apophenia :: youth culture

June 11, 2009

Twitter is for friends; Facebook is everybody

I was talking with a friend of mine today who is a senior at a technology-centered high school in California. Dylan Field and his friends are by no means representative of US teens but I always love his perspective on tech practices (in part cuz Dylan works for O'Reilly and really thinks deeply about these things). Noodling around, I asked him if many of his friends from his school used Twitter and his response is priceless:

Dylan: "as for twitter, we are totally not representative, but ya a lot of people use twitter. it's funny because the way they are using it is not the way most do... they make private accounts and little sub-communities form. like cliques, basically. so they can post stuff they don't want people on fb to see, since fb is everybody. it's odd, because the way i see it get used with my friends is totally contradictory to what everyone is saying. people seem to think teens hate twitter because it's totally public, but the converse is actually true. but it's not everyone... probably 10-15% at most."

As someone who has argued about the challenge of Twitter being public (to all who hold power over teens), I find this push-back to be extremely valuable. What Dylan is pointing out is that the issue is that Facebook is public (to everyone who matters) and Twitter can be private because of the combination of tools AND the fact that it's not broadly popular.

My guess is that if Twitter does take off among teens and Dylan's friends feel pressured to let peers and parents and everyone else follow them, the same problem will arise and Twitter will become public in the same sense as Facebook. This of course raises a critical question: will teens continue to be passionate about systems that become "public" (to all that matter) simply because there's social pressure to connect to "everyone"?

Category: youth culture

Tags: Twitter Facebook public privacy friends

   

Posted by zephoria at 1:44 PM | Comments (35) | TrackBack (0)

May 27, 2009

when teachers and students connect outside school

In my last entry, I made a comment about the value of "cool" teachers interacting with students on social network sites. I received some push-back from non-educators. Most of the concerns revolved around teachers' ethics and their responsibilities with respect to legal structures like the Federal Rights and Privacy Act. There were also concerns that teachers who would interact with students in these environments would be putting themselves at risk.

There is undoubtedly a lot of fear about teacher-student interactions, both in the US and elsewhere. All too often, there is an assumption that when teachers interact with students out of the classroom, they have bad intentions. This breaks my heart because, for all of the fear, most of the teachers that I've met in my line of work have really meant well by their students and their engagement with their students has helped their students tremendously. I've heard so many stories of teachers intervening and helping kids who really need it. Stupid things like giving them lunch money or being there to listen to their woes or helping a first generation kid learn about college.

The fear about teacher-student interactions also worries me at a broader societal level. A caring teacher (a genuinely well-intended, thoughtful, concerned adult) can often turn a lost teen into a teen with a mission. Many of us are lucky to have parents who helped us at every turn, but this is by no means universal. There are countless youth out there whose parents are absent, distrustful, or otherwise sources of frustration rather than support and encouragement. Teens need to have adults on their side. When I interview teens who have tough family lives (and I'm not talking about abuse here) but are doing OK themselves, I often find that it's a teacher or pastor that they turn to for advice. All too often, the truly troubled kids that I meet have no adults that they can turn to for support.

Do teachers have to comply with federal privacy laws? Absolutely. Do they need to maintain a high level of ethics when engaging with students at all times? Most definitely. But I worry when folks translate this to suggest that teachers should never interact with a teen outside of the prescribed setting of a classroom. As a society, we desperately need non-custodial adults who teens can turn to for advice. Adults who can help guide youth without playing their parents.

Most of what teachers hear from students outside of the classroom might be answerable by students' parents if only youth felt comfortable asking them. Teachers get asked about learning in general (e.g., "Why should I care about Shakespeare anyhow?"). They get asked health and sex-ed questions (e.g., "When will I get my period?"). They get asked for relationship advice (e.g., "How do I ask Alex to go to prom with me?"). They get asked about the future (e.g., "How do I get into college?"). Teachers get asked about the serious and the mundane, the personal and the abstract. But most of it has nothing to do with harm or abuse. Youth turn to teachers because they trust them, because they need advice from an adult and because they think that a trusted teacher might be honest with them. While some teens have other adults they can turn to, this isn't the case for all teens. And for those teens in particular, it's absolutely crucial that teachers are able to be there.

Students used to approach teachers before/after school, during lunch, or between classes. I've found that in many schools, this is no longer viable. These days, strict rules about being on campus before/after school and limitations to student mobility during school often make such face-to-face encounters untenable during the school day. As teachers started encouraging students to email homework assignments, students started approaching teachers online. Not surprisingly, social network sites (and IM) have come in as a new wave of this.

Teachers do not have to be a student's friend to be helpful, but being a Friend (on social network sites) is not automatically problematic or equivalent to trying to be a kids' friend. When it comes to social network sites, teachers should not invade a student's space. But if a student invites a teacher to be present, they should enter in as a teacher, as a mentor, as a guide. This isn't a place to chat up students, but if a student asks a question of a teacher, it's a great place to answer the student. The key to student-teacher interactions in networked publics is for the teacher to understand the Web2.0 environment and to enter into student space as the mentor (and only when invited to do so). (Translation: teachers should NEVER ask a student to be their Friend on Facebook/MySpace but should accept Friend requests and proceed to interact in the same way as would be appropriate if the student approached the teacher after school.) Of course, if a teacher wants to keep their social network site profile separate from their students, they should feel free to deny student requests. But if they feel as though they can help students in that space, they should be welcome to do so.

We used to live in a world where space dictated context. This is no longer the case. Digital technologies collapse social contexts all the time. The key to figuring out boundaries in a digital era is not to try to revert to space. The key is to focus on people, roles, relationships, and expectations. A teacher's role in relation to a student should not end at the classroom door. When a teacher runs into a student at a local cafe, they are still that student's teacher. When a teacher runs into a student online, they are still that student's teacher. Because of the meaning of a teacher-student relationship, that should never be relaxed; the role of teacher should always be salient (except when the teacher also happens to be the parent which is when things get very murky very fast).

If a teacher is capable of interacting with students as a teacher in environments other than the classroom, they should be empowered to do so (and given the tools to do so well). On the ground, many teachers are motivated to help students beyond the classroom and many students need that help. To prevent them from doing so, to say that they shouldn't respond when a student asks for their help simply because of the technology, is to do damage to students and society more broadly. Teachers certainly don't enter the profession for the money; they typically enter it for the service and the potential to help. I am worried about mandates that prevent teachers from doing what they can to help youth.

So here's a question to the teachers out there: What do you think is the best advice for other teachers when it comes to interacting with students on social network sites? When should teachers interact with students outside of the classroom? What are appropriate protocols for doing so? How can teachers best protect themselves legally when interacting with students? How would you feel if you were told never to interact with a student outside of the classroom?

Category: youth culture

Tags: teachers advice support web2.0 facebook myspace

   

Posted by zephoria at 12:06 PM | Comments (19) | TrackBack (0)

May 16, 2009

answers to questions from Twitter on teen practices

Before I headed to Atlanta to do fieldwork, I asked folks who follow me on Twitter (@zephoria) what questions I should ask teens. Many of the questions that I received were more general questions about teens, rather than questions for teens. Still, I'm going to take a stab at very briefly answering some of the questions that I received based on what I know and what I learned. I am not answering the larger questions that would require pages and pages and my apologies if my short answers are not sufficient but I wanted to at least respond. Thank you all who contributed questions and my apologies if I didn't answer yours.

To all who asked questions about Twitter: average teens don't use Twitter. They may in the future, but they do not now. Those who do are early adopters and not representative of any mainstream teen practice. Because of Oprah and celebs, some teens are starting to hear about it, but they don't understand it and they aren't using it.

@connyb: Parents' concerned with what kids do online, right? I'd ask teens if they know what exactly their parents do at their dayjobs.

Teens do not tend to know exactly what their parents do, nor do they particularly care. (It's important to note that parental concern stems from a position of power, not interest in the actual activities.)

@mauraweb: when they're searching for info, how do they know what info to trust? esp. w/internet searches

Media literacy amongst teens is extremely varied, but the short answer is that most don't know what to trust. They know that they are not supposed to trust Wikipedia because it's editable (and they automatically recall Wikipedia when you ask about trustworthy information.. that's so actively hammered down their throat, it's painful). One girl told me that she trusts websites that "look" like they are reputable. When I asked her about this, she told me that she could "just tell" when something was a good source. And besides, it came from Google. Le sigh.

@AlterSeekers: According to Facebook Era, Teens see email as a "work" tool and prefer to Facebook message. Is this true among these teens?

I was surprised to find that email is deader than ever among teens. As more of their parents and teachers are getting on Facebook (or MySpace), they see little reason to email with anyone. Thus, email is increasingly needed for having an account on various sites and for getting access to or sending attachments. But even when teens do use email for "work", they do not use it for social purposes.

@mirroredpool: What borders to teens place of social networking sites and education? How would they react to using an SNS to do class work?

@annejonas: i'm curious if they want schools involved in social networks or if they like it as a social space outside the realm of formal edu.

This is messy. Many teens have ZERO interest in interacting with teachers on social network sites, but there are also quite a few who are interested in interacting with SOME teachers there. Still, this is primarily a social space and their interactions with teachers are primarily to get more general advice and help. In some ways, its biggest asset in the classroom is the way in which its not a classroom tool and not loaded this way. Given that teens don't Friend all of their classmates, there are major issues in terms of using this for groupwork because of boundary issues.

@shcdean: What future do they see for FB or Twitter.

They don't use Twitter. When asked, teens always say that they'll use their preferred social network site (or social media service) FOREVER as a sign of their passion for it now. If they expect that they'll "grow out of it", it's a sign that the service is waning among that group at this very moment. So they're not a good predictor of their own future usage.

@lazygal: Do they really care about/use school library websites? Twitter? Pageflakes? Libguides? or only if teacher insists?

Nope, they don't. All but Twitter are categorized as school tools and are only used when absolutely necessary and Google won't suffice.

@anindita: My favorite question: read anything good lately?

I asked "Recent book that you enjoyed" on my questionnaire. Half said "none" and most said books they read in school (with a *). Books that were mentioned: City of Bones, Ashes & Glass, A Year of Impossible Goodbyes, The Outsiders*, Drama High Series, Mice and Men*, Catcher in the Rye*, The Poisonwood Bible*, Twilight series (twice).

@texas_sooner: I'd be interested to know if teens denied access to SNS (by parents/choice/SES reasons etc ) feel left out/pressure to join, etc.

Parental restrictions are a huge source of frustration because of a sense of isolation. (As a result, they are typically ignored.) SES is not actually a predictor of non-use at this point except in more rural regions where Internet access is generally absent for the majority of teens. In these cases, teens don't feel left out because they aren't being socially isolated by it.

@SavvyPriya: what is one thing that teens are passionate about?

This varies across teens, but God comes up a lot. The only thing that really competes is friends. Family is also important to some teens. School and sports are also important to some teens. And then some teens have particular hobbies or activities that they love. But God and friends really dominate the passion list.

@paullowe: where do they get their news from and what kind of news do they want to get

Teens primarily get their news from word-of-mouth, not directly from any particular source. School current events and TV time are the other dominant place I hear about. Otherwise, it's generally osmosis. They walk through the living room when their parents are watching the news. Or they pass by a news article when they get online. But they are not directly and intentionally consuming much news at all.

@thornet: ask 'em how they judge whether a news outlet is credible.teens r good @ spotting fakes & phonies;wonder what their news criteria r

They don't watch a lot of news and they have no media literacy training and they're not even thinking about credibility of news.

@andrewmiller: how does having a smartphone change their interactions w/each other on SNS? more photos/videos? faster rumors? have/have-not gap?

A gap is definitely occurring. A smart phone means more more more more more - more SMS, more web consumption, more status updates, more photos, etc. Certain smart phones are desperately desired items. That said, teens are also doing quite well with the iPod Touch + wifi as an alternative. Smart phones are helping them stay more engaged and connected.

@shawncalhoun: Were teens more engaged in politics by Obamas #socialmedia storm? If so has engagmnt continued evolved in2 something new or faded?

Most teens are pretty oblivious to his social media practices. That's actually hitting the college/20-somethings more.

@alexleavitt: Ask them if they feel like they'll want to develop the social Net when they get older: eg., developers developers developers.

No. Most don't associate using social media with computer science or developing software whatsoever. And the classes on programming in their schools aren't helping.

@pbernard: do they still care about changing the ringtone on their phone, even though they make less and less calls?

Ringtones are tricky with American youth because it very much depends on who pays for the phone/ringtones. Among teens who can change their ringtones whenever they want, there's still motivation. The phone still rings (and beeps with new SMSes) and having a cool sound is desired. But of course many teens spend most of their day with their phones on buzz-only.

@harraton: Do they care about their privacy?

VERY much so. But what constitutes privacy for them is often quite different than what constitutes privacy for adults. Privacy is not dead.

@simonchambers: I'd ask how they see themselves helping to solve problems like climate change and extreme poverty...

They don't. Most teens are not that engaged with larger societal issues (except as activities to get into college). This makes sense - they are not part of public life. They have no voice. They don't hear the debates. They aren't exposed to much beyond their narrow worlds. And, for most of them, their parents aren't involved either.

@dougthomas: Teens; what are their thoughts about downloading songs? films? software? without paying for it.

They want access. Their parents won't pay for it. They don't have credit cards. They get what they are looking for by any means necessary. And those who get access to it traffic in that content among their peers who may be less technologically savvy/economically privileged.

@jamesb: how does their mobile contacts differ from social network contacts? When do they crossover?

Mobile consists of their closest friends because of the economics of the phone. Social network sites are their broader peer group. Their closest friends are a subset of their broader peer group.

@alfredtwo: Do teens view all adults in social networking the same or are parents a special case? Young relatives friend me not their parents

Depends on the teen, but many are happy to connect with adults who don't directly hold power over them or who they "trust" - aunts, older cousins, youth pastors, "cool" teachers, etc.

@mjmantey: how aware are they of general advertising/marketing ways and means?

If it has advertising, they think that it means that it'll be free for a long time. But they don't really think much about it.

@mojo_girl: how many email accounts do they have that parents don't know about- do they use same password 4 all #socialmedia ? #teens

They don't use email so it's more a matter of which ones they forgot about. They often forget their passwords so I would guess that they don't use the same password consistently. Of course, they also share certain passwords with their closest "trusted" friends so that gets messy really fast. And they change it when there's a breakup.

@matlockmatlock: OMGSEXTINGWTF?

Continuing to be present and very very messy. Sharing of naked photos seems to be more prevalent in certain teen groups than others and I'm still trying to work out what this means.

An interesting question from the comments:

maxoid: is there any data on teen usage of Capitalization and proper grammar vs. SMS-shorthand and all-lowercase? (is format now used as a way to stand out from adults as much as langauge has long been?)

You can definitely look to certain subcultural practices to witness distinctions, such as the culture around AzN pRiDe. But there are huge differences between linguistic practices that are meant to be distinct and culturally resistant (such as those that are actually hard to produce) and those that are meant to make communication easier (fast IMing) or accommodate techno-economic limitations (160 chars). It's important to remember that a lot of our writing (and speaking) is intentionally redundant to account for issues in hearing and penmanship. With typing, a lot of this falls by the wayside and it's hard to argue against shorthand except to cling to inertia. Language changes. New genres of media change language. Expect things to change. Expect new generations to be pulled between what they will see as "obvious" shifts and what they'll be forced to accommodate by those who demand status quo.

Category: youth culture

Tags: teens questions twitter socialmedia

   

Posted by zephoria at 4:44 PM | Comments (27) | TrackBack (0)

November 30, 2008

reflections on Lori Drew, bullying, and solutions to helping kids

The involvement of Lori Drew (an adult) in the suicide of Megan Meier has been an unavoidable topic. Last week, Drew was tried on three counts of accessing computers without authorization, a legal statute meant to stop hackers. She was acquitted of all felonies but convicted of three misdemeanors. The lawsuit itself was hugely problematic and clearly the result of prosecutors wanting to get her on anything. But in focusing on the technology, prosecutors reinforced the problematic view that technology has anything to do with this atrocity.

Let's be clear. Megan Meier's suicide is a tragedy. The fact that it was precipitated by bullying is horrific. And the fact that an adult was involved is downright heinous. But by centering the conversation around MySpace, people lose track of the core problems here.

Lori Drew is a quintessential "helicopter parent." She believed that Meier was bullying her daughter. She also believed that her daughter was innocent of any wrong-doing. (While there is no way to prove or disprove that latter belief, it is uber important for parents to understand that most bullying is reciprocal. Teens bully back and the severity typically escalates over time.) Rather than teaching her daughter to take the high ground, Drew got involved. She worked with her daughter to bully back.

