorts of issues, in addition to those concerning attention, including sexual victimization (by a mentally unstable 18-year-old that she was dating), parental engagement (her parents encouraged her online participation as a depression-reducing strategy), and exploitation (by websites who profit off of drama). The story itself is actually quite complex, messy, and peculiar. It’s also quite clear that there’s a whole lot more to the story than what the journalist is able to pack into an article. Before Rolling Stone shut down the comments, people who said that they knew Kiki were commenting about how Kiki was more a bully than a victim and the self-declared mother of her now-dead ex was saying some fairly inflammatory things about Kiki. But in some senses, the details matter less than the overarching messy portrait. There are many fascinating aspects of this story and the ways in which it complicates how we think about teens and digital activities, but I want to drill down into the social factors involved in celebritization.

Part 1: Everyday Participation in the Attention Economy

As information swirls all around us, we have begun to build an attention economy where the value of a piece of content is driven by how much attention it can attract and sustain. It’s all about eyeballs, especially when advertising is involved. Countless social media consultants are swarming around Web2.0, trying to help organizations increase their status and profitability in the attention economy. But the attention economy doesn’t just affect the monetization of web properties; it’s increasingly shaping how people interact with one another.

Teens’ desire for attention is not new. Teens have always looked for attention and validation from others – parents, peers, and high-status individuals. And just as many in business argue that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, there are plenty of teens who believe that there’s no such thing as bad attention. The notion of an “attention whore” predates the internet. Likewise, the notion that a child might “act out” is recognized as being a call for attention. And it’s important to highlight that the gendered aspects of these tropes are reinforced online.

So what happens when a teen who is predisposed to seeking attention gets access to the tools of the attention economy? Needless to say, we see both exciting and horrifying events play out. We see teens like Tavi Gevinson propel her interest in fashion into a full-blown career before the age of 14. And we see countless teens replicating the trainwreck activities of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and other celebrities. When teens leverage social media to propel themselves into the spotlight, they fully (and with reckless abandon) engage in a set of practices that Terri Senft and Alice Marwick talk about as micro-celebrity. They work to manage their impressions, cultivate attention, and interact in ways that will increase their fame and social status.

Like it or not, the culture that we live in is saturated with narratives of celebrity success and celebrity failure. It’s downright hard to avoid Charlie Sheen’s meltdown or Kate Middleton’s wedding. With the rise of reality TV and the unfolding of major social media, individuals have felt closer than ever to the possibilities of celebrity. Celebrity becomes a correlate to a perfect life- money, designer clothes, and adulthood. What being a ‘celebrity’ means is discarded; fame is an end to itself with the assumption that fame equals all things awesome despite all the copious examples to the contrary. So teens only hold on to the positive aspects, hoping for the benefits of becoming famous and ignoring the consequences.

Kiki’s story is all about the celebritization of everyday life. She leveraged social media – and her image as a sexy young woman – to capture widespread attention. She turned herself into a commodity, and commoditized her popularity through her jewelry store. And the more attention she captured, the more she faced the benefits and costs of celebrity. Like her more famous peers – folks like Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato – Kiki attracted both fans and haters. But what’s different is that Lovato’s fame has come with a fortune and a whole lot of handlers; Kiki lacked the resources to handle the onslaught and never made it big enough to recoup the ground she lost to weather the fame.

To complicate matters more, Kiki is engaged in a set of attention-seeking practices that make most adults nervous. She’s not capturing massive attention through being a clean-cut geek, like Rebecca Black (of “Friday” fame). And she’s not the center of a controversy for violating social norms, like Alexandra Wallace (of “Asians in the Library” fame). Instead, she’s using her image and her creativity to express herself as a sexy young woman in a sex-saturated society that hypocritically loves sexualized imagery and deplores young women who engage in it. This leaves her in an awkward and tenuous position – she’s successful at attracting attention but, because it’s outside of the media machine and involves the tropes of underage sexuality, she’s also under attack and not defended.