Bullying is a horrific practice, but it's also a common response when people struggle to attain status. Backstabbing, rumor-mongering, and enticement aren't unique to teenagers. Look in any corporate office or political campaign and you'll see some pretty nasty bullying going on. The difference is that adults have upped the ante, learned how to manipulate and hide their tracks. In other words, adults are much better equipped to do dreadful damage in their bullying that children and teens. They have practice. And it's not a good thing.

Lori Drew abused her power as a knowledgeable adult by leveraging her adult knowledge of psychology to humiliate and torment a teen girl. Put another way, Lori Drew engaged in psychological and emotional child abuse. Child abuse includes the psychological or emotional mistreatment of a child. Unfortunately, most legal statutes focus on sexual and physical abuse and neglect because emotional abuse is very hard to substantiate and prosecute. But realistically, she should've been tried with child abuse, not a computer crime.

The fact that technology was involved is of little matter. Sure, she couldn't have said those things to Megan's face, but she could've hired a boy to do so. (How many movies have been made of boys being roped into teen girls' humiliation schemes?) The crime she should be convicted of should have nothing to do with technology. She should be tried (and convicted) of psychologically abusing a child.

Why do we focus on the technology? Is it because it is the thing that we don't understand? Or is it because if we were actually forced to contend with the fact that Drew was abusing a minor to protect her own that we'd have to face our own bad habits in this regard? How many of you have done something problematic to protect your child? I suspect that, at the end of the day, many parents could step in Lori Drew's shoes and imagine themselves getting carried away in an effort to protect their daughter from perceived injustices. Is that why we're so centered on the technology?

Let's also make one thing very clear. This case is NOT TYPICAL. Many are clamoring to make laws based on this case and one thing we know is that bad cases make bad case law. Most of the cases focus on the technology rather than the damage of psychological abuse and the misuse of adult power. Furthermore, most focus on adult to minor abuse and the abuse of minors by strangers even those the majority of bullying is between peers who know each other. And for those who think that bullying is mostly online, think again. The majority of teens believe that bullying is far worse in-person at school than online.

This is where technology comes into play. Bullying probably has not increased because of the Internet, but it's visibility to adults definitely has. Kids have long been bullied by peers at school without adults ever knowing. Now adults can see it. Most adults think that this means that the Internet is the culprit, but this logic is flawed and dangerous. Stifling bullying online won't make bullying go away; it'll just send it back underground. The visibility gives us an advantage. If we see it, we can work with it to stop it.

Approaches Parents and Society Should Take to Help Children

Parents need to be looking out for signs of bullying by their kids and by their kids' peers. Parents should be educating kids about bullying, about the damage that it does. Most bullying starts out small. If parents catch it early on, they can help give their kids tactics to minimize the escalation. The Internet makes small acts of bullying much more visible, making it easier for parents to help provide guidance. This is a digital advantage because, for the most part, parents only learned of bullying once it had escalated to unbearable levels.

It's important to note that bullying is best curbed in childhood when children learn that saying something mean gives them power. As a parent, you should be vigilant about never saying mean things about others in front of your child. Even about politicians whom you despise. You should also make it very clear that mean words are intolerable. Set that frame early on and reinforce. If you see mean comments online, call them out, even if they're nothing more than "your dress is ugly."

Unfortunately, not all parents are very involved in their kids' lives and bullying is heavily correlated with problems at home. Bullying is also sometimes prompted by kids' desire to get attention which creates a vicious cycle. This is why we need solutions that go beyond parents and kids.

The most important thing that we need are digital street workers. When I was in college, college students volunteered as street workers to help teens who were on the street find resources and help. They directed them to psychologists, doctors, and social workers. We need a program like this for the digital streets. We need college-aged young adults to troll the digital world looking out for teens who are in trouble and helping them seek help. We need online counselors who can work with minors to address their behavioral issues without forcing the minor to contend with parents or bureaucracy. We need online social workers that can connect with kids and help them understand their options.

The Internet brings the public into our homes. This terrifies most adults and it means that adults aren't thinking about how to use this to their advantage. Rather than solely focusing on disturbed adults reaching out to children, let's build systems to get trained adults to reach out to disturbed children. We need social and governmental infrastructure to build this, but it's important. The teens who are hurting online are also hurting offline. We can silence their online cries by locking down the Internet, but it doesn't do a damn thing to help address the core problem. We have the tools to do something about this. We just need the will and the want.

I wish we could turn back the clock and protect Megan Meier from the torment of Drew and her daughter. We can't. And I'm not sure that any legal or technical measures would do one drop of good in preventing a similar case. (But I would be very happy to see more laws around psychological abuse of minors by adults put on the books... not to prevent but to prosecute.) What we can do is put structures in play to help children who are at-risk. Many of them are invisible. Their plight doesn't get the broad media coverage that Megan Meier got. But there are far too many of them and their stories have none of the glitz.

They are the kids who are being beaten at home and blog about it. They are the kids who publicly humiliate other kids to get attention. They are the kids who seek sex with strangers as a form of validation. They are the kids who are lonely, suicidal, and self-destructive. They are online. They are calling out for help. Why aren't we listening? And why are we blaming the technology instead?

Category: youth culture

Tags: bullying LoriDrew suicide teens MySpace abuse parenting law

   

Posted by zephoria at 12:17 AM | Comments (32) | TrackBack (0)

November 20, 2008

Living and Learning with New Media: Findings from a 3-year Ethnographic Study of Digital Youth

For the last three years, I've been a part of a team of researchers at Berkeley and USC focused on digital youth practices. This project, funded by the MacArthur Foundation, brought together 28 different researchers (led by Mimi Ito and my now deceased advisor Peter Lyman) to examine different aspects of American youth life. As many of you know, I focused on normative teen practices and the ways in which teens engaged in networked publics. We are now prepared to share our findings:

• Two page summary (pdf)
• White Paper - Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project (pdf)
• Book - Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking Out: Living and Learning with New Media

Already, write-ups of our research have hit the press:

• Teenagers’ Internet Socializing Not a Bad Thing (NY Times)
• Time online teaches kids important skills, study finds (Mercury News)
• ... and many more

Needless to say, we're excited by our research and uber excited by the coverage that we're getting. For years, we've been finding that youth do amazingly positive things with the technology that they use. Yet, during that time, we've watched as parents and news media continue to focus solely on what is negative. We're hoping that this report will help adults get a decent sense of what's going on.

For those who are only familiar with my research, I strongly encourage you to check out the report to get a better sense of the context in which I've been working. I focus primarily on "friendship-driven practices" but the "interest-driven practices" that motivate creative production, gaming, and all sorts of user generated content are tremendously important. I focus primarily on what happens when teens "hang out" but there's also amazing learning moments when they mess around and geek out with one another.

The book is currently available only in draft form but an updated print version will be available in the future. In the meantime, enjoy, and feel free to ask questions!!

Category: youth culture

Tags: Facebook MySpace youth learning technology MacArthur

   

Posted by zephoria at 11:29 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)

November 16, 2008

Draft Version of the ISTTF Literature Review concerning Children's Online Safety

"Online Threats to Youth: Solicitation, Harassment, and Problematic Content" is a draft of the Literature Review that Andrew Schrock and I prepared for the Internet Safety Technical Task Force with the help of members of the Research Advisory Board.

The Internet Safety Technical Task Force was formed to consider the extent to which technologies can play a role in enhancing youth safety in online spaces. The Task Force was collaborative effort among a wide array of Internet service providers, social network sites, academics, educators, and technology vendors. It was created in accordance with the Joint Statement on Key Principles of Social Networking Safety announced by the Attorneys General Multi-State Working Group on Social Network Sites and MySpace in January 2008. For more information on the ISTTF, see: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/isttf/

The Task Force asked a Research Advisory Board, comprised of scholars and researchers whose research addresses children’s online safety, to conduct a comprehensive Literature Review of relevant work. This is an early draft of that Literature Review. It was primarily written by Andrew Schrock and danah boyd. Members of the RAB provided valuable feedback and insights, critiques and suggestions. Members of the RAB were selected based on their longstanding, ongoing, and original contributions to this field of research. All members of the RAB are U.S.-based and do research with U.S. populations. This Literature Review – and the scope of the Task Force – is intentionally U.S.-centric.

In January, the Task Force will publish a report documenting its findings. This Literature Review will be an Appendix of that report. We are making a draft of this Literature Review available to the public early because we are seeking public feedback, especially from other scholars whose work is connected to this field. We are currently looking for feedback concerning the breadth, depth, and accuracy of this Literature Review. If you know of original research that we are missing concerning U.S. populations, please let us know immediately. A finalized version of this document will be available in January.

If you have comments or feedback, please email me directly, although you are also welcome to leave comments here.

Category: youth culture

Tags: safety Internet children LitReview ISTTF MySpace Facebook

   

Posted by zephoria at 3:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 5, 2008

teens, dating, friendship, and school dances

When I read the Chicago Tribune's coverage of why teens have eschewed dates for school dances, I wanted to scream. This shift has nothing to do with "the way young people view personal relationships in the age of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter" (and not just because teens don't use Twitter in significant numbers yet). And this is certainly not because teens are being "shaped" by these technologies such that they "consider friendship the highest form of compliment, making dating, and sometimes even high school love, irrelevant." Even in the context of the article, the supposed experts and teens are voicing very different explanations for what's going on.

School dances have traditionally been structured around mating rituals, dating back to a point in time when parents encouraged teens to go on such structured dates in order to find the ideal partner. This is no longer the era in which we live. Parents are no longer encouraging serious relationships in high school; quite the opposite. Even teens are no longer treating high school as the place to find their future husband/wife. Decades ago, teen dating turned into a different kind of ritual, one driven by status and validation and decoupled from pair bonding. While not having a date had long been stigmatized, the cost became purely social rather than marriage.

For decades after school dances were about pair bonding, teens scrambled to get dates to school dances purely as a form of plumage - a prom date was simply proof that one wasn't a social pariah. Many teens went to school dances with people with whom they had no sexual relations whatsoever. Yet, by the 1990s, LGBT pressures started mounting actions against heteronormative dynamics at school dances. Some schools started allowing same-sex partners to go to school dances together. In some places, teen girls started repurposing this "freedom" to opt to go to the school dance with their best friend even though there was no romantic interest involved. The date-based school dance ritual began crumbling decades ago in different ways across the country. Thankfully, schools caught up and many stopped requiring dates to attend. This, in turn, motivated many teens to eschew dates altogether.

If you're an adult, think back to your own teenage years. How many of you hated your homecoming or prom date? How many of you went with a friend of the opposite sex with no romantic feelings? How many of you stressed about finding a date, keeping a relationship going long enough to make it to the dance, or otherwise dealing with the potential dramas of being single for the dance? Now, imagine if the school said that you no longer needed to have a date. And imagine if the social norms caught up so that not having a date was not a stigmatized reality. Would you have gone with friends and simply had a good time? Hell yeah you would've.

What's happening is not a radical shift in teen friendship practices. It's about the collapse of an outmoded, outdated mating ritual. It has nothing to do with technology. It has everything to do with social norms relieving unnecessary pressures that no one liked anyhow. Teens aren't going date-less because friendship is suddenly more important. Teens are going date-less because it's socially acceptable and teens haven't wanted the pressure to have a date for decades. Dating is much simpler when you don't have to secure a date for an important night months ahead of time and then fret about the possibility that that tenuous relationship might fall apart. Even teens who are dating would prefer to buy a single ticket, go with their friends, and meet up with their significant other at the event.

Why this is so shocking to people is beyond me. Teen dances are finally looking more like 20-something dances than images of dances from the 1950s. How do 20-somethings to to bars, clubs, and other events that involve dancing? They gather with their friends, and go out en masse. Those who are dating include their significant other in the group and there are often networks of connections to other groups going out. The fact that teens are modeling 20-somethings should not be surprising to anyone. Teens have long modeled up. Why shouldn't they be modeling contemporary practices instead of those that only exist in the movies?

Please... can we get real about teens? Can we please realize that what they're doing is totally logical given broader societal norms and not some radical cognitive change?

PS: Teens are still dating and many find having a significant other to be important. Some value that sig-other more than they value their friends, but the old sayings of "bros before hos" and "chicks before dicks" still stand in most communities. But to think that teen dating is gone is completely foolish. Just because teens don't want "dates" doesn't mean that they don't want sig-others.

Category: youth culture

Tags: teens dating friendship courtship rituals dances

   

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September 27, 2008

Teens, Video Games, and Civics

Last week, Pew released a report on "Teens, Video Games, and Civics" that made its way around the web (see posts by Mimi Ito, Amanda Lenhart, Cathy Davidson). Briefly, some findings:

• Almost all (97%) of teens play games. They play many different kinds of games and gender is a salient factor.
• Gaming is often social and teens often game with people they know.
• Parental monitoring of game play varies.
• Teens encounter both pro-social and anti-social behavior while gaming.
• There are civic dimensions to video game play.

I want to follow-up on that last finding and the connected findings because it's important. Games are regularly referenced as proof that the world is ending. The stereotypical image of a gamer is an oily-haired, pimply-faced geeky boy with no social skills or interest in human interaction. The prevalence of gaming amongst youth dispels that notion, but there is still a myth that those who game are anti-social. As such, it is often assumed that gaming makes people anti-social, anti-community, anti-civic.

Pew's findings show that there is no correlation between civic/political activity and gaming. In other words, high participation in gaming does not decrease civic participation. That said, gaming characteristics and in-person social gaming are correlated with civic engagement. Likewise, in-depth participation that involves social interaction related to the game (like participating in forums) is also correlated with civic engagement. Most importantly, "civic gaming experiences are more equally distributed than many other civic learning opportunities" because teens can get access to civic gaming experiences even when they can't get access to other forms of civic life.

In other words, participation in gaming does not cause a decrease in civic participation and, if anything, certain forms of gaming activity are correlated with civic engagement (although causality cannot be determined).

All too often, we blame technology for the downfall of society. Gaming has long been the super demon, the crux of media effects panics. It's fantastic to have a study to point to that conclusively shows that our fears make no sense. Yet, this also raises important questions:

• If there are correlations between civic engagement and gaming practices, can we engender certain forms of civic participation through gaming? In other words, is the link connected to other factors or is there an element of causality at play?
• If we understand that teens with certain practices are more likely to be civically minded, can we tap them there for other forms of civic engagement?
• Are there ways to design games that encourage civically minded participation?
• What will it take for people to stop fearing games and realize that learning takes place beyond the classroom?

Category: youth culture

Tags: gaming civics report

   

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August 28, 2008

MacArthur's Digital Media & Learning Competition

MacArthur has announced its second Digital Media & Learning Competition. The focus this year is on participatory learning and they are giving awards in two categories:

• Innovation in Participatory Learning Awards will support projects that demonstrate new modes of participatory learning, in which people take part in virtual communities, share ideas, comment on one another's projects, and advance goals together. Successful projects will promote participatory learning in a variety of environments: through the creation of new digital tools, modification of existing ones, or use of digital media in some other novel way. Submissions will be accepted from applicants in Canada, People's Republic of China, India, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States, countries in which HASTAC or MacArthur have significant experience. Winners will receive between $30,000 and $250,000.
• Young Innovator Awards are designed to encourage young people aged 18-25 to think boldly about "what comes next" in participatory learning and to contribute to making it happen. Winners will receive funding to do an internship with a sponsor organization to help bring their most visionary ideas from the "garage" stage to implementation. For this competition cycle, submissions will only be accepted from applicants in the United States. Winners will receive between $5,000 and $30,000.

For more information and to participate, check out the competition's website.

Category: youth culture

Tags: learning competition grant award newmedia macarthur

   

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August 26, 2008

"Born Digital" by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser

I am pleased to announce that John Palfrey and Urs Gasser's Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives is out in the wild! This book grows out of the digital natives project at the Berkman Center (with which I am loosely affiliated). "Born Digital" investigates what it means to grow up in a mediated culture and the ways in which technology inflects issues like privacy, safety, intellectual property, media creation, and learning.

Intended for broad audiences, "Born Digital" creates a conversation between adult concerns, policy approaches, technological capabilities, and youth practice. This is not an ethnography, but JP and Urs build on and connect to ongoing ethnographic research concerning digital youth culture. This is not a parent's guide, but JP and Urs's framework will benefit any parent who wishes to actually understand what's taking place and what the implications are. This is not a policy white paper, but policy makers would be foolish to ignore the book because JP and Urs provide a valuable map for understanding how the policy debates connect to practice and technology. The contribution "Born Digital" makes is in the connections that it makes between youth practices, adult fears, technology, and policy. If you care at all about these issues, this book is a MUST-READ.

To buy the book, click here. Also, check out the Born Digital website for more information. And if you live in Seattle, SF, Boston, or DC, stay tuned for book-related events in your area.

To the academics in the room....

I want to take a moment to address the academics and academic-minded that read this blog because I know that many of you are very wary of pop books in this area. I also know how much y'all hate the term "digital natives" and I too feel my skin crawl when that term emerges. When I first learned about this book, I was very wary. I didn't know JP or Urs at the time and I didn't want to offend, but I reached out with a few of my concerns. To my astonishment, JP invited me to sit down with him and hash out my thoughts. Thus began a discussion that has truly shaped my thinking about these issues and has made me deeply appreciate this book and what it's doing. Said conversation is also how I got involved in efforts to leverage my scholarship to make change.

From the beginning, JP acknowledged that the term "digital natives" is hugely problematic, but also pointed out that it's the kind of term that makes interventions possible. Society and mass media has already done the othering and rather than pretend as though this wasn't happening, they wanted to tackle it head-on. Throughout the book, they bring up adult fears, myths, and techno-phobic frameworks in order to dismantle, ground, and/or situate them. This is not an academic intervention, but a socio-political one. They purposefully and intentionally take an approach that speaks to those who are doing the othering, those who are thinking "kids these days..." At first, I was very resistant to their approach, but the more time I spent with parents, teachers, and policy makers, the more that I realized how effective such a tactic is.

Academics tend to err on the side of nuance and precision, eschewing generalizations and coarse labels. This is great for documenting cultural dynamics, but not so great for making interventions. Creating an impression, an image in the minds of those who are fearful requires more than accurate data. It requires a compelling story and a framework that can replace the boogie monster. This is why polemics tend to speak in extremes. They key to using generalizations responsibly is to work hard to make certain that the impressions rendered are as representative of cultural frames as bloody possible. It's easy to convince people to generalize from extremes; it's much harder to get them to build images from what's normative.

Combatting pre-existing images requires more than accuracy, more than nuance. It requires either a new more-sticky image or a reworking of the original image. By working inside the frame of "digital natives," JP and Urs seek to ground that concept through a realistic image of practice. Reclaiming a term does not relieve it of all of its baggage, but it is a service to discourse if you can accept that the term won't just disappear by ignoring it. Once it's grounded, nuance becomes possible in entirely new ways.

I had the great honor of being able to read an early draft and provide feedback. I've read lots of parenting guides and white papers and other pop culture coverage of these issues. What struck me about "Born Digital" is how well it is connected to what is actually going on, how well it speaks to the research that we do. It's not sensationalist or extreme, but very even-handed. They move between different perspectives to try to paint a full picture. Sometimes, they are too patient with idiotic perspectives, but that's when I breathe and remind myself that telling people that their ideas are stupid is not a good intervention tactic. Sometimes they are also too techno-centric, but once again, this makes sense if you recognize what they're trying to do. Of course, the only reason that these things stick out is that they do such a good job of addressing the practices of the population they map out.

As I got to know JP over the last year, I developed a deep appreciation for his approach to life, the universe, and everything. He tries to help people from different sides see the others' perspective, using whatever tactics are necessary. He's calm, even-handed, and works hard to stay true to cultural complexities. He's the compromiser and he's willing to take the heat in order to help bridge gaps and ease tensions. This shines through in "Born Digital." As I read the book in the context of its mission, my wariness slipped away. They've done a tremendous job of building on what we know and connecting it to systems of power.

If you're an academic and you choose to pick up this book - and I strongly encourage you to do so - try to read it in context. Because it is deeply grounded in research, it might be tempting to see it as an academic book with too few citations. I'd encourage you to resist the critical reflex that comes with being piled higher and deeper and appreciate the ways in which scholarly work is being leveraged as a tool for cultural intervention. I think that JP and Urs have done an astonishing job and believe that they deserve our deepest gratitude. I for one am VERY thankful of their efforts to make change based on what we know instead of what we fear.

Category: youth culture

Tags: Internet technology culture youth digitalnatives

   

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May 1, 2008

Little Brother + the Uglies series = le awesome young adult scifi

Although I've always been eh about most scifi, I've grown increasingly fond of young adult science fiction and scifi focused on teens. There's something fun in reading about teens running around trying to save the world. I can thank/blame Cory Doctorow for most of this because he's the one who got me hooked on reading it. So I'm super super super stoked to announce that his first young adult scifi book is on the shelves.

Little Brother is the story of a group of friends who are in the middle of an alternate reality game when a terrorist attack shakes San Francisco. They are whisked off by homeland security as potential terrorists; after a horrible few days, three of the four are released. And thus begins the tale of a group of teens who declare war on DHS. Beneath the fun YA story is a critique of the war on terrorism and a how-to guide that teaches teens how to be culture and tech hackers and jammers. It's really geekalicious. I was fortunate enough to read the manuscript, but I've just ordered the book so that I can reread it. I really recommend checking it out - it's quite fun and entertaining.

I also have to give Cory kudos for introducing me to my favorite new teen book series - Uglies, Pretties, Specials, and Extras by Scott Westerfeld. Westerfeld's series does the most awesomest job at breaking down contemporary society's ideas of beauty, status, and reputation. In Tally Youngblood's world, everything is about finally turning 16 and being allowed to become "pretty" through plastic surgery that makes you look as cool as everyone else who is 16. Being an ugly teenager sucks; being a pretty means getting access to everything and having all of the fun. Only, perhaps there might be a cost to being pretty?

While the first three focus on pushing against society's valuation of the beautiful, the fourth introduces a new and "improved" world... where everyone in society is ranked based on how often people talk about them and "kickers" (aka bloggers) are obsessed with getting to the top. Needless to say, attention/reputation-based economies don't come out the way that we might imagine them to be. (Translation: this series deconstructs both of our most "valuable" economies today - the economy of the beautiful AND the purportedly merit-based attention/reputation-economy. Sooooo good! And such fun world-saving kickass girl characters!)

For those of you who aren't familiar with young adult sci fi, think of it as energizing brain candy. You can finish most YA books on a cross-country flight and they are far far far better than the movies that they show. And besides, they leave you with a youthful grin on your face.

Category: youth culture

Tags: books scifi recommendations

   

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April 14, 2008

Palestinian girls, dating, and the mobile phone

Last fall, Hiyam Hijazi-Omari and Rivka Ribak presented a paper called "Playing With Fire: On the domestication of the mobile phone among Palestinian teenage girls in Israel" at AOIR. They studied teen girls who received their mobile phones from their boyfriends and hid them from everyone else. Through this lens, they examine how the mobile phone alters social dynamics, relationships, and the construction of gender in Palestine. In short, they document how culturally specific gendered practices (not technological features) frame the meaning and value of technology.

All too often, we think of technology as empowering or restricting. We focus on the technology and its features rather than the ways in which it gets embedded in the lives of people. The phone has always been a gendered technology. (If you have any doubts, read Claude Fischer's "America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940.") While the story of the mobile is quite different, even the tensions between its use as a business tool and its use as a tool for family communications have been narrated through the lens of gender.

Palestinian boys give their girlfriends phones for the express purpose of being able to communicate with them in a semi-private manner without the physical proximity that would be frowned on. At the same time, girls know that parents do not approve of them having access to such private encounters with boys - they go to great lengths to hide their mobiles and suffer consequences when they are found out. While the boys offered these phones as a tool of freedom, they often came with a price. Girls were expected to only communicate with the boy and never use the phone for any other purpose. In the article, Hijazi-Omari and Ribak quote one girl as expressing frustration over this and saying "I did not escape prison only to find myself another prison." These girls develop fascinating practices around using the phone, hiding from people, and acquiring calling cards.

For teens, the mobile phone is a key device for negotiating intimate relations throughout the world. Studies done in the U.S., Jamaica, Japan, the U.K. and elsewhere all point to the ways in which teens negotiate private relationships using their mobiles. Mobiles are a critical tool for being in a relationship. Yet, most of our studies focus on the ways in which offline intimacies are extended across space and time through the mobile. What Hijazi-Omari and Ribak are finding with Palestinian girls is that the mobile is allowing them to have private encounters and relationships when these would be otherwise impossible.

This article helps elucidate the ways in which youth from different cultures are navigating social relations through the mobile. It is well-written and filled to the brim with fascinating data that tickles the brain. A must read for anyone interested in cultural difference involving the mobile!

Category: mobile, shift6, youth culture

Tags: youth mobile Palestine gender dating

   

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February 28, 2008

The Internet Safety Technical Task Force

Folks who have been following the online safety debates know that the Attorneys General and MySpace agreed to work together and with other relevant social actors to develop a Joint Statement on Key Principles of Social Networking Safety. Not surprisingly, they wanted a "neutral" party to lead this endeavor. Guess what? John Palfrey (executive director of the Berkman Center), Dena Sacco (former federal prosecutor in child exploitation cases) and I (the lovable author here) have agreed to co-direct the "Internet Safety Technical Task Force." Our mandate is to develop recommendations for approaching online safety. The Task Force will bring together a variety of different organizations with different stakes to work out the best approach. Some of the tech companies involved include: MySpace, Facebook, Xanga, Bebo, AOL, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Google, Linden Lab, Loopt, AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon. The Task Force also includes the Attorneys General, organizations dedicated to online safety or children's safety, and various vendors.

For more info, Berkman issued a press release and the NYTimes offers more info on their site.

Those who know me are probably thinking WTF? It's true - both online safety issues and anything involving politics tend to agitate me. At the same time, I actually think that I can make a difference by trying to help these different groups find common ground and come up with a solution that will work for them while not further disintegrating the rights and freedoms of youth. As a youth advocate, I feel that I need to not shirk away from these types of things, but get involved so as to make certain that youth's voices are heard by those trying desperately to protect them. This is not to say that I don't believe in child safety - oh boy do I ever - but that I also believe that safety efforts can and should be executed in a non-opressive manner. This is what prompted me to agree to co-direct this endeavor with two amazing legal scholars who understand youth issues from complementary points of views. It should be fun, or at least an educational roller coaster. No doubt you'll hear more about it as we proceed.

For a better sense of my research as it relates to issues of online safety, check out the video/audio/transcript of a panel that I was on last spring with Michele Ybarra, David Finkelhor, and Amanda Lenhart: Just the Facts about Online Youth Victimization (sponsored by the Internet Caucus)

Category: youth culture

Tags: safety taskforce

   

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January 10, 2008

Technology and the World of Consumption

I had just finished giving a talk about youth culture to a room full of professionals who worked in the retail industry when a woman raised her hand to tell me a story. It was homecoming season and her daughter Mary was going to go to homecoming for the first time. What fascinated this mother was that her daughter's approach to shopping was completely different than her own.

Using Google and a variety of online shopping sites, Mary researched dresses online, getting a sense for what styles she liked and reading information about what was considered stylish that year. Next, Mary and her friends went to the local department store as a small group, toting along their digital cameras (even though they're banned). They tried on the dresses, taking pictures of each other in the ones that fit. Upon returning home, Mary uploaded the photos to her Facebook and asked her broader group of friends to comment on which they liked the best. Based on this feedback, she decided which dress to purchase, but didn't tell anyone because she wanted her choice to be a surprise. Rather than returning to the store, Mary purchased the same dress online at a cheaper price based on the information on the tag that she had written down when she initially saw the dress. She went for the cheaper option because her mother had given her a set budget for homecoming shopping; this allowed her to spend the rest on accessories.

Mary's mother was completely flabbergasted by the way in which her daughter moved seamlessly between the digital and physical worlds to consume clothing. More confusing to this mother, a professional in retail, was the way in which her daughter viewed her steps as completely natural.

In the 1980s, Alan Kay declared that, "technology is anything that wasn't around when you were born." In other words, what is perceived as technology to adults is often ubiquitous if not invisible to youth. In telling this story, Mary's mother was perplexed by the technology choices made by her daughter. Yet, most likely, Mary saw her steps in a practical way: research, test out, get feedback, purchase. Her choices were to maximize her options, make a choice that would be socially accepted, and purchase the dress at the cheapest price. Her steps were not about maximizing technology, but about using it to optimize what she did care about.

Examining e-commerce, many businesses have found that people use online sources to research what it is that they want to buy. Few people purchase cars online, but many more research their options there. Online shopping sites are assumed to support offline purchasing. Yet, for Mary and other teens that I've met, the opposite is also true: they are visiting stores to research what they want so that they can purchase it online at a cheaper venue. The stores allow them to touch, feel, and try on material goods, while the digital world helps them find the cheapest option without running from store to store.

Teens' interest in shopping is not simply about consuming material goods. For many, sites of consumerism are the only venues available for hanging out with friends. Malls, outlets, and box stores regularly emerged as places where teens could meet each other to hang out. Because security often shoos teens who are loitering away, they get into the habit of window shopping, fondling items for sale as though they may purchase them, and trying on clothes just so that they can appear to be at the shop for a reason. When they have money, they often do buy something, but most teens who hang out in shopping venues have nothing to spend - they simply want a place to hang out with their friends.

Teens who spend a lot of time hanging out around shopping spaces begin to know what each store is selling and have a sense of how often they update their inventory. As Nick (16) explained, "we'll go in the hat store and look at different kind of hats they got. It's a lot to do, but sometimes it gets boring 'cause if you go there enough, you start, 'Oh, I saw that last week. They got the same stuff.' Sometimes it's really boring to go in there and you see the same stuff over, and over, and over again." New inventory makes the "task" of window shopping much more interesting.

While shopping to hang out is a popular American teen past time, it also has a reputation amongst some parents for being a venue for troubled kids to gather. In talking with parents, I often heard references to drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, gangs, and "the wrong crowd" as reasons for why they did not allow their children to hang out at the local mall. After intense amounts of pressure from her daughter, one mother did begin allowing her 14-year old to go with her friends to an outdoor mall under one condition: she would sit in Starbucks and her daughter would have to check in every 20 minutes. Not surprisingly, the daughter was not thrilled, but consented because it was her only option. Still, many parents refuse to let their kids go to the mall to hang out.

Teens do lie to their parents to get around this restriction. One girl told me that she and her friends had their parents drop them off at the movie theater adjacent to the mall. She would research the movie ahead of time so that she could report back afterwards. She would walk into the theater with her friends and wait until her parents left before going to the mall to meet up with others who had less restrictive parents. She would make sure to be back at the theater before the movie finished. This practice is not new to this generation, but it still highlights how critical shopping venues are for social gatherings.

Online shops do not have the same hangout appeal and the majority of teens that I've met who visit them do so with a purpose. They go to buy something specific and usually with their parents consent because of the credit card requirements. Online shopping is primarily task-centric, while offline shopping is primarily social-centric.

All the same, some teens still value consumption as an end in itself. As Shean (17) explained, "I want to get my own job and start my own stuff and make my own money, a lot of it, so that I can buy whatever I want. I want to be one of those people that can just walk in and say I want that and that and that." To Shean, all that matters is having the stuff because that's what it means to "live luxurious."

When it comes to teen culture, consumerism is still rampant, although shopping is primarily about socialization. Aside from how the mobile phone allows groups to coordinate, technology is not really altering the tradition of hanging out in consumer places. What it is altering is the ways in which teens research and purchase things that they know they want.

Blog entry is a Fieldnote for the Digital Youth Project

Category: youth culture

Tags: consumption teens shopping

   

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August 10, 2007

National School Boards Association pushes for SNS adoption in schools

While the Attorneys General are off demonizing social network sites, the National Schools Board Association has been collecting data on all of the good things that teenagers are doing with the sites, including learning about colleges, talking about homework, engaging in collaborative projects, and otherwise operating as active learners. To combat the myths generated by mass hysteria, they highlight that only .08% (note the point, this is less than 1%) of students have met someone in person through an online interaction without their parents' permission. In short, they argue that not only is the Internet not nearly as dangerous as the public seems to believe, but it's actually quite helpful for students and teachers should be encouraged to support their students in using it. They offer recommendations for how schools should directly engage with these sites and the practices of their students.

YAY! Go National School Boards Association! Thank you thank you thank you for not perpetuating the culture of fear. Please make the elected fearmongers hear you!

I strongly encourage everyone who holds power over teens - parents, teachers, school administrators, law enforcement, youth ministers, press, and politicians - to read this report. I've been saying these things for years, but they are more authoritative and, besides, they have numbers and people like numbers. My only qualm is that they don't do a good job of talking about how important it is to socialize youth into a society where these publics have different structural issues, but still... everything they do offer is a step in the right direction. Yay!