Part 2: The Toxicity of Fame

In reading Kiki’s story, it’s hard not to wonder why she doesn’t just walk away from her digital persona. Sure, her digital business – which depends on her celebritization – would falter (and there are some interesting implications in this wrt her family’s limited resources). But if the cruelty is so psychologically harmful, is it really worth it?

For years, I worked for V-Day, an organization committed to ending violence against women and girls. I’ve met countless women who continually return to abusive relationships because the highs make the lows worth it. My own experiences required me to constantly push back against the voice in my head that said: “this time will be different, right?” Again, it comes down to attention. Being showered with love feels so good that it’s often easy to forget the bad days. There are countless reasons behind why those in abusive relationships stay in them, but one things clear: walking away from an abusive relationship is never easy.

Life in the spotlight can easily take the form of an abusive relationship. When the attention is good, it’s really good and it feels really good. And when the attention fades, people can feel lonely and anxious, desperate for more, even if it’s negative attention. But when the attention gets negative, things can easily spiral out of control. There are countless examples of celebrities for whom fame is a toxic substance. There’s always a cost to the attention. Herein lies a challenge… is the fame worth it?

Personally, I’ve always struggled with this. I have the great fortune of being highly visible and the rewards of my micro-fame have been tremendous. But I can’t say it’s been easy or that it’s always fun. It’s hard to stomach photoshopped images and cruel comments. And people aren’t always kind when they think that I don’t deserve the attention I’ve gotten. But, all things told, I have it pretty good. I’m confident in who I am; I have a successful career; and my haters aren’t that vicious. But I’ve managed to achieve enough attention to be wary of it and to appreciate how toxic and cruel a substance it can be. And there are certainly times when I find myself slipping into a pattern that I know so well, where I feel like my relationship with the internet has the same cycles of some of my more abusive relationships.

I’m not convinced that people of any age are well equipped to handle fame, let alone the cruel cycles that can come with it. Certainly, experience makes it easier to stomach, but Charlie Sheen’s meltdown should make it crystal clear that it’s not just teen girls who struggle with the spotlight. The thing about youth is that they often crave celebrity a lot more than adults. And their mental images of what it means are often distorted. So many teens that I interviewed over the years have talked about fame as freedom, failing to recognize the constraints that come with those golden handcuffs.

Kiki is living in a whirlwind of fame, attention, and commodification. She’s turned herself into someone to watch and those who are watching are asserting power over her in deeply problematic ways. She’s created a digital icon but her audience has objectified her, failing to recognize or value the person behind the icon. This puts her in a peculiar place with limited control. And that would be the precise location of celebrity.

I suspect we are going to see more and more stories of individuals who have wanted celebrity to more or lesser degrees and who are sucked into a tumultuous relationship with fame. And I suspect the public will swing between feeling sympathy for their plight and blaming them for putting themselves out there. This is certainly the case with respect to those brought into the public eye through reality TV and tabloid magazines, and even those who are fired from jobs or kicked out of school for what they post on Facebook or Twitter. But I fear that our collective objectification of very visible people is also going to get much worse as more individuals come to prominence online. And many of those for whom the worst vitriol is reserved are young women, especially those who transgress the social boundaries of what it means to be nice or sexually appropriate. Internet commenting makes it easy to spew venom towards those in the crosshairs of celebrity, but we should recognize this isn’t simply a position to be envied. Just because people benefit from being visible doesn’t mean that they have the wherewithal to stomach the attacks. At the same time, just because celebrity is an option doesn’t mean that it’s a healthy one.

Widespread celebritization is the flipside of the “attention economy” coin and I think that we have a lot of deep thinking to do about the implications of both of these. Both are already rattling society in unexpected ways and I’m not convinced that we have the social, psychological, or cultural infrastructure to manage what will unfold. Some people will become famous or rich. Others will commit suicide or drown attempting to swim in these rocky waves. This doesn’t mean that we should blockade the technologies that are emerging, but it’s high time that we start reflecting on the societal values that are getting magnified by them.

[This post wouldn’t have been possible without the help Alice Marwick, Mary Gray, and Mike Ananny.]

Digital Self-Harm and Other Acts of Self-Harassment

Sometimes, things aren’t what they appear to be. And, in those cases, jumping to the wrong conclusion can be a disservice to everyone.

After I first wrote about Formspring 7 months ago, I couldn’t stop thinking about teens who chose to respond to vicious or harassing questions (since only responses are ever posted publicly). Listening to teens, I had concluded that many out there were trying to prove that they were tough and could handle anything. And I’ve continued to hear that story in the field. But as I started looking into the negative commentary on teens’ pages, I felt like I didn’t have the full explanation.

A few weeks ago, I was with Sarahjane Sacchetti (the goddess of communications at Formspring) and we got to talking about what Formspring could do to help at-risk youth. She told me that they were working diligently to respond to upset parents who were outraged by anonymous bullying but that they had hit a stumbling block. As they started looking into specific cases of teens answering “anonymous” harassing questions, they started realizing that a number of vicious questions were posted by
the Formspring account owners themselves. They appeared on Formspring as anonymous but they were written by the owner while logged into their own account.[1] In other words, there are teens out there who are self-harassing by “anonymously” writing mean questions to themselves and then publicly answering them.

This should make you stop and swallow hard. And then sit back and realize that it’s not that surprising. What is happening on Formspring – and, likely, other sites where people can anonymously or pseudonymously post comments – can be understood as a form of digital self-harm. These teens are attacking themselves in a public forum while making it look like they’re being attacked by someone else. This is a very effective mechanism for getting attention. Thus far, I can work out three distinct explanations for why a teen might do this:

1. It’s a cry for help. Teens want their parents (and perhaps others in their lives) to notice them and pay attention to them, support them and validate them. They want these people to work diligently to stop the unstoppable but, more importantly, to spend time focused on helping them.

2. They want to look cool. In some schools, getting criticized is a sign of popularity. Simply put, you have to be cool to garner hate/jealousy/etc. By posting and responding to negative anonymous questions, it’s possible to look important by appearing to be cool enough to be attacked.

3. They’re trying to trigger compliments. When teens are anonymously attacked, their friends often jump in to say nice things in response to the negative commentary. Thus, a desirable side effect of attacks is a stream of positive support, compliments, and other loving messages.

All of these approaches are quite logical. By using the anonymous Q&A system, teens are able to make it appear like they’re getting attacked, which results in them getting attention in different ways. Of course, like any negative attention-seeking mechanism, it can also backfire if others gang up or if parents respond poorly.

It’s really important to highlight that digital self-harm is probably not the explanation behind the majority of negative anonymous comments out there, but the fact that it exists at all should be a warning to us all – and especially to parents who are trying to address bullying in their households. Supporting your daughter or son is not simply about finding the bully and prosecuting them or about going after their parents. Teens who are the victims of bullying – whether by a stranger, a peer, or themselves – are often in need of support, love, validation, and, most of all, healthy attention. I can’t tell you how many teens I’ve met who’ve been bullied by people at school who then turn to tell me about how their parents are absent – physically, mentally, or emotionally. And how often I hear teens complain about their parents trying to “fix” things by getting involved in all the wrong ways. Ways that make the dynamics around bullying so much worse. And it breaks my heart when I see teens respond to their parents’ helicoptering by engaging in self-harm practices through eating disorders or self-injury (“cutting”) as an attempt to gain some form of control over their lives. And it scares me to think that a digital equivalent is brewing, a form of digital self-harm where words can be as sharp as knives and are directed at oneself.

There is no doubt that the teens years can be very rocky as teens try to figure out the social world around them. Navigating popularity processes and social hierarchies is extremely challenging on the psyche. The increasing amount of stress in the lives of teens – especially by achievement-focused parents – doesn’t help. And there are teens who respond to these stresses by lashing out – at others and at themselves. It’s important that we don’t just focus on the symptoms but that we get to the root of the problem. Why are teens lashing out at others and themselves? What’s going on in their lives that’s prompting them to respond this way? We can’t fix the symptoms – and trying to paint over them does absolutely no good. We need to get to the root of the problem. And, all too often, the root of the problem starts with us adults.

[1] An alternative explanation could be that someone else is hacking into their account to write anonymous questions to them. While this is possible, it’s unlikely.