So go read the report! And if you need more pro-school and tech energy when you're done, check out this teacher tube video about why teachers need to pay attention to social media.

(Tx to everyone who sent me this!)

Category: youth culture

Tags: school fear sns report

   

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July 15, 2007

Israeli teen culture

I'm back in the States, but I'm not yet back on sturdy ground. It's been a rough month and it's going to take some time before I'm ready to re-engage properly. Thankfully, time in Israel really helped me do some well-needed thinking.

What I love most about leaving the United States is how it lets me re-consider the American norms that I take for granted living here day in and day out. All that's on my brain these days is teenagers so I couldn't help but watch Israeli teens. This wasn't hard because teenagers were everywhere (and there was one living in the house in which I was staying). While I have to go looking for teens in American public settings, teens were often within view in public places in Israel.

Israeli teens do not have the same restrictions that American teens have. There don't seem to be curfews, except those that are imposed by parents. (When I asked about whether cops hound teens, I was told that the cops in Israel have more important matters to attend to.)

I was totally fascinated by how many teens were wandering the streets, hanging out in parks, or BBQ-ing on the beach past midnight each night. They were on the beach, in the malls, and generally around all day and night. Adults tended to be nearby but the packs of teens were free to goof around with each other with little explicit control.

In Ra'anana (a suburb of Tel Aviv), there was a big park. Teens from across the town gathered there every night. At 1AM, the cinema in the park opened its doors for local teens to watch a movie for 10 shekels and free popcorn. The only restriction was that they had to have an ID that said they were from Ra'anana. There were all sorts of activities in the park - video games, a playground, etc. Late at night, you could see teens walking in groups from the park towards home (long after their parents were sleeping). They were just goofing around with their friends and no one seemed to mind.

Even though I saw teens everywhere, I saw little evidence of heavy drinking. (Of course, I didn't see a lot of heavy drinking amongst adults either.) There were certainly hookahs and my nostrils gave me the sense that it wasn't just tobacco that people were smoking. For the most part, teens seemed far more interested in goofing off with their friends.

Teens weren't that visible in the settings where payment was necessary. For example, I didn't see teens at the bars/cafes on the beach or in the clubs on the pier where the average age seemed to be mid-20s. My suspicion is that teens prefer the public spaces because they are free.

I have no idea how accurate my observations are but it was pleasantly refreshing to see teens everywhere out and about. And for that matter, adults. Venice Beach is eerie late at night and I don't dare go down there except with a pack of male friends. And even then... Tel Aviv's beaches were a different story. There were crowds everywhere until sunrise. Even on weekdays. Everything was well-lit, cafes all had outdoor seating, and wandering the promenades seemed to be a popular dating activity. God that was nice to see.

Category: youth culture

Tags: israel teens

   

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June 13, 2007

let the stalking begin

I regularly receive press releases from companies that i promptly delete as a new form of spam. Today, i received one that stopped me in my tracks:

You can now load software in your kids' BlackBerry and/or cell phone that will be your watchdog (to prevent them from being approached by someone potentially trying to molest them)

How it works -- the program will send the parents a text message when a foreign IM, text message or e-mail comes into their child's phone or PDA (anyone not on an approved phone contact list).

The concept was thought of by Bob Lotter, a software publisher in Orange County, because he was so alarmed to learn that 56% of kids receive unwanted cell or PDA solicitations (which they don't tell their parents about). (Sixty percent have been approached.) Lotter has also created a homepage for parents on resources they need to track strangers.

It was a peculiar press release because the company (a known PR agency) did not include any links and i can't find much about Bob Lotter other than he seems to be connected to the scientology world.

I've been waiting for mobile stalking software for a while. We already have GPS-driven stalking software that will let parents figure out where their kids are. (Kids have figured out how to circumnavigate this by sending their phone off with their friends.) And i've met plenty of parents who obsessively scour the phone bill to see who their kids are talking to and for how long. But i'm quite impressed with this new level of parental stalking software.

I'm also absolutely fascinated by the assumption that "your kid" will have a Blackberry and that this software will prevent your kid from being approached by a molester (at first, i thought that the advert was going to be for mace). This software is not about protecting children from strangers that they meet face-to-face - it's about giving parents control over who their kids talk with rather than teaching them how to navigate people. Of course, i can't wait until mobile text message spamming kicks in. Kids will be getting hundreds of messages from people that they don't know and thus their parents will be notified and notified and notified. There's nothing like a bit of spam to make this a complete mess.

Anyhow, this just infuriates me and i can't even offer a proper analysis except to scrunch my face in disgust. As i've written about before, the stats on predators is pretty clear: it's people that children know not strangers. I kinda suspect that the #1 child molester (the parent) is not going to be on the list of people blocked.

Surveillance destroys parent-child relationships - technology does not solve relationship issues. And yet, we keep building technology. Why? Fear sells. These people will inevitably make money off of parent's fears. Le sigh.

Category: youth culture

Tags: mobile surveillance stalking

   

Posted by zephoria at 10:51 PM | Comments (13) | TrackBack (0)

May 11, 2007

Just The Facts About Online Youth Victimization

Last week, i had the honor of joining three amazing (quant) social scientists on an Internet Caucus panel in DC. David Finkelhor (Director of Crimes Against Children Research Center), Amanda Lenhart (PEW), and Michele Ybarra (President of Internet Solutions for Kids) all presented quantitative data while i batted qualitative cleanup. I have to admit that i was concerned about this panel because folks throw the 1/7 number (formerly 1/5) all the time to fearmonger. I was very pleasantly shocked to find that all of us were completely on the same page and that most of the press coverage of Michele and David's work has been terrible in representing the implications of their findings. I was very pleased with how this panel played out and ecstatic that the Internet Caucus chose to put the video up online (even if it requires Real - props to anyone who converts it to MP4 or uploads it to YouTube):

panel video and audio PDF transcript

You don't have to listen to me but i'd strongly encourage you to listen to the other three. They do a fantastic job of presenting solid data that debunks the myths that the press has been propegating for quite some time. For example, David highlights that putting up real information online has no correllation to sexual predation. It's a great panel so enjoy!!

Update: Loud props to Michael Herzog for turning this into a playlist on YouTube:

Update 2: There is now a PDF transcript of the panel.

Category: youth culture

Tags: predators cyberbullying DC

   

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May 7, 2007

MySpace + SecondLife / Ponies!1 = BarbieGirls

Over at Wired, Annalee Newitz's post entitled MySpace + SecondLife / Ponies!1 = BarbieGirls describes one of the scariest side effects of all of the predator panic. A new site called BarbieGirls has launched for young girls to socialize with other young girls. To handle parental concerns, the site informs parents:

We also monitor chat to help ensure it stays safe and appropriate. Barbie Girls administrators frequently review reports of chatting in the environment and adjust the word filters as needed to block or allow new words or phrases. This monitoring is strictly for the purpose of maintaining a safe chat environment - chat reports are not used in any other way, and we do not save or store any private information.

What does it mean that an entire generation is growing up to believe that the only way to be safe is to be constantly surveilled? ::shudder:: I'm rather concerned about the longterm implications of all of this monitoring and control. Aren't we supposed to be raising a generation of creatives? Le sigh.

Category: youth culture

Tags: barbie girls privacy surveillance

   

Posted by zephoria at 5:25 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)

April 29, 2007

"Generation Me"

Over the last couple of weeks, i've been telling loads of folks to go read Jean Twenge's Generation Me and i realized i should probably share it with all y'all. Unlike most books on generations, this is a social psych analaysis of different behavioral characteristics over the decades. Translation: there's a shitload of data here. The book is a bit too pop psychology for my tastes, but it makes it very accessible.

In "Generation Me," Twenge outlines key characteristics of the current generation of teens/20-somethings that differentiate them from previous generations. For example, she goes through the data on narcissism and self-esteem, looking at how the self-esteem movement in the 1980s is directly correlated with the narcissism we see now. Some of what she points out is painfully present in our current conversation of Virginia Tech:

"Unfortunately, narcissism can lead to outcomes far worse than grade grubbing. Several studies have found that narcissists lash out aggressively when they are insulted or rejected. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the teenage gunmen at Columbine High School, made statements remarkably similar to items on the most popular narcissism questionnaire. On a videotape made before the shootings, Harris picked up a gun, made a shooting noise, and said "Isn't it fun to get the respect we're going to deserve?" (Chillingly similar to the narcissism item "I insist upon getting the respect that is due me.") ... Abusive husbands who threaten to kill their wives - and tragically sometimes do - are the ultimate narcissists. They see everyone and everything in terms of fulfilling their needs, and become very angry and aggressive when things don't go exactly their way. Many workplace shootings occur after an employee is fired and decides that he'll "show" everyone how powerful he is." (Twenge 2006, 70-71)

I've been running around the country interviewing teens and this is the first book on generations that i've found that hits the mark dead-on. Eerily so. Much of it is quite bothersome. Twenge does an amazing job at outlining how our schools have become completely useless at educating because it's more important to make students feel good than to be critical of their work. When i was in Iowa, i had a mother explain to me that teachers couldn't give bad grades to rich students at the local high school because the country club moms would pressure the schools to fire such overly critical teachers.

Twenge unpacks the problems with the "You can be anything you want!" value, looking critically at how this sets up unrealistic expectations that result in all sorts of social chaos.

Anyhow, i'll leave it at that and hope that i've whet your appetite just a whee bit. This is a must read if you're a parent, a teacher, a marketer, a designer, a politician or otherwise interested in the under-25 crowd. (And if you're not, how on earth can you stand this blog these days?) So, please, go read Generation Me and report back here what you think.

Category: youth culture

Tags: generations teens self-esteem narcissism

   

Posted by zephoria at 5:22 PM | Comments (14) | TrackBack (0)

April 7, 2007

cyberbullying

I find myself increasingly uncomfortable with conversations about 'cyberbullying.' I fear that by emphasizing 'cyber' the term clouds what's really going on. Don't get me wrong - the internet, like all technologies before it, has altered the dynamics of bullying, but why didn't my generation speak of 'telebullying'? Three-way calling allowed people to bully from home with others virtually present for the attacks. Of course, I know the answer to that... bullying over the internet is not just a technological advance of bullying, but an advance that makes the attacks visible to adults while using a medium that confounds adults.

I think it's important to acknowledge that bullying that takes place in mediated publics (blogs, social network sites, etc.) and through private messaging in a surveilled computer (IM, email, etc.) is visible to adults in ways that note-passing, bathroom-wall-scribbling, and phone bullying just aren't. Most kids are smart enough to do physical bullying outside of the view of adults, but a huge amount of physical bullying takes place at school where adults are nearby: recess, bathroom, school bus, under the bleachers at games, school carpark, etc.

In some senses, I'm glad that adults can see what terrible things take place amongst peer groups, but I'm unbelievably frustrated by how most of those adults emphasize the CYBER rather than the BULLYING. It's as if the internet is the cause of the bullying. The internet does not cause bullying, but it does MIRROR and MAGNIFY bullying.

Although I don't know of any data on this, I would bet that 99% of cyberbullying is committed by someone the victim knows offline. (The exceptions would be those who have an active online social life amongst strangers in environments like WoW or the blogosphere; because of stranger danger, this is increasingly rare.) I have yet to run into Jekyll & Hyde story where a bully is friendly in person (except when in front of adults), but a devil online. (Note: this comes back to the adult-centric view of bullying. Just because kids appear to be sweet to one another in front of you doesn't mean that they are when out of your sight.) What happens is that the internet becomes yet-another medium for bullying.

This is what I mean by mirroring... For most teens, the internet mirrors the dynamics that take place offline. Bullies offline are bullies online. Troubled kids offline are troubled kids online. Yet, because adults typically only see the online exposures, they think that they are just bullies or troubled online. This is where we're fooling ourselves. If you see a troubled kid or a bully online, bet your bottom dollar that an offline intervention is needed. The internet is not the problem - it's the mirror.

One of the things that makes mediated bullying insidious is that it doesn't end when the school bell rings. I remember this from the phone calls. The trick was to answer the phone before your mom did so that she didn't realize what was going on (because it's mega embarrassing to have your parents involved with being tormented by peers and if you didn't get to the phone first, they would sucker up to your mom so that you couldn't tell how cruel they were being). Given the amount of time spent on the internet, it sucks to be constantly tormented there - it's like having the phone never stop ringing.

Unfortunately, this isn't the only way in which the internet magnifies bullying. Those four properties that I talk a lot about - persistence, searchability, replicability, invisible audiences - change the dynamics of bullying too. Bullying graffiti gets cleaned up in a day; it's a lot harder to clean up online spewage. The properties that I talk about change the rules of scale. There aren't that many venues where you can bully someone offline in front of a large audience without attracting adults; it's a lot easier to do it online. The properties of bits (primarily replicability) make it a lot harder to tell what is 'real'. How do you know if that IM conversation really happened or if it was doctored before being passed on?

Now that Facebook has hit high school, things like the News Feed pass on more than who dumped who - rumors and bullying fly far faster and farther than news of Barack being on the site. With each new technology, there is bullying... This isn't going to stop with social network sites. Already I'm seeing the mobile phone operate as the best bullying tool ever. My favorite technique to watch is the text bombing tactic. If you know that someone only has 1000 text messages per month, send them 2000. Because most carriers don't let people block specific numbers for texting, there's no way to stop the $.10 fees that build up. This means that the target of bullying is going to literally have to pay or change their phone number. (Parent-to-parent calls rarely stop bullying so ratting out the bully typically does little to stop the tormenting.)

So, are we going to call the next wave 'mobullying'? When are we going to recognize that the main issue is bullying and, rather than focus on the rapidly shifting technology, focus on the bullying itself? Like it or not, the technology is going to keep magnifying bullying in new and unexpected ways. Focusing on the technology will not make the bullying actually go away, although the more we push it underground, the less visible it is to adults. (For example, private profiles have made a lot of previously visible bullying now invisible.)

All this said, I'm not so convinced that bullying will go away. More depressingly, I think that it will continue to get worse. The more we as a society focus on hyper-individualism (and free speech above respect), the more we see youth believe that they have the right to torment anyone they wish. The less youth are socialized into adult society, the worse bullying gets. The less present parents are (jail, addiction, _workaholism_), the more bullying operates as a tactic for attention. The more we emphasize that mean-spirited attacks win air time on reality TV (and are the acceptable manner of judgment for American Idol), the more we set the standard for bullying. We're living in a culture where bullying gets tacit validation in so many ways. We adults create child bullies through our actions - perhaps we need to think about the standards we set rather than the technology? I'm regularly horrified by my professional colleagues who are at work at 7PM even though they have young children at home who will be in bed by 9PM... those children are acting out for a reason and i think it's hypocritical to talk about the problems with technology when we don't talk about the problems with adult presence.

Personally, I think that energy should be placed into teaching youth to manage bullies and bullying (of all forms). I was lucky to figure some of this out on my own, although I will never forget the night that 20+ peers surrounded me and another girl at a football game to watch the fight that was brewing. She hit me twice; I just stood there. She screamed at me, called me all sorts of names. I just stood there. We were once close friends, but I knew where her anger came from. I was 14 and something in me told me that responding would only make things worse. That night was hell, but she never spoke to me again.

What are the tactics that we can teach kids to handle bullying? How can we help them process what's going on? How can we help them strategize how to handle the bullies rather than run away? What would happen if we put our energies into helping those who are attacked lessen the impact of the blows? This is relevant to more than just kids. But mean kids grow up to be trolls and attackers and adult bullies.

Category: youth culture

Tags: bullying cyberbullying

   

Posted by zephoria at 11:57 AM | Comments (26) | TrackBack (0)

April 2, 2007

relationship performance in networked publics

My research is part of the Digital Youth Research project (funded by the MacArthur Foundation). To highlight our findings, some of my teammates put together a digikids research blog where we post findings from the field and link to interesting things concerning digital youth. It's a *fantastic* blog for anyone who is interested in this topic (read it!).

This week, i posted a field snippet based on my research. I've re-posted it below for those who don't like clicking links.

....

Crushes, flirting, and dating are a key aspect of teens' lives. While these nascent relationships often end almost as quickly as they begin, they play a significant role in how teens see themselves and others. Because MySpace is a hangout space for teenagers, aspects of their flirtation with and dismissal of potential partners takes place on the site. Given the public nature of these expressions, we can get a glimpse into the trials and tribulations of teen love. Furthermore, we can examine how technology supports pre-existing practices while complicating other aspects of relationship management. Not all of what takes place is pretty - the language, norms, and attitudes of teens can be shocking to adults, but they are a very real component of teen communication. In this fieldnote, i document one example of how love and breakups appear online.