First image credit: Krisztina Tordai

Second image credit: Dimitri N.

Facebook & helicopter parenting

I recently received an email from a teen that I speak with that piqued my interest. I thought I’d share it with you:

My friend (17 yo girl) isn’t allowed on Facebook because she has helicopter parents.  She has one anyway under a pseudonym. She is also battling depression and has been going through many therapists. When I saw her a few days ago, she excitedly told me about how great her new therapist was. Her therapist lets her go on Facebook during the sessions.  While she uses Facebook, the therapist watches her use the site.  They have discussions around her photos and her friend’s status updates.  Apparently this is how the majority of her therapy sessions begin. This friend is prone to exaggeration, but the way she told the story passed my personal bullshit filter.

I regularly hear parents talk about how they want to keep their kids off of Facebook for any number of reasons. It kills me to hear this because they don’t understand that their pushing their kids to choose between social status and parental obedience. I don’t know whether or not this story is true, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I’ve watched too many teens be pushed into a corner by over-protective parents who think that they’re doing the right thing for their kids. But there’s nothing like social ostracization to increase depression. And I’ve heard too many stories from teens’ therapists about how parents are often a huge part of the problem.

If you’re a parent, please think twice before you get all control-freak on your teen kids. They need space to engage with friends in a healthy manner. And regardless of how you grew up, that means the Internet today. Exclusion isn’t a solution.

Combating Sexual Exploitation Online

Today, I testified in front of Martha Coakley and other members of the Massachusetts Attorney General Office as part of their Hearing on Sexual Solicitation Online. I spoke on behalf of my research (not as a part of Microsoft). I’ve spent the last 12 years working directly on issues related to violence against women and girls and so I felt that it was critically important to come to the table and express my concern about the approach many are taking with respect to technology. I was absolutely terrified but hopefully my message got through at least just a little bit.

I’ve posted my testimony online for anyone who wants to know what I said. Feel free to argue with me because I’d love to hear dissenting views on this issue.

“Combating Sexual Exploitation Online: Focus on the Networks of People, not the Technology”

Also, you should know that the Massachusetts AG’s office is taking written testimony until Friday October 22. So if you have something to say about this issue, I’d strongly encourage you to submit your own testimony.

Call for Papers: Digital Media & Learning Conference

Interested in Digital Media & Learning? Well, the 2011 Digital Media & Learning Conference is looking for some interesting talks, papers, and sessions. They’ve just launched the call for proposals. (I’m on the conference committee.)

…

The Digital Media and Learning Conference is an annual event supported by the MacArthur Foundation and organized by the Digital Media and Learning Research Hub at University of California, Irvine. The conference is meant to be an inclusive, international and annual gathering of scholars and practitioners in the field, focused on fostering interdisciplinary and participatory dialog and linking theory, empirical study, policy, and practice.

The second conference will be held between March 3-5, 2011 at the Hilton Long Beach Conference and Meeting Center in Long Beach, California. The theme will be “Designing Learning Futures”. The Conference Chair will be Katie Salen. The conference committee includes Kimberly Austin, danah boyd, Sheryl Grant, Mark Surman, Trebor Scholz and S. Craig Watkins. Keynote presentations will be given by Alice Taylor and Muki Hansteen-Izora. We are also planning a book exhibit and technology demos.

Social Steganography: Learning to Hide in Plain Sight

[Posted originally to the Digital Media & Learning blog.]

Carmen and her mother are close. As far as Carmen’s concerned, she has nothing to hide from her mother so she’s happy to have her mom as her ‘friend’ on Facebook. Of course, Carmen’s mom doesn’t always understand the social protocols on Facebook and Carmen sometimes gets frustrated. She hates that her mom comments on nearly every post, because it “scares everyone away…Everyone kind of disappears after the mom post…It’s just uncool having your mom all over your wall. That’s just lame.” Still, she knows that her mom means well and she sometimes uses this pattern to her advantage. While Carmen welcomes her mother’s presence, she also knows her mother overreacts. In order to avoid a freak out, Carmen will avoid posting things that have a high likelihood of mother misinterpretation. This can make communication tricky at times and Carmen must work to write in ways that are interpreted differently by different people.

When Carmen broke up with her boyfriend, she “wasn’t in the happiest state.” The breakup happened while she was on a school trip and her mother was already nervous. Initially, Carmen was going to mark the breakup with lyrics from a song that she had been listening to, but then she realized that the lyrics were quite depressing and worried that if her mom read them, she’d “have a heart attack and think that something is wrong.” She decided not to post the lyrics. Instead, she posted lyrics from Monty Python’s “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” This strategy was effective. Her mother wrote her a note saying that she seemed happy which made her laugh. But her closest friends knew that this song appears in the movie when the characters are about to be killed. They reached out to her immediately to see how she was really feeling.

Privacy in a public age

Carmen is engaging in social steganography. She’s hiding information in plain sight, creating a message that can be read in one way by those who aren’t in the know and read differently by those who are. She’s communicating to different audiences simultaneously, relying on specific cultural awareness to provide the right interpretive lens. While she’s focused primarily on separating her mother from her friends, her message is also meaningless to broader audiences who have no idea that she had just broken up with her boyfriend. As far as they’re concerned, Carmen just posted an interesting lyric.

Social steganography is one privacy tactic teens take when engaging in semi-public forums like Facebook. While adults have worked diligently to exclude people through privacy settings, many teenagers have been unable to exclude certain classes of adults – namely their parents – for quite some time. For this reason, they’ve had to develop new techniques to speak to their friends fully aware that their parents are overhearing. Social steganography is one of the most common techniques that teens employ. They do this because they care about privacy, they care about misinterpretation, they care about segmented communications strategies. And they know that technical tools for restricting access don’t trump parental demands to gain access. So they find new ways of getting around limitations. And, in doing so, reconstruct age-old practices.

Ancient methods

Steganography is an ancient technique where people hide messages in plain sight. Invisible ink, tattoos under hair on messengers, and messages embedded in pictures are just a few ways in which steganography is employed. Cryptographers are obsessed with steganography, in part because it’s hardest to decode a message when you don’t know where to look. This is precisely why spy movies LOVE steganography. Of course, average people have also employed techniques of hiding in plain sight for a long time, hiding information in everyday communication, knowing that it’ll only be interpreted by some. Children love employing codes and adults generally pretend as though they can’t understand pig Latin or uncover the messages that children hide using invisible ink pens purchased from toy stores. Yet, as children grow up, they get more mature about their messaging, realizing that language has multiple layers and, with it, multiple meanings. They often learn this by being misinterpreted.

What fascinates me is that teens are taking these strategies into the digital spaces, recognizing multiple audiences and the challenges of persistence, and working to speak in layers. They are not always successful. And things that are meant to mean one thing are often misinterpreted in all sorts of the wrong ways. But that doesn’t mean teens aren’t experimenting and learning. In fact, I’d expect that they’re learning more nuanced ways of managing privacy than any of us adults. Why? Because they have to. The more they live in public, the more I expect them to hide in plain sight.

Image credit: Jon McGovern

(This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.)

MySpace and Facebook: How Racist Language Frames Social Media (and Why You Should Care)

(This post was written for Blogher and originally posted there.)

Every time I dare to talk about race or class and MySpace & Facebook in the same breath, a public explosion happens. This is the current state of things.  Unfortunately, most folks who enter the fray prefer to reject the notion that race/class shape social media or that social media reflects bigoted attitudes than seriously address what’s at stake.  Yet, look around. Twitter is flush with racist language in response to the active participation of blacks on the site. Comments on YouTube expose deep-seated bigotry in uncountable ways. The n-word is everyday vernacular in MMORPGs. In short, racism and classism permeates every genre of social media out there, reflecting the everyday attitudes of people that go well beyond social media. So why can’t we talk about it?