When I met Michael (17) and Amy (16), they were together. Their relationship was also visible on both of their profiles. Amy wrote about how Michael "has my heart" and Michael's profile photo was of the couple embracing. His About Me section began with "I love my girlfriend AMY." They were in each other's Top 8 and they performed their love throughout the comments. A week later, Michael's profile proclaimed "I hate my stupid bitch ex girlfriend." His headline had also been changed to: "Michael is no longer fucking with stupid bitches." The photos were gone, the friendship deleted, and the comments erased. Amy had also obliterated the relationship thoughout her profile. He was removed from her friend list and the list of guys she called heroes. What appeared in the place of his name was "boyfriend" with a link to a new boy: Scott.

While Michael had written Amy into his bio, Scott proclaimed his love for Amy even louder. He had changed his name on his profile: "Scott + Amy" and his profile photo depicted the happy couple smooching. He had written two blogs: "I have fallen in love with Amy" and "Rawr! Amy is Awesome" Upon inspection, one contained a love poem written about Amy and the other contained a prose version of his feelings; Amy responded to these blogs with comments professing her love and other friends added approving words. Loving messages from the new couple peppered each other's profile. Scott wrote "I Love You" 200 times on Amy's profile, followed by "here is the translation... i love you too baby.."

Interestingly, the next few comments on Amy's page came from friends, asking "what happened with you and Michael?" She responded to these by posting to each friend's comment section with some variation of "alotta bullshit." Third party references to Michael littered Amy's comments section but Michael himself was no longer present. Amy's new love had usurped him.

While relationship drama is not restricted to teenagers, the performative nature of teens' relationships tends to make this drama quite visible. One advantage of having a girlfriend/boyfriend is that it is personally validating. In a relationship, many people feel as though they are desirable and attractive; the rush of a new relationship can be invigorating. This feeling of self-worth offers people an incentive to seek out partners.

Relationships are often discussed as intimate affairs, but society also encourages people to make the fact of their relationship public. Western rituals around weddings - the public ceremony, the visible ring, the newspaper announcement - showcase how serious relationships become public expressions. Yet, even before a relationship reaches that level of seriousness, people make their relationships publicly visible. This practices has numerous advantages. First off, by making a relationship public, people can signal to other single individuals that they are taken (and so is their partner). This wards off potential suitors but it also encourages outsiders to validate their worthiness. More importantly, as Hannah Arendt notes, "the presence of others who see what we see and hear what we hear assures us of the reality of the world and ourselves" (1). Through the public performance of a relationship, the individuals in the relationship can gain security and confidence in the significance of their togetherness.

Western society regularly pushes people to couple up and make their relationships public. Consider Valentine's Day. For many, this is an extremely stressful holiday because it's an institutionalized way of saying that single people are less worthy than those who have paired up. During this day above all others, the streets are filled with couples arm-in-arm engaged in public displays of affection ("PDA"). While the wine and fancy dinners are primarily an adult activity, Valentine's Day is just as salient in high schools as it is on the streets. Mr. C, a young math teacher in Oakland, California was shocked to find that the ratio of balloons to students exceeded one (2). Candy, presents, stuffed animals, cards, and the like pervaded the school, making it utterly impossible to teach. Who had received what gifts from whom mattered far more than geometry.

For teenagers, the performance of a relationship has an additional axis. Many teens have little mobility or freedom to actually go on dates. Quite often, teenage relationships consist entirely of mediated conversations (phone, IM, MySpace), school interactions, and the discussion of the relationship amidst one's peers in both public and private settings. The rare opportunity to meet up with one's girlfriend/boyfriend is treasured and for many teens, it is worth risking getting into trouble just to be able to connect with that person in meatspace. While physical interactions are deeply desired, they are typically quite rare. Likewise, while the 1950s Hollywood image of teen dating involves soda shops, drive-in movie theaters, and other public encounters, this is not available to many teens. Although the mall and move theater are still desired outtings for teen couples, many have far greater access to networked publics like MySpace than they do to unmediated publics. Thus, it's natural that the primary plumage display takes place in these forums.

The properties of networked publics - primarily persistence - extend the reach of relationship performances. If posted on a MySpace profile, verbalized adoration can be read by all of that person's friends. Perhaps this perceived magnification of audience increases the "realness" of the relationship? Or perhaps it simply increases the likelihood of being validated for being with an attractive partner. Relationships are filled with public commentary about love and adoration. While adults often mark "in a relationship" and leave it at that, teens are far more likely to fill their profiles with odes to the one that they adore.

Teens are aware of how these expressions are witnessed by those around them. Consider, for example, the comments section. Teens recognize that what they write in a comment is visible to all of that person's friends. This prompts loving significant others to publicly display their affection in a digital form, full of candy-coated words. On the flip side, because teens have the ability to voice their perspective to the broader peer group, there is a great incentive to make certain that one's view is understood without the he said/she said dynamics. By breaking up through MySpace comments, the heartbreaker is attempting to assert their view for everyone else to see so that they cannot be accused of saying something else in private, different from what they believe that they did say.

Of course, while digital expressions are persistent, they can be obliterated in a matter of clicks by a heartbroken lover. By deleting a significant other from one's friend list, all of the comments evaporate. Every loving message disappears off of the page of both partners, along with every negative comment. Is the goal of deletion to remove the memory of the now ex? Is it effective? The traces of these relationships remain, often because of the comments of third parties who reference the now ex.

When relationships end, it is customary to avoid the now ex for at least a period of time. Co-presence in school is to be ignored, phone calls are not to be returned, and events where the other one is likely to appear are to be avoided. The networked nature of social network sites makes it difficult to uphold this separation. While it is easy to block the ex from one's own page, they are likely to appear in the comments section of mutual friends. Mutual friends are often the complicating factor during a breakup, prompting an all-too-problematic view that these friends must choose sides. Such a choice can easily be viewed on MySpace because the mutual friend cannot actually maintain both connections if a nasty breakup requires that s/he choose sides.

Relationships are a regular part of teen life. The activities around flirting, dating, and breaking up take place wherever teens spend time and teens adapt these practices for the technologies and environments in which they spend the bulk of their time. Because networked publics provide a space for teens to gather and share their lives, it is not surprising that the intimate acts that must be made visible take place here. While the online publicness of teen relationships horrifies many adults, it is central to most teens.

(1) Arendt, Hannah. 1998. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2nd Edition).
(2) Mr. C. "St. Valentine's Radio." Understanding (blog). February 14, 2007.

Category: youth culture

Tags: youth flirting dating myspace research

   

Posted by zephoria at 11:39 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)

March 17, 2007

fame, narcissism and MySpace

When adults aren't dismissing MySpace as the land-o-predators, they're often accusing it of producing narcissistic children. I find it hard to bite my tongue in these situations, but i know that few adults are willing to take the blame for producing narcissistic children. The issue of narcissism and fame is back in public circulation with a vengeance (thanks in part to Britney Spears for having a public meltdown). While the mainstream press is having a field day with blaming celebrities and teens for being narcissistic, more solid research on narcissism is emerging.

For those who are into pop science coverage of academic work, i'd encourage you to start with Jake Halpern's "Fame Junkies" (tx Anastasia). For simplicity sake, let's list a few of the key findings that have emerged over the years concerning narcissism.

• While many personality traits stay stable across time, it appears as though levels of narcissism (as tested by the NPI) decrease as people grow older. In other words, while adolescents are more narcissistic than adults, you were also more narcissistic when you were younger than you are now.
• The scores of adolescents on the NPI continue to rise. In other words, it appears as though young people today are more narcissistic than older people were when they were younger.
• There appears to be a correlation between narcissism and self-esteem based education. In other words, all of that school crap about how everyone is good and likable has produced a generation of narcissists.
• Celebrity does not make people narcissists but narcissistic people seek fame.
• Reality TV stars score higher on the NPI than other celebrities.

OK... given these different findings (some of which are still up for debate in academic circles), what should we make of teens' participation on social network sites in relation to narcissism?

My view is that we have trained our children to be narcissistic and that this is having all sorts of terrifying repercussions; to deal with this, we're blaming the manifestations instead of addressing the root causes and the mythmaking that we do to maintain social hierarchies. Let's unpack that for a moment.

American individualism (and self-esteem education) have allowed us to uphold a myth of meritocracy. We sell young people the idea that anyone can succeed, anyone can be president. We ignore the fact that working class kids get working class jobs. This, of course, has been exacerbated in recent years. There used to be meaningful working class labor that young people were excited to be a part of. It was primarily masculine labor and it was rewarded through set hierarchies and unions helped maintain that structure. The unions crumpled in the 1980s and by the time the 1987 recession hit, there was a teenage wasteland No longer were young people being socialized into meaningful working class labor; the only path out was the "lottery" (aka becoming a famous rock star, athlete, etc.).

Since the late 80s, the lottery system has become more magnificent and corporatized. While there's nothing meritocratic about reality TV or the Spice Girls, the myth of meritocracy remains. Over and over, working class kids tell me that they're a better singer than anyone on American Idol and that this is why they're going to get to be on the show. This makes me sigh. Do i burst their bubble by explaining that American Idol is another version of Jerry Springer where hegemonic society can mock wannabes? Or does their dream have value?

So, we have a generation growing up being told that they can be anyone, magnifying the level of narcissism. Narcissists seek fame and Hollywood dangles fame like a carrot on a stick. Meanwhile, technology emerges that challenges broadcast's control over distribution. It just takes a few Internet success stories for fame-seeking narcissists to begin projecting themselves into the web in the hopes of being seen and being validated. While the important baseline of peer-validation still dominates, the hopes of becoming famous are still part of the narrative. Unfortunately, it's kinda like watching wannabe actors work as waiters in Hollywood. They think that they'll be found there because one day long ago someone was and so they go to work everyday in a menial service job with a dream.

Perhaps i should rally behind people's dreams, but i tend to find them quite disturbing. It is these kinds of dreams that uphold the American myths that get us into such trouble. They also uphold hegemony and the powerful feed on their dreams, offering nothing in return. We can talk about reality TV as an amazing opportunity for anyone to act, but realistically, it's nothing more than Hollywood's effort to bust the actors' guild and related unions. Feed on people's desire for fame, pay them next to nothing and voila profit margin!

Unfortunately, union busting is the least of my worries when it comes to dream parasites. When i was trying to unpack the role of crystal meth in domestic violence, i started realizing that the meth offered a panacea when the fantasy bubble burst. Needless to say, this resulted in a spiral into hell for many once-dreamers. The next step was even more nauseating. When i started seeing how people in rural America recovered from meth, i found one common solution: born-again Christianity. The fervor for fame which was suppressed by meth re-emerged in zealous religiosity. Christianity promised an even less visible salvation: God's grace. While blind faith is at the root of both fame-seeking and Christianity, Christianity offers a much more viable explanation for failures: God is teaching you a lesson... be patient, worship God, repent, and when you reach heaven you will understand.

While i have little issue with the core tenants of Christianity or religion in general, i am disgusted by the Christian Industrial Complex. In short, i believe that there is nothing Christian about the major institutions behind modern day organized American Christianity. Decades ago, the Salvation Army actively engaged in union-busting in order to maintain the status-quo. Today, the Christian Industrial Complex has risen into power in both politics and corporate life, but their underlying mission is the same: justify poor people's industrial slavery so that the rich and powerful can become more rich and powerful. Ah, the modernization of the Protestant Ethic.

Let's pop the stack and return to fame-seeking and massively networked society. Often, you hear Internet people modify Andy Warhol's famous quote to note that on the Internet, everyone will be famous amongst 15. I find this very curious, because aren't both time and audience needed to be famous? Is one really famous for 15 minutes? Or amongst 15? Or is it just about the perceived rewards around fame?

Why is it that people want to be famous? When i ask teens about their desire to be famous, it all boils down to one thing: freedom. If you're famous, you don't have to work. If you're famous, you can buy anything you want. If you're famous, your parents can't tell you what to do. If you're famous, you can have interesting friends and go to interesting parties. If you're famous, you're free! This is another bubble that i wonder whether or not i should burst. Anyone who has worked with celebrities knows that fame comes with a price and that price is unimaginable to those who don't have to pay it.

How does this view of fame play into narcissism? If you think you're all that, you don't want to be told what to do or how to do it... You think you're above all of that. When you're parents are telling you that you have to clean your room and that you're not allowed out, they're cramping your style. How can you be anyone you want to be if you can't even leave the house? Fame appears to be a freedom from all of that.

The question remains... does micro-fame (such as the attention one gets from being very cool on MySpace) feed into the desires of narcissists to get attention? On a certain level, yes. The attention feels good, it feeds the ego. But the thing about micro-celebrities is that they're not free from attack. One of the reasons that celebrities go batty is that fame feeds into their narcissism, further heightening their sense of self-worth as more and more people tell them that they're all that. They never see criticism, their narcissism is never called into check. This isn't true with micro-fame and this is especially not true online when celebrities face their fans (and haters) directly. Net celebrities feel the exhaustion of attention and nagging much quicker than Hollywood celebrities. It's a lot easier to burn out quicker and before reaching that mass scale of fame. Perhaps this keeps some of the desire for fame in check? Perhaps not. I honestly don't know.

What i do know is that MySpace provides a platform for people to seek attention. It does not inherently provide attention and this is why even if people wanted 90M viewers to their blog, they're likely to only get 6. MySpace may help some people feel the rush of attention, but it does not create the desire for attention. The desire for attention runs much deeper and has more to do with how we as a society value people than with what technology we provide them.

I am most certainly worried about the level of narcissism that exists today. I am worried by how we feed our children meritocratic myths and dreams of being anyone just so that current powers can maintain their supremacy at a direct cost to those who are supplying the dreams. I am worried that our "solutions" to the burst bubble are physically, psychologically, and culturally devastating, filled with hate and toxic waste. I am worried that Paris Hilton is a more meaningful role model to most American girls than Mother Theresa ever was. But i am not inherently worried about social network technology or video cameras or magazines. I'm worried by how society leverages different media to perpetuate disturbing ideals and pray on people's desire for freedom and attention. Eliminating MySpace will not stop the narcissistic crisis that we're facing; it will simply allow us to play ostrich as we continue to damage our children with unrealistic views of the world.

Category: youth culture

Tags: myspace fame celebrity narcissism

   

Posted by zephoria at 4:58 PM | Comments (40) | TrackBack (0)

March 15, 2007

where are the people?

Following SXSW-Interactive, i rented a car and headed to suburbs outside of Austin to interview teens. Between my interviews, i drove around the different suburbs to check out what i could see. It was completely eerie. While the streets of Austin are overflowing with SXSW attendees, the suburbs are startlingly silent. During the 3+ hours of touring various neighborhoods, i saw a total of two kids outside (on their driveway). While this may make sense for a typical weekday, it's spring break in Austin. It might also have made sense if the weather was dreadful, but both days were in the mid-70s. I saw numerous sprinklers watering grass, but there were no kids playing on the grass.

The explanations that i heard outside of Austin were like the ones i've heard so many times before:

• "There's nothing to do outside."
  
• "My parents won't let me." (Typically followed with a remark of what the parents are afraid of.)
  
• "None of my friends live nearby." (Typically followed by a comment on needing parents to drive them anywhere)
  

Sometimes, i hear comments about the fast-moving cars and the lack of sidewalks. In the cities, i hear about gang turf wars. In newer suburban neighborhoods, i hear about not knowing/trusting the neighbors. Whatever the excuse, i rarely hear teens talk about things that they do outside in open space. (Sports typically happen outside in closed space.)

My mother remembers getting lost on July 4th in the suburbs of New Jersey a few years back. She felt like she ran into the twilight zone. There were no BBQs, no picnics, no pickup football games, no family gatherings, no chalk on the streets, no nothing. Everyone was indoors.

This makes me sad, very very sad.

Category: youth culture

Tags: outdoors

   

Posted by zephoria at 6:29 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0)

January 25, 2007

an interview with me

I did an interview with WireTap a while back about MySpace and youth. Today, it was reposted on Alternet. It's an OK interview - not very in-depth, but it's hard to be in-depth in that format. Still, the comments on Alternet make me sad. I'm called "barely articulate" and a "typical talking head" (and my age is brought into the discussion as a way to dismiss me). It's always peculiar to see my speaking style in written form; i feel far more coherent when i control the written form. That said, those labels sting.