Let me back up and explain the context for this piece … three years ago, I wrote a controversial blog post highlighting the cultural division taking shape.  Since then, I’ve worked diligently to try to make sense of what I first observed and ground it in empirical data.  In 2009, I built on my analysis in  “The Not-So-Hidden Politics of Class Online”, a talk I gave at the Personal Democracy Forum.  Slowly, I worked to write an academic article called “White Flight in Networked Publics? How Race and Class Shaped American Teen Engagement with MySpace and Facebook” (to be published in a book called Digital Race Anthology, edited by Lisa Nakamura and Peter Chow-White).  I published a draft of this article on my website in December.  Then, on July 14, Christoper Mims posted a guest blog post at Technology Review entitled “Did Whites Flee the ‘Digital Ghetto’ of MySpace?” using my article as his hook.  I’m not sure why Mims wrote this piece now or why he didn’t contact me, but so it goes.

Mims’ blog post prompted a new wave of discussion about whether or not there’s a race-based (or class-based) division between MySpace and Facebook today. My article does not address this topic. My article is a discussion of a phenomenon that happened from 2006-2007 using data collected during that period. The point of my article is not to discuss whether or not there was a division — quantitative data shows this better. My goal was to analyze American teenagers’ language when talking about Facebook and MySpace. The argument that I make is that the language used by teens has racialized overtones that harken back to the language used around “white flight.” In other words, what American teens are reflecting in their discussion of MySpace and Facebook shows just how deeply racial narratives are embedded in everyday life.

So, can we please dial the needle forward? Regardless of whether or not there’s still a race and class-based division in the U.S. between MySpace and Facebook, the language that people use to describe MySpace is still deeply racist and classist. Hell, we see that in the comments of every blog post that describes my analysis. And I’m sure we’ll get some here, since online forums somehow invite people to unapologetically make racist comments that they would never say aloud. And as much as those make me shudder, they’re also a reminder that the civil rights movement has a long way to go.

Race and class shape contemporary life in fundamental ways. People of color and the working poor live the experiences of racism and classism, but how this plays out is often not nearly as overt as it was in the 1960s. But that doesn’t mean that it has gone away.

There is still bigotry, and the divisions run deep in the U.S. We often talk about the Internet as the great equalizer, the space where we can be free of all of the weights of inequality. And yet, what we find online is often a reproduction of all of the issues present in everyday life. The Internet does not magically heal old wounds or repair broken bonds between people. More often, it shows just how deep those wounds go and how structurally broken many relationships are.

In this way, the Internet is often a mirror of the ugliest sides of our society, the aspects of our society that we so badly need to address. What the Internet does — for better or worse — is make visible aspects of society that have been delicately swept under the rug and ignored. We could keep on sweeping, or we could take the moment to rise up and develop new strategies for addressing the core issues that we’re seeing. Bigotry doesn’t go away by eliminating only what’s visible. It is eradicated by getting at the core underlying issues. What we’re seeing online allows us to see how much work there’s left to do.

In writing “White Flight in Networked Publics?”, I wanted to expose one aspect of how race and class shape how people see social media. My goal in doing so was to push back at the utopian rhetorics that frame the Internet as a kumbaya movement so that we can focus on addressing the major social issues that exist everywhere and are exposed in new ways via social media. When it comes to eradicating bigotry, I can’t say that I have the answers. But I know that we need to start a conversation. And my hope — from the moment that I first highlighted the divisions taking place in 2007 — is that we can use social media as both a lens into and a platform for discussing cultural inequality.

So how do we get started?

Photo credit: Moyix on Flickr

Facebook’s Panic Button: Who’s panicking? And who’s listening?

First, I commend Facebook for taking child safety seriously. When I was working with them as part of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, I was always impressed by their concern. I think that there’s a mistaken belief that Facebook doesn’t care about child safety. This was the message that many propagated when Facebook balked at implementing the “Panic Button” in the UK. As many news articles recently reported, Facebook finally conceded last week to implementing it after enormous pressure by safety advocates. Their slowness in agreeing to do so was attributed to their lack of caring, but this is simply not true. There are actually very good reasons to be wary of the “Panic Button.” My fear is that the lack of critical conversation about the “Panic Button” will result in people thinking it’s a panacea, rather than acknowledging its limitations and failings. Furthermore, touting it as a solution obscures the actual dangers that youth face.