I'm also accused of being too blase about the safety issues. As with all interviews, i gloss over a lot of details to get general ideas across but it is driving me nuts that everyone assumes that because i think we've gone too far in the direction of moral panics and culture of fear that i don't care about safety or teenagers or rape. I find myself wanting to scream. I spent five years working on the issues of rape, domestic violence, and other violence against women; safety is a very real concern of mine, but reality is far more nuanced than the sky is falling perspective seems to convey. When an extremist position is taking up the airwaves, it's super hard to correct course and it seems as though it's easy to be painted a radical in the opposite direction even if those are not my views ::sigh:: How have other folks combatted extreme media positions before? Any advice for being more effective?

Category: youth culture

   

Posted by zephoria at 9:26 PM | Comments (27) | TrackBack (0)

January 10, 2007

a few more thoughts on child abuse, sexual predators, and the moral panic

Every day, i read more articles about child abuse and online sexual predators. They make me sad but they also make me very frustrated because the more we talk about these cases of strangers abusing children, the less we talk about the real perpetrators of child abuse: adults who know children intimately. Today, i ran across a phenomenal article by Peter Reilly entitled The Facts About Online Sex Abuse and Schools. In it, he shares a lot of data about perpetrators, the state of child abuse in general, and the importance of not buying into the fear. Two of the images that he shares capture my unbearable frustration with our obsession with online sexual predators:

Of course, while the hype and paranoia continues, researchers are showing that teens are safer than adults think. Even The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is saying that things are getting better: new data in their longitudinal study of online victimization shows that only 4% of youth were asked for a naked or sexually explicit photo (down from 5 years ago).

Of course, i'm painfully aware that facts are worthless in a fight against paranoia and panic and this makes me tear my hair out. I wish i had the first clue how to stop a moral panic from doing the cultural damage that this panic has inflicted on teens. I talk to teenagers who are afraid of the Internet because they think it's dangerous. I talk to teenagers whose parents believe everything they hear on Fox and have barred them from the Internet. How can we educate our youth about how to be responsible users of the Internet when we're flipping out? ::sigh::

I think that Pete Reilly put it well in his article:

When we slice the "less than five percent pie" into these smaller pieces, the risk gets much, much smaller. Of course, statistics aren't going to matter much if you are the parent of a child who has had an online incident, or the leader of school that has experienced one.

The question is, "Are we going to take a 'zero risk' approach to using technology and the tools of the Web?"

We don't take a "zero risk" approach with our sports programs where the chance of injury, paralysis, and, in rare cases, death, is always present. We don't take that approach with field trips where students travel to museums and historical sites in locations where they might be touched by crime. We don't take that approach with recess on our playgrounds, or transporting our kids to and from school.

We can never eliminate all risk; but there are ways to maximize our students' safety while using these incredibly powerful tools. Each tool needs to be analyzed individually to ascertain its benefits and the specific risks it might present. From there, thoughtful people can find solutions to the student safety issues that may arise.

(tx mrc)

Category: youth culture

Tags: myspace predators

   

Posted by zephoria at 8:25 PM | Comments (21) | TrackBack (0)

January 8, 2007

the cost of lying

This afternoon, i did an interview with MTV. Although the clip will be only 3 minutes in length, they interviewed Zadi Diaz and i for almost two hours. The core of our conversation concerned the story of a teenage boy who wrote a suicidal message on his MySpace. Zadi saw it and contacted the boy; he wrote back indicating that he was in the middle of taking a lot of pills. Zadi wrote to her friends, begging for help. One of her friends found the boy's school on his profile and contacted the principal who, in turn, contacted the family and got an ambulance to the boy in time.

I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if this boy had followed the "safety measures" that most parents groups advocate. The data that made him traceable - his school, his real name - helped a kind stranger save his life. I wonder how many people's lives are saved (or enhanced) by the presence of authentic data online.

Many years ago, a young Ani DiFranco fan contacted me. She wrote to me regularly about how her mother abused her, how she wanted to commit suicide. I pleaded with her to get help. I offered to help her find someone to talk with. But she would never give me identifying information. I knew she lived in Ohio, but that was it. Her email address was a Hotmail account (and there's no way Microsoft was going to help). She was terrified of her mom finding out that she was telling on her. Her messages got more and more desperate and i begged for a way to contact her. And then she disappeared. I still live with the fear of what that girl might have done and am constantly asking myself what i could've done that would've helped more.

It's a double-edged sword, isn't it? The things that make us safest from others make us least from ourselves.

I also can't help but wonder if there are other costs to all of this deception that we're promoting as a safety mechanism. What does it mean to tell an entire generation that the way to be safe is to lie? Lie about your age, your name, your hometown, etc. All for good reason. Are we creating a generation of liars? Sure, it's a "white" lie, but that's a slippery slope, no?

Lying about one's age is at the core of socialization into the Internet. Did Congress really believe that all 13-year-olds suddenly disappeared from the social sites regulated by COPPA? Ha! 8-year-olds are telling me that the way to get into this that or the other site is to say you were born in 1993. The technological affordances have forced them to lie to get what they want. Next, their parents will tell them to lie to be safe. What's next? Lie to get into college? It sure is a funny moral, no?

The lying is certainly working. In my last round of talking with teens, not a single one of them put a real age on their MySpace profiles. They were no longer saying that they were 69 or 104 (typically identifiers for teens). Instead, they were choosing arbitrary ages ranging from 16-24. Think about that. If this is as common as i'm seeing, none of the data is remotely real when it comes to age. How far does this go? Does it extend offline? Many teens are well-versed at pretending to be 21 in this country... fake IDs have gotten more sophisticated but they haven't gone away. But what happens when a 21-year-old starts talking to someone that he thinks is also 21 on MySpace?

I can't help but think that all of this lying has a cost...

Category: youth culture

Tags: deception lying safety

   

Posted by zephoria at 9:30 PM | Comments (24) | TrackBack (0)

November 7, 2006

what i mean when i say "email is dead" in reference to teens

When i was a child, i used to get super excited when the postman came. Although i almost never got anything, those handful of letters from penpals were such joyous gifts. Email was the same at first - even the pyramid schemes and bizarro forwards were a reason to celebrate. "You've got mail!" Today, snail mail is full of bills and email is full of spam and expectations. Joy comes through IM or SMS or MySpace. At least for now.

Lately, i've gotten into some trouble for saying that email is dead with young people so i wanted to do some clarification.

Do young people have email accounts? Yes. Do they login to them semi-regularly? Yes. Do they use it as their primary form of asynchronous communication for talking with their friends? No.

Academics have been noting that young people's social and emotional energies have been moving from email to IM. Consider for example Steven Thorne's 2003 article "Artifacts and Cultures-of-Use in Intercultural Communication." This article shows a cross-language penpal experiment. Those who used email (as assigned) got very little out of the relationship but a segment of participants switched to IM with their penpal, resulting in a much better connection. In examining this, he finds that this is because IM is the primary site of sociable communication for young people. It is where teens prefer to go to socialize.

Many of you (dear readers) receive your bills via email now. Does this mean that you've stopped checking snail mail? No. That said, what kind of emotional attachment do you have towards your mailbox? You probably love when your Netflix disks arrive or when you get that neat package from Amazon, but is snail mail all that exciting now? If you couldn't check your snail mail for a day or two, would you be emotionally distraught? Most of you probably twitch when you can't get to your email. Why? There are many more important, interesting, juicy things there that feel timely and important.

Now, let's talk about youth. They have email accounts. They get homework assignments sent there. Xanga tells them that their friends have updated their pages. Attachments (a.k.a. digital Netflix/Amazon packages) get sent there. Companies try to spam them there (a.k.a. junk mail). Sifting through the crap, they might get a neat penpal letter or a friend might have sent them something to read but, by and large, there's not a lot of emotional investment over email.

That said, take away their AIM or MySpace or SMS or whatever their primary form of asynchronous messaging with their friends is and they will start twitching and moan about how you've ruined their life. And you have. Because you've taken away their access to their friends, their access to the thing that matters most to them. It's like me taking away your access to blogs and email and being forced to stay at the office just because you showed up late for work.

I'm part of the generation caught between email and IM where IM feels more natural but most of the folks just a little older than me refuse to use IM so i'm stuck dealing with email. Today's teens are stuck between IM, MySpace/Facebook, and SMS. There's another transition going on which is why there's no clean one place. IM replaced email for quite a few years but now things are in flux again. Still, no matter what, email is not regaining beloved ground.

Email is not gone but it is dead in the sense that it is no longer a site of deep emotional passion. People still have accounts, just like they still have mailboxes. But their place for sociable communication is elsewhere.

Category: youth culture

Tags: email snailmail sms im myspace

   

Posted by zephoria at 4:21 PM | Comments (21) | TrackBack (0)

September 13, 2006

the consequences of 'modern' life

Yesterday's UK Telegraph printed an open letter from numerous academics, professionals, and artists concerned about the health of youth. The piece, signed by hundreds, is called: Modern life leads to more depression among children:

Sir - As professionals and academics from a range of backgrounds, we are deeply concerned at the escalating incidence of childhood depression and children's behavioural and developmental conditions. We believe this is largely due to a lack of understanding, on the part of both politicians and the general public, of the realities and subtleties of child development.

Since children's brains are still developing, they cannot adjust – as full-grown adults can - to the effects of ever more rapid technological and cultural change. They still need what developing human beings have always needed, including real food (as opposed to processed "junk"), real play (as opposed to sedentary, screen-based entertainment), first-hand experience of the world they live in and regular interaction with the real-life significant adults in their lives.

They also need time. In a fast-moving hyper-competitive culture, today's children are expected to cope with an ever-earlier start to formal schoolwork and an overly academic test-driven primary curriculum. They are pushed by market forces to act and dress like mini-adults and exposed via the electronic media to material which would have been considered unsuitable for children even in the very recent past.
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Our society rightly takes great pains to protect children from physical harm, but seems to have lost sight of their emotional and social needs. However, it's now clear that the mental health of an unacceptable number of children is being unnecessarily compromised, and that this is almost certainly a key factor in the rise of substance abuse, violence and self-harm amongst our young people.

This is a complex socio-cultural problem to which there is no simple solution, but a sensible first step would be to encourage parents and policy-makers to start talking about ways of improving children's well-being. We therefore propose as a matter of urgency that public debate be initiated on child-rearing in the 21st century this issue should be central to public policy-making in coming decades.

Given the British slant of this, i'm kinda surprised to not see David Buckingham on the list of signers. His book After the Death of Childhood: Growing up in the Age of Electronic Media deals directly with this issue, showing both positives and negatives of contemporary society.

I strongly support this letter. I believe that discourse about the state of children's health is desperately needed. The issue is complex - it is not a matter of just taking away junk food or banning TV; it is about rethinking the child-raising process at all levels. It is also not something that just pertains to psychology, but also to sociology, anthropology, economics, media studies, politics, education, etc. There are scholars researching many components of this but the issue itself extends far beyond the academy. I'm concerned that the media has defined the concerns and that there is too little discussion between scholars and the public at large. I would *love* to see this change.

One concern i had in reading this letter is that i fear people will interpret it to mean that technology is bad bad bad. (For that reason, i bolded two parts that i think highlight key sites of trouble in our society.) By and large, technology is filling a gap and that gap is created by us - parents, educators, politicians, media, ... society in general. TV is allowing children to have desperately-needed downtime, the Internet provides them with the a place to hang out amongst their friends when they are locked into their nuclear family residences. If we take their plea seriously (and i hope we do), i think that it's important to put down our adult biases, our technophobia, our xenophobia, and our parental fears to think about youth's worlds from their point of view.

Category: youth culture

Tags: depression childhood

   

Posted by zephoria at 11:08 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)

September 7, 2006

lonelygirl15

Over the last week, i've gotten innumerable emails about lonelygirl15. Folks were wondering if i was behind it or if i knew who was. They wanted to know my opinion, if i thought it was fake.

I did. I thought it was fake but i expected that it was a TV or movie organization. I was kinda curious if it was an ARG but it didn't look like it. I decided that i should do a proper analysis of the different bits when the news broke: LonelyGirl15 is crafted by a group of filmmakers as an art project. Here's the letter they wrote to their fans on the forum explaining LonelyGirl15:

To Our Incredible Fans,

Thank you so much for enjoying our show so far. We are amazed by the overwhelmingly positive response to our videos; it has exceeded our wildest expectations. With your help we believe we are witnessing the birth of a new art form. Our intention from the outset has been to tell a story-- A story that could only be told using the medium of video blogs and the distribution power of the internet. A story that is interactive and constantly evolving with the audience.

Right now, the biggest mystery of Lonelygirl15 is "who is she?" We think this is an oversimplification. Lonelygirl15 is a reflection of everyone. She is no more real or fictitious than the portions of our personalities that we choose to show (or hide) when we interact with the people around us. Regardless, there are deeper mysteries buried within the plot, dialogue, and background of the Lonelygirl15 videos, and many of our tireless and dedicated fans have unearthed some of these. There are many more to come.

To enhance the community experience of Lonelygirl15, which you have already helped to create, we are in the process of building a website centered around video and interactivity. This website will allow everyone to enjoy the full potential of this new medium. Unfortunately, we aren't programmers. We are filmmakers. We are working furiously to complete the website, and hope to have it up and running shortly.

So, sit tight. You are the only reason for our success, and we appreciate your devotion. We want you to know that we aren't a big corporation. We are just like you. A few people who love good stories. We hope that you will join us in the continuing story of Lonelygirl15, and help us usher in an era of interactive storytelling where the line between "fan" and "star" has been removed, and dedicated fans like yourselves are paid for their efforts. This is an incredible time for the creator inside all of us.

Some thoughts

Now that i've killed the suspense, let me back up and tell you about what happened. For those who aren't familiar, videos by LonelyGirl15 started appearing on YouTube over the summer. She's supposedly a teenager who is homeschooled by religious parents who don't know she's creating videos online. Her friend Daniel helps her with the videos and they often talk back and forth across their videos. It's rather endearing but too good to be true.

As more videos popped up, people started questioning whether this was real or not. Speculation mounted and fake lonelygurls started to appear. People created videos to comment on LonelyGirl15. People flocked to the LonelyGirl15 forum to discuss. Problem is the LonelyGirl15 domain was registered before the videos started appearing. People started tracking down more and more clues, trying to hone in on what it was, who was behind it. Suspicion mounted. In classic fan style, people dove right down and tore apart all of the data. Quite a few thought that this was an ARG, Jane McGonigal style, but she denied involvement on NPR. Others thought it was an advert or some marketing campaign.

The clues people dug up were fascinating. Personally, i was intrigued by "Bree's" MySpace profile. I knew it was fake but i didn't know if the YouTube LonelyGirl15 made the MySpace profile LonelyGurl15. Why did i know it was fake? Well, i read too many teenage MySpaces. Not sure i should give away clues as to how to create a real-looking fake MySpace profile. ::wink::

Then press started covering it. Hands down, The New York Times had the best coverage. I can't help but wonder if the NYTimes knew the truth because they are certainly using the same language: "Hey There, Lonelygirl - One cute teen's online diary is probably a hoax. It's also the birth of a new art form." If so, go Adam for good reporting!

I like the idea that it is an art form but i also think it's part of what Henry Jenkins calls Convergence Culture. Regardless, it's super cool that people are using new media to create narratives. They are telling their story, truth or fiction. Of course, this makes many people very uncomfortable. They want blogs and YouTube and MySpace to be Real with a capital R. Or they want it to be complete play. Yet, what's happening is both and neither. People are certainly playing but even those who are creating "reality" are still engaged in an act of performance. They are writing themselves into being for others to interpret and the digital bodies that emerge often confound those who are doing the interpretation. In many ways, this reminds me of the Fakester drama during the height of Friendster. As one of the instigators behind the Fakester manifesto explained, "none of this is real." I won't get all existential on you so we'll leave it at that.

In many ways, i have to admit that i'm sad that the truth is out. I was really enjoying the suspicion. Far more than any episode of Lost or reality TV show. I was enjoying not knowing who was behind it and spending hours speculating and trying to find hints. I was enjoying watching a community of people talk endlessly about what they thought might be going on. Sure, the videos were quite endearing (although the ending of Poor Pluto disturbed the hell out of me) but do i just want to watch the videos by themselves? I'm not sure. I think i liked them for the mystery.

Regardless, i absolutely love the way people are using all of these new social technologies to create cultural experiments. To me, this signifies the importance of social media.

Update: The LATimes is reporting that emails concerning the site come from the Creative Artists Agency (CAA), a talent agency in Beverly Hills. (Perhaps i wasn't as off as i thought?)

Update (9/13): The NYTimes has the full story. Bree is Jessica Rose, a 20-ish film student. LG15 is a 4-person production meant to create intrigue.

Update (9/16): For anyone who is interested in this topic, i'd suggest checking out Henry Jenkins' entry on astroturf, humbugs, and Lonely Girl and Jane McGonigal's entry on not fetishizing participation.