The “Panic Button” is actually an App called “ClickCEOP”. Users must add the App and then they get a tab so that there’s a button there whenever they need to talk to the police’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. They’re encouraged to share the badge as a way of protecting their friends.

Pressure to create the “Panic Button” came after the horrific murder of 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall by a 33-year-old serial sex offender named Peter Chapman who approached the teen on Facebook. Reports suggest that he told her he was a teenage boy, although she also knew that none of her friends knew him. She lied to her parents to leave the house to meet up with him at which point he abducted, raped, and murdered her. Why she started conversing with him is unknown. Why – after being convicted of other sex crimes against minors – he was out on the streets and not being monitored is also unclear. All that is known is that this is the kind of tragedy that constitutes every parent’s worst nightmare.

Safety advocates used Hall’s terrible death to rally for a Panic Button. But what would this have done? She was clearly willing to converse with him and had no reservations about meeting up with him. None of her friends knew she was conversing with him. Nor did her parents. The heartbreaking reality of most rape and murder cases of this type is that the teen knowingly meets up with these men. When it involves teens, it’s usually because they believe that they’re in love, value the attention, and are not even thinking about the risks. Online Panic Buttons do absolutely nothing to combat the fundamental challenge of helping youth understand why such encounters are risky.

CEOP invites people to implement the ClickCEOP tab with the following questions:

Do you sometimes struggle to find answers to things that worry you online?
Had bad wall posts from people you don’t know?
Had a chat conversation that went sour?
Seen something written about you that isn’t true, or worse?
Has your account ever been hacked, even just as a joke?

These are serious questions and serious issues, the heart of bullying. They aren’t really about predation, but that doesn’t make them any less important. That said, how can the police help with every teen who is struggling with the wide range of bullying implied, from teasing to harassment? Even if every teen in the UK were to seriously add this and take it seriously, there’s no way that the UK police have a fraction of the resources to help teens manage challenging social dynamics. As a result, what false promises are getting made?

Many of the teens that I encounter truly need help. They need supportive people in their lives to turn to. I desperately want to see social services engage with these youth. But what I find over and over again is that social services do not have the resources to help even a fraction of the youth that come to them. So when we create a system where we tell youth that they have an outlet and then they use it and we don’t live up to our side of the bargain, then what? Many of the teens that I interviewed told me of their efforts to report problems to teachers, guidance counselors, parents, etc. only to no avail. That left them feeling more helpless and alone. What’s the risk of CEOP doing this to youth?

Finally, what’s the likelihood that kids (or adults) will click on this as a joke or just to get attention? How is CEOP going to handle the joke clicks vs. the real ones? How will they discern? One thing you learn from dealing with helplines is that kids often call in to talk about their friends when they’re really looking for help for themselves. It’s easier to externalize first to test the waters. The CEOP may get prank messages that are real cries for help. What happens when those go unanswered?

The press are all reporting this as being a solution to predation, but the teens who are at-risk for dangerous sexual encounters with adults are not going to click a Panic Button because they think that they know what they’re doing. CEOP is advertising this as a tool for bullying, but it’s not clear to me that they have the resources (or, for that matter, skillset) to handle the mental health issues they’re bound to receive on that end. And users may use this for a whole host of things for which it was never designed. The result, if anyone implements it at all, could be a complete disaster.

So why do I care that another well-intentioned technology is out there and will likely result in no change? I care because we need change. We need to help at-risk youth. And a tremendous amount of effort and energy is being expended to implement something that is unlikely to work but makes everyone feel as though the problem is solved. And I fear that there will be calls in the US to implement this without anyone ever evaluating the effectiveness of such an effort in the UK. So I respect Facebook’s resistance because I do think that they fully understand that this won’t help the most needy members of their community. And I think that the hype around it lets people forget about those most at-risk.

To my friends across the pond… Please help evaluate this “solution.” Please tell us what is and is not working, what kinds of cases the CEOP receives and how they handle them. Any data you can get your hands on would be greatly appreciated. I realize that it’s too late to stop this effort, but I really hope that people are willing to treat it as an experiment that must be evaluated. Cuz goddess knows the kids need us.