Continue reading "lonelygirl15"

Category: youth culture

Tags: youtube lonelygirl15 hoax convergence

   

Posted by zephoria at 5:02 PM | Comments (60)

August 19, 2006

Save Your Space

Save Your Space is a website created by a Southern California organization called "The Friends of MySpace" (not affiliated with News Corp). They have put together a petition against DOPA and they're trying to collect signatures of people of all ages who are opposed to the legislation. If you are (and you damn well should be if you're reading my ramblings), please take a moment to sign. And then pass it on.

Category: youth culture

Tags: dopa

   

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August 13, 2006

youth and those crazy hormones

When discussing the plight of teenagers with adults, i'm often chastised for viewing teens as mature humans capable of making reasonable decisions. All too often, people point to all that psychological research that indicates that teens are experiencing extensive hormonal rushes that impair their judgment. And then i go home to my 30-something friends who see a baby and start cooing as their biological clock begs for attention. And then i talk to people my mom's age going through menopause and being about as coo-coo as they come. And then i get calls from my older male friends who are experiencing their midlife crisis and think that trading in their wife for people my age is a good idea. I don't think that teenagers are the only population facing impaired judgment. In fact, i'm curious at what age one's judgment is really all that functional.

What fascinates me in watching teens is to see biology and culture at complete odds. Their bodies are screaming SEX! REPRODUCTION! NOW! while adults are screaming abstinence. Evolution does not think that waiting until you have your career settled before giving birth is a good idea regardless of what culture says. Personally, i think teens are doing an astounding job at quelching bodily urges in favor of societal norms. I think we should give them a lot of credit for their strength!

I'm not saying that teens are all-so-mature but as one of my colleagues points out, the best part of being a 30-something year old guy in today's age is that it's assumed that you still haven't matured beyond fart jokes. Maturation is a progression - we build on things we've learned in the past in order to grow. Every significant experience teaches us something as we grow older. Hopefully, we won't throw away those lessons and regress to bullying and gossip mongering but sadly, many do. The problem is that we need to face those challenges in order to learn from them. The more that we're coddled, the less we learn. I have to admit that when it comes to teaching in a college classroom, i far prefer the street kids to the protected ones. At least the street kids know why they're in school and it's not simply to get away from their parents. Their experiences have been rough but they've learned a lot and it shows. Even worse than protected college students in the classrooms is spoiled ones in a foreign country. ::shudder:: That's when it becomes painfully obvious how little freedom we've given our youth compared to other cultures.

As best as i can tell, the last big cognitive issue is the ability to think abstractly, negotiate social categories, and recognize that there are multiple possibilities to a situation based on your actions. Ideally, you should be able to get that there are multiple interpretations to a situation but i don't think that most adults get this so i doubt that i can hold that as a standard for maturation even though it would be nice. Once you get this around adolescence/puberty, it's building time from that point forward. Experience, risk-taking, and consequences matter. The crazy hormones surge at all different times to get in your way but like external crises, you gotta learn to recognize and deal with hormones. Locking up folks who are going through hormone rushes is never a good idea even if i had the urge to lock mom up for a few years.

There should be a list of things that youth should learn as young as possible to be a part of society. If i were to start a list, it would probably include:

• Learn to manage your own money including situations where you don't have enough money for something really important;
  
• Work to make your own money;
  
• Learn how to come up with money for monthly bills;
  
• Learn how to cook, clean, and do laundry;
  
• Learn how to take care of small children;
  
• Learn how to handle sickness and doctors;
  
• Learn how to travel (airplane, bus, etc.) on your own;
  
• Learn to travel respectfully to foreign cultures;
  
• Learn how to handle being drunk;
  
• Experience being bullied, embarrassed, ridiculed, taunted, beaten up;
  
• Be exposed to people really different than you and learn tolerance and respect;
  
• Face failure and learn disappointment + face success and learn humility;
  
• Experience heartbreak;
  
• Manage significant emotional or physical pain;
  
• Handle the death of someone close to you.
  

Obviously, some of these are taboo and others really shouldn't be planned for but still, i have to say, this is what i'd want my child to know before being on their own. I have to give my mom props for making certain i knew many of these things. My favorite was the fact that she made me work in fast food to learn why i was getting a college education. Anyone else have favorite lessons that they wish all young people learned?

Category: youth culture

Tags: lessons hormones maturity

   

Posted by zephoria at 12:48 PM | Comments (26) | TrackBack (0)

May 2, 2006

Digital Kids Postdoc (Application due May 5)

Attention newly minted and about to be minted PhDs: my research group is seeking post-docs to work on the digital kids project. Application deadline: MAY 5 (yes, *this* Friday). This is a great opportunity for people working in interdisciplinary spaces, interested in different aspects of digital youth. Your degree can be in anything from STS and HCI to soc and anthro to history and education, etc. You could be interested in studying online communities, gaming practices, mobile culture, youth and new media, etc. I should note that the grant comes from the American studies division of Macarthur so you should be interested in American practices. For more information, click here. Please pass this on to other academics who you think might be interested

Category: youth culture

   

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May 1, 2006

two gifts for your children: roots and wings

A few weeks ago, a father told me that when he became a parent, his father reminded him that parents must give their children two things: roots and wings. Give them roots to keep them grounded through tough times. Give them wings to soar above everything, explore new worlds and fly farther than we ever did.

I think that this is important for most parents to remember....

Category: youth culture

Tags: roots wings

   

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April 1, 2006

teen digital outreach programs

In college, many of my friends worked at teen outreach programs. They helped kids who were on the street, suicidal, struggling with addiction, working as prostitutes, or engaging in self-harm. Often, they got money from the city or state to distribute condoms and clean needles, do prevention education and do outreach social work.

With sites like LiveJournal, Xanga and MySpace, many teens are expressing similar kinds of out-of-control behaviors. Are there any digital teen outreach programs? Are any social workers or therapists reaching out to teens who are clearly battling tough issues? I recognize that these websites are not the best place to do actual therapy, but neither is the street. A huge part of what teen outreach programs do is help direct teens to places where they can get help. Are there any such outreach programs on the web?

Unfortunately, it seems like the only people reaching out to these teens are friends who are scared by what their friends say (this is not a good way to do outreach). There are organizations who have set up help websites, but they rely on people to find them via search. Wouldn't it be great if concerned social workers and outreach organizers could hop onto MySpace and reach out to some of the teens who clearly need help?

I've also seen religious organizations do outreach. Some is simply missionary work - reaching out to convert teens. Unfortunately, though, the bulk seems to be religious individuals approaching queer teens to threaten them with damnation. :-(

Category: youth culture

Tags: outreach myspace

   

Posted by zephoria at 7:51 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)

March 1, 2006

the value of high school

Compulsory high school education began in the Interim period in the US. There were high schools before that, paid for by public funds, but they were mostly only used by the wealthy and those who valued education. Only a small fraction of the population could afford to have their teenagers spend their days learning rather than trying to help support the family. In this way, they ended up in two different tracks in society. Of course, there were many who never went to high school but did some amazing things in their lifetimes and there were plenty who went to high school who didn't do very much. But the class system was there.

Today, every child has access to high school paid for by public funds. Of course, the irony is that there is still a complete class system. Those who have money and those who are willing to go into debt because they believe in education send their kids to private schools. I've been looking at high schools that cost $28K+. ::gasp:: In places like Santa Monica, there are 22 private schools and 1 (yes one) public one. Needless to say, Samo services a very different segment of the population than the private schools.

Have we equalized the system? Not even close. Then you have No Child Left Behind which regulates the public schools (but not the private ones). Interestingly, most elected officials send their kids to private schools so they don't even feel the effects of this. Accidentally, as a part of my research, i've been watching what all of these standards do to our kids. They are not learning to write because standards only test things that can be measured in checkboxes. A lot of what they learn assumes they are middle class and heading to college and most of it is set up by college professors who have an unrealistic understanding of what non-college-bound youth need. Teachers have no time to actually dive deeply and help kids learn to think - they have to force data down their throats. It's so depressing and we're going to be worse off in the long run because of it.

Of course, we all like to kid ourselves into thinking that high school is about education. For the non-college bound, it doesn't prepare them at all for the service jobs that most of them are going to be stuck doing. What it does measure is that they are able to show up on a schedule and follow rules. A diploma is a stamp of obedience to authority.

Of course, every teacher hopes to help their kids get into college. What about the kids who could never afford it? And frankly, not all students are meant to go to college... or at least, there are not enough jobs that are supposedly gained post-college. And unfortunately, working class notions of success are gone.

Gah, it's a depressing picture to spend too much time in schools. I'm in awe of the teachers in this country who can maintain hope and dedication in the face of grim realities.

Category: youth culture

   

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February 5, 2006

how to kill email

Rumors are (once again) flying around that people are going to be charged for sending email, postage stamp style. The details are uncertain, although the NYTimes has their version; apparently, Yahoo! and AOL are involved in this and there will still be free email, but paid for email will be given priority. The logic is (always has been) that companies should have to pay for bulk mail in order to minimize spam. There are arguments concerning the effectiveness of this and there's the issue of variable global economies and how this might hinder poorer companies, non-profits, and anyone who doesn't have the economic capital of the porn industry. There are lots of good arguments on both sides, but i don't want to focus on that.

What i want to highlight instead is an aspect i haven't heard discussed in the context of this: email is already dying amongst youth. Right now, most of us in our 20s view postal mail as the site of bills and junk mail; the occasional letter and package is super exciting, but we can almost always predict those (they are usually correlated with birthdays, holidays and the one-click button). For youth, it's the same story with email - you get notices from parents, adults, companies, junk mail, and the occasional attachment that was announced via IM. Add postage stamps to this and email will become even less valuable; your friends won't pay for it so the system will highlight the companies over your friends - yuck. Even those who appreciate sending email will be alienated by turning this into a capitalist enterprise. Yuck. Bye bye email, hello IM and SMS and alternative asynchronous message systems. There's nothing like giving corporations a preferential position in the system to destroy a communications platform.

Category: youth culture

Tags: email

   

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January 24, 2006

perpetually liminal: are we refusing to grow up? what does this mean?

Many of the texts i'm reading these days are talking about the move from childhood to adulthood and the liminal/transitional stage in-between. Although the concept of "teenager" is relatively new (created during the American depression to keep younger people out of the workforce), most societies have a transition period between childhood and adulthood. Of course, girls' transition has been historically marked by menstruation while boys tend to go through some ritual of moving into adulthood. In almost all these texts, adulthood is seen as a desirable state to be in, full of all sorts of privileges. It is assumed that children want to move into adulthood and that part of the liminal stage is about taking on adult privileges (sex, drinking, ...) while still having childhood responsibilities (a.k.a. few). In most societies, the key to the transitional phase is the removal from the core community to a separate one and then a return...

Contemporary American society has really stretched the liminal stage to include mandatory high school and socially required college. Rather than moving into adulthood at menstruation/male strength periods, we have another 10 years to wait before we are deemed adults. We don't even leave home until 18 even though menstruation has dropped to 12 and below. With the liminal stage stretched out, there's a drastic increase in participating in adult behaviors with childhood responsibilities.

I started thinking about Burning Man (yes, i bought tickets this week) and how, in many ways, it is a celebration of this liminality. We all go to the desert to act like some peculiar combination of adults and children, represented in the imagination by romping around, making ourselves all messy, sex & insobriety, building large Lego-esque projects, having little responsibility. I was also thinking about rave culture. On one hand, we are all trying to take on privileges of adulthood - sex & insobriety, lack of curfew - while working hard to look like small children - big painted eyes and phat pants that create the impression of child-like proportions, bright colors, pacifiers.

I'm kinda torn in resolving all of this. In many ways, i feel like half of my generation doesn't want to grow up while half is working hard to do so. How much of this has to do with our inability to inherit certain other privileges of adulthood (power, money) and our lack of interest in dealing with adult responsibilities that are getting increasingly harder like money and health? As adults live longer, there is more pressure to remove youth from the workforce, from any position where they can compete. How much is this fucking with the dynamics? How much is the generational divisions and the efforts to legally regulate young people (both now and in their futures by faulting them for their youth) part of adults' need to maintain power at risk of losing it to a larger liminal generation?

When the idea of teenagers was created during the depression, schooling became mandatory. In some senses, this was ideal because it meant that a larger portion of the population was prepared for the future. But over time, a high school diploma no longer served as a ticket to a better life. And then it was college. And then it was graduate school. What next? And what about the fact that we no longer have a construct of "success" for working class kids? By removing unions and life-long well-paying factory gigs and government jobs with pensions, we've turned "success" into a game that can only be acquired through pre-existing privilege or a lottery (becoming a "star"). This really marginalizes a huge chunk of today's youth culture. What if you aren't really meant to be college bound? What then? The service economy is not exactly appealing. No wonder drugs are continuously rising both because using them lets you escape and dealing them provides a way out.

It seems to me that we're running full speed into a crisis stemming from a build-up of pushing off moving into adulthood, increasing doubt about the opportunities of adulthood and the complete failure to provide necessary support structures for the population. I'm not sure i have my head entirely yet...

Am i crazy? Can we really have a stable society without a feasible success route for non-knowledge workers? Can we really function with adulthood being pushed off into the mid/late 20s?

Category: youth culture

Tags: teenager dissertation

   

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December 5, 2005

video games perpetuate A Clockwork Orange

Did you know that teenage video game players are the 21st century version of the droogie gangs depicted in the novel, 'A Clockwork Orange'? Yes, that's right - video games are forcing kids into an evil lair where their minds are dreadfully manipulated and they're learning terrible lessons.

Of course, my favorite part of this article is:

In this connection, we recall the horror of Columbine High School in Colorado. Both Columbine shooters were drenched in the play of ultraviolent video games. At the time, the murders caused a backlash against violent video games, but nowadays, the old ultraviolence has returned like an old friend.

I guess no one informed the authors of this article that it was pretty well shown that Columbine had NOTHING TO DO WITH VIDEO GAMES (or goths or industrial kids). It had everything to do with alienation though. But fear of violence sells newspapers. Just as fear of our kids does. And thus, here we are, another completely inaccurate portrayal of youth and technology.

Here's another great quote:

Moreover, the addictive quality of video games also encourages kids to stay inside and play in virtual reality. But kids need to be out in the world to become socially capable as well as physically fit. How many of our youth have become emotionally stunted from years of seclusion, unable to relate in normal fashion to the demands of ordinary social relationships?

How many parents allow their kids to go out and play? I live in San Francisco - do i ever see kids on the streets? No. Why? Because parents are afraid. They're only allowed to go out under supervision, only allowed to play in very specific ways, in formalized activities, in community centers. They can't hang out on their stoop, play on their streets, play in the park. They can't socialize because parents won't let them. Video games let them go into a world that is not controlled by adults, a fantasy world where creativity and exploration are allowed. It is quite common for youth to play with their friends, to have a fantasy world to share. Who wouldn't prefer the fantasy world to the surveillance world? What would happen if we allowed fantasy to come back to the physical interactions for youth? What if kids could go on adventures outdoors like we used to? Until we deal with our culture of fear, video games are going to be *much* more appealing than everyday space. Not because they are addictive, but because they are simply more fun.

Category: youth culture

   

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November 30, 2005

teenager repellent

At the back of Ms. Magazine, there's a section called "No Comment" where they re-post advertisements of various sorts that are just so wrong it hurts. They don't analyze them but they know their audience will get it given their voice in general. Well, given my actively pro-youth culture voice, check this out:

What's the Buzz? Rowdy Teenagers Don't Want to Hear It

::sigh::

Continue reading "teenager repellent"

Category: youth culture

Tags: youth

   

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November 2, 2005

growing up in a culture of fear: from Columbine to banning of MySpace

I'm tired of mass media perpetuating a culture of fear under the scapegoat of informing the public. Nowhere is this more apparent than how they discuss youth culture and use scare tactics to warn parents of the safety risks about the Internet. The choice to perpetually report on the possibility or rare occurrence of kidnapping / stalking / violence because of Internet sociability is not a neutral position - it is a position of power that the media chooses to take because it's a story that sells. There's something innately human about rubbernecking, about looking for fears, about reveling in the possibilities of demise. Mainstream media capitalizes on this, manipulating the public and magnifying the culture of fear. It sells horror films and it sells newspapers.

A few days ago, i started laying out how youth create a public in digital environments because their physical publics are so restricted. Since then, i was utterly horrified to see that some school officials are requiring students to dismantle their MySpace and Xanga accounts or risk suspension. The reason is stated simply in the article: "If this protects one child from being near-abducted or harassed or preyed upon, I make no apologies for this stance." OMG, this is insane.

In some ways, i wish that the press had never heard of these sites... i wish that i had never participated in helping them know of its value to youth culture. I wish that it remained an obscure teenage site. Because i'm infuriated at how my own participation in information has been manipulated to magnify the culture of fear. The culture of fear is devastating; it is not the same as safety.

Let's step back a few years. Remember Columbine? I was living in Amsterdam at the time and the coverage was brilliant - the Dutch press talked about how there was a school shooting by kids who felt alienated from their community. And then the US coverage started pouring in. Goths (or anyone wearing black, especially black trench coats) were marked as the devil incarnate. Video games were evil and were promoting killing. Everything was blamed except the root cause: alienation. There were exceptions though. I remember crying the first time i read Jon Katz's Voices from the Hellmouth where numerous youth poured out their souls about how they were treated in American education systems. Through his articles, he was able to capture the devastation of the culture of fear. My professor Henry Jenkins testified in Washington about how dangerous our culture has become, not because there are tools of rage, but an unchecked systematic creation of youth alienation. He pleaded with Congress: "Listen to our children. Don't fear them." And yet, we haven't. In response, youth went underground. Following one of his talks, a woman came up to him dressed in an array of chaotic pink. She explained to Henry that she was a goth, but had to go underground. What kind of world do we live in where a color symbolizes a violent act?

We fear our children. We fear what they might do in collectives. We ban them from public spaces (see "Mall won't allow teens without parents"). We think that we are protecting them, but we're really feeding the media industry and guaranteeing the need for uncountable psychiatrists. Imagine the weight that this places on youth culture. Imagine what it's like to grow up under media scrutiny, parental protectionism and formalist educational systems.

During the summer of 1999, i was driving cross-country and ended up at an outdoor rave outside of Denver, Colorado. I was sitting in my tent, writing in my diary when a group of teens wrapped at my door asking if they could come in and smoke because it was too windy outside to light the damn thing. I invited them in and we started talking. They were all from Littleton and had all dropped out of school shortly following Columbine and were now at a loss for what to do. I asked them why they dropped out, expecting that they would tell me about how eerie the school was or how they were afraid of being next. No. They dropped out because the media was hounding them everywhere they went. They couldn't get into the school without being pestered; they couldn't go to the mall or hang out and play basketball. They found underground venues for socialization. Here we were, in the middle of a field outside town at a rave, the only place that they felt safe to be themselves. The underground rave scene flourished in the summer of 1999 outside Denver because it was a safe haven for teens needing to get away from adult surveillance and pressure. Shortly later, the cops busted the party. I went and pleaded with them, asking them to let the kids camp there without the music; they had the permits for camping. No; they had heard that there were kids doing ecstasy. Let's say they are - you want them to drive on drugs? Why not let them just camp? The cops ignored me and turned on bright lights and told the kids that they needed to leave in 10 minutes or they would be arrested. Argh! I'm not going to condone teenage drug use, but i also know that it comes from a need to find one's identity, to make sense of the world removed from adult rules. These kids need a safe space to be themselves; overzealous police don't help a damn thing.

How do youth come of age in this society? What good is it to restrict every social space that they have? Does anyone actually think that this is a good idea? Protectionist actions tends to create hatred, resentment. It destroys families by failing to value trust and responsibility. Ageist rhetoric alienates the younger generation. And for what purpose?

The effects are devastating. Ever wonder why young people don't vote? Why should they? They've been told for so damn long that their voices don't matter, have been the victims of an oppressive regime. What is motivating about that? How do you learn to use your voice to change power when you've been surveilled and controlled for so long, when you've made an art out of subversive engagement with peers? When you've been put on drugs like Strattera that control your behavior to the point of utter obedience?

We drug our children the whole way through school as a mechanism of control and wonder why drug abuse and alcoholism is rampant when they come of age. I've never seen as many drugs as i did at pristine prestigious boarding schools. The wealthy kids in our society are so protected, pampered. When given an ounce of freedom, they go from one extreme to the other instead of having healthy exploratory developments. Many of the most unstable, neurotic and addicted humans i have met in this lifetime come from a position of privilege and protectionism. That cannot be good.

We need to break this culture of fear in order to have a healthy society. Please, please... whenever you interact with youth culture (whether you're a parent, a schoolteacher or a cafe owner), learn from them. Hear them from their perspectives and stop trying to project your own fears onto them. Allow them to flourish by giving them the freedom to make sense of their identity and culture. It doesn't mean that there aren't risks - there are. But they are not as grandiose as the press makes them out to be. And besides, youth need to do stupid things in order to learn from their own mistakes. Never get caught up in the "i told you so" commentary that comes after that "when i was your age" bullshit. People don't learn this way - they learn by putting their hand in the fire and realizing it really is hot and then stepping back.

Post-Columbine, we decided to regulate the symptoms of alienation rather than solve the problem. Today, we are trying to regulate youth efforts to have agency and public space. Both are products of a culture of fear and completely miss the point. We need to figure out how to support youth culture, exploration and efforts to make sense of the social world. The more we try to bottle it into a cookie-cutter model, the more we will destroy that generation.

In line with Henry's claim to Congress, i want to plead to you (and ask you to plead to those you know): Listen to the youth generation - don't fear them and don't project your fear onto them.

(Note: my use of the term "kids" references the broader youth population using a slang very familiar to subcultures where an infantilized generation reclaimed the term for personal use. I am 27 and i still talk about my friends as kids. What i'm referencing is youth culture broadly, not children and not just teens.)

Category: youth culture

Tags: myspace xanga columbine cultureoffear

   

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July 19, 2005

"There are seven words you can't say in kindergarten..."

"Nat Torkington, noted children's auteur, creates an updated list of the words you can't say in school. It's beautiful, salient, and screamingly funny." -- Quinn

Category: youth culture

   

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April 28, 2005

teen panel at CFP

I forgot to re-cap the teen panel at Computers, Freedom and Privacy last week due to traveling. I had an absolute blast. The teens were chosen based on their comfort with speaking on stage and their ability to articulate their thoughts and reflect on the attitudes of their peers. They were by no means "average" teens but their perspective was so valuable for helping folks think about their constructions of privacy. Plus, i absolutely adored talking to them. Late night IM sessions planning the panel, goofy conversations on the floor of the conference hall that often emerged from someone saying "well, duh, everyone knows that" and me going "umm... actually, i'd bet that lots of folks here *don't* know that."

Although i haven't read it, Wired seems to have a transcript from the event. To paraphrase one of my favorite interactions that occurred:

me: so, how much do you use file-sharing these days?
teens: not much... everyone seems to say it's illegal and there's definitely a bit of fear
me: so do you buy CDs now?
teens: definitely not
me: how do you get your music?
teens: we go over to others' houses and copy music from their computers or make ripped CDs for each other or....

There were lots of conversations about how whenever industry or adults try to make it difficult for teens to do certain things, they always figure out how to do what they want anyhow. The thing about file-sharing kills me though because it reminds me that the sharing of music is still, always was and always will be a sociable process, shared between friends. Just because we're trying to put locks on the ability to trade music doesn't mean we haven't always done this and won't continue to do so. I remember the art of tape-recording from the radio station to make perfect mixed tapes for friends. Same practice, new technology.

Category: youth culture

   

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April 6, 2005

Xanga & youth concerns

For teens, Dear Diary morphs into Xanga covers everything from banning Xanga in schools to cyberbullying to the advantages of blogging for youth. It's a great article (although the worst signup process ever).

Continue reading "Xanga & youth concerns"

Category: youth culture

   

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December 1, 2004

end of email era in Korea

For those who hadn't heard, other social communication tools are usurping email's supremacy in Korea, or at least so says Chosun

Category: youth culture

   

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November 12, 2004

youth: exotification and hysteria

In a cover story on urban youth in India called Aliens! (ref Stowe Boyd and Dina Mehta), Business World begins the article with "If men are from Mars and women from Venus, is the species known as 'youth' from the moon orbiting the distant Pluto?" This kind of framing inevitably worries me because it signifies that the writer is going to speak about youth as a fascinating 'other' where adults exotify youth. Throughout the article, they refer to different age groups as different species while trying to classify different groups of youth using models that would make sense to adults. ::cringe::

Deeper inside the magazine is an article entitled IMHO*, IM Rulz. I begin the article concerned. For the most part, the article discusses practices, but there are embedded assumptions that really get my goat. Here's the one that upset me the most:

IM is a kind of metaphor for the mindset of the new millennium youth. It fulfils a deep-seated need for constant stimulation. And keeps pace with their shorter attention spans.

In July, i spoke about how designers are building technology off of the assumption that everyone has ADD. We often joke about the fact that the MTV generation has no attention span, but i have never seen anything that empirically validates this. Without concrete data, i'm absolutely convinced that this is just an adult projection onto youth. There is no doubt that the prescription of ritalin and adderall are way up but there are tons of reports on misdiagnosis of ADD. Interestingly, more kids are diagnosed in the wealthier districts of the States. Why? Well, frankly, almost everyone i know sees an improvement in their attention span when they're on these meds and pressure parents who are determined that their kids get into the best schools and calm down and otherwise act proper are bound to see this as a perfect remedy. That does not mean that these kids have less attention than any previous generation.

What we do know is that there is far more media available to consume today. With thousands of TV stations and the Internet, there's almost infinite choice. Guess what? With more choice, people are needlessly asking themselves "is there something better?" Channel surfing is not a new phenomenon. Given choice, people are worried that they might be missing something.

And what is this deep-seated need for constant stimulation that they are referring to? And why is this particular to youth?

Aside from my irritation at their projection of ADD onto youth, i think that their causal relationships are all screwy. Youth exist in an always-on culture. With mobile phones and computers at their finger tips, they are able to maintain relationships constantly, unbarred by physical geographical constraints. Always-on culture is not the product of a deep-seeded need for constant stimulation. Alternatively, the perception of this need for stimulation probably results from the opportunity of having an always-on culture.

Identity formation amongst youth is deeply rooted in being able to connect and relate to others of the same age. Remember the paper cup phones that kids would string between neighboring houses to talk late at night? Remember teenagers and land lines? IM is no different. It's just a new opportunity to keep in contact with one's friend group, not the production of some mental deformity.

My gut reaction says hysteria around IM culture has to do with hysteria over what adults don't understand about youth because of generational differences with regard to access to media. Thus, i groan.

Category: youth culture

   

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June 8, 2004

friends with benefits

Damn, the NYTimes has been really compelling lately. And their apology about their coverage of the Iraq war makes me think i should re-acquire my subscription (i cancelled it because i was peeved with their coverage after 9/11).

Anyhow, over the weekend, the NYTimes ran an article on friends with benefits. It's a fascinating article about teenage relationships and i really want to know how common the described practices are. I mean, if girls are really calling the shots about sex, what are the long-term implications? Damn that's rad. If girls are calling the shots, will it help combat HIV? (Historically, male pressure to not use condoms has put women at great risk in hetero relationships.) And if a matter-of-fact attitude about sex is emerging, can we begin to be more serious about realizing that marriage is just a contract, not some hormone-driven fantasy about love? If this is actually true, what all falls out?

And is FaceTheJury facing the jury because of aiding and ebedding teens under the guise of an 18+ site?

Category: youth culture

   

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June 4, 2004

kids, oppression and social tinkering

One more on Kellogg... two framings, in particular, really made me think:

Mimi Ito (whose work anyone in socialtech should follow) is an anthropologist and comes at digital kids with that perspective. Using an anthro framework, the key is to think about kids in their terms, not trying to project or assert an adult framework on kids. In other words, the goal is not to save kids, but to respect them on their terms. She points out that age is one of the most oppressive forces in society, even more naturalized than gender. Because kids grow into adults and we were all once kids, people tend to treat kids as young adults. The goal is to get them to adulthood, not to be valued on kid level.

We also talked about technological tinkering and how many kids learn to explore technology that way. Liz Keith pointed out that a lot of digital participation by kids is social tinkering.

I think that point is really key because we tend not to value the social tinkering or give kids the framework to value that, even though it's such a key feature of their lives. [And there are nice parallels to my Etcon rant about social hacking vs. technological hacking.]

Category: youth culture

   

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vulnerable youth

I'm at a meeting with the Kellogg Foundation talking about vulnerable youth. They are interested in how technology can help at-risk kids take an alternate path. A few things keep coming up for me.

Situated learning. Folks have passions and if you can situate the learning they are doing in the scope of those passions, would learning be more effective? Fan fiction communities seem to be learning how to write and edit. What about teaching physics on the field to football students? What can be done with consumer media? What are the different ways to engage with passions?

Follow the drugs. Crystal meth use goes up amongst youth between 125% and 200% every youth. Educators and governments keep talking about the addictions and are screaming for it to stop, but they aren't looking into why people are using it in HS. They think it's only about peer pressure. When i was talking to kids doing meth, i kept hearing about how it gave them motivation, a relief to boredom, the feeling that they were doing something in this world (even if it was only scrubbing a tile floor with a toothbrush). Boredom is literally killing the youth.

What's the point? Many kids i knew growing up had no motivation to live; where the hell were we going? Health, the future... these are all products of an optimistic life view. When you're working a job till midnight, dealing with parents who are abusive, dealing with gang culture, what the hell does school have to offer that's at all helpful? More than anything, it's a place to just release all of that tension, anger and get attention for it. I mean, if you release that on the streets, you'll get the shit beat out of you. At school, teachers give you attention.

In other words, how can education get out of philosophy and work in spite of all of what's going on? Better yet, how can education be situated in the chaos that's going on rather than thinking it'll go away?

Category: youth culture

   

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January 26, 2004

today i understand teens (fucking spam)

When Melora Zaner told me that teens didn't use email, she was talking about the generational gap of preferred communication methods. Although i'm anxiously awaiting her actual report on this, it doesn't surprise me in the least. Around 1998, colleges stopped giving out email accounts and pretty much everyone reverted to free accounts (Hotmail, Yahoo and the like). Hotmail purports to have about 1/4 of all email addresses worldwide.

This week, i got the first spam burst that has truly crippled me. Normally, i'll get a burst of like 10000 messages; it'll piss off my ISP, make a mess out of my phone and whathaveyou. But this current round is unbearable. Some spam system is hitting random things like joe [at] danah [dot] org and ben and a lot of other random first names. I used hundreds of names at my domain name for specialized addresses. I have no clue which ones i use. But i do know that i can't handle this, my phone can't handle this, and i'm utterly uninterested in coping with it.

Personally, i'm horrified by technological communications. My voice mail crashed this week. My email is a wreck. Fucking spammers have inundated my blogs. I just want face-to-face interactions without having to deal with organizing them. This is when i really wonder what life was like before the phone (or even the telegraph). I definitely have romanticized notions of moments of showing up a the town pub when i want to be social.

::grumble::grumble::

Category: youth culture

   

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September 29, 2003

ratemyteachers.com

In recent days, schools have been getting more and more outraged over ratemyteachers.com. The site allows you to anonymously rate your high school teachers and express discontent. Of course, no teacher deals well with anonymous feedback, particularly in the form of a public site. That said, we've all been through the hells of high school and there's nothing more entertaining than voicing our aggrevation.

Category: youth culture

   

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May 16, 2003

teenagers and cell phones

We all know that teenagers are highly susceptible to fashions. Fitting in is inherently part of those miserable years. Thus, it should come as no surprise that contemporary teenage culture requires cell phones. Of course, what makes this trend even more interesting is that teenagers are literally shut out of social circles if they fail to participate in cell phone culture.

Category: youth culture

   

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March 30, 2003

neopets are as addictive as hell

On the spur of a moment, i wandered into a new media conference that was addressing youth culture and their relationship with technology as a result of growing up digital. My motivation in attending was primarily to hear John Seely Brown speak and i was quite glad that i did. He did a great job of taking his philosophy and making it real through stories and a fabulous presentation. Although the content was not necessarily that novel to me, i was easily reminded of why i love attending talks: they make me think and generate new ideas.

I very much enjoyed many of the talks. An ethnographer from Japan spoke about SMS culture in youth there while a professor discussed the racist and gender issues embedded in Diablo. Others talked about blogs, the value of music, the role of games, paper journalism directed at youth (it was run by the Journalism department).

Yet, the most problematic speech for me was the one by a woman who worked at NeoPets. While i had heard the name before, i knew nothing about the system. The images were so compelling and her speech pattern made it easy to fall in love with the game. The problematic component of her presentation was not actually during it, but the addictive habit that formed a few hours following the conference. Needless to say, i went home and created Zazuzen, my pet Nimmo and then proceeded to lose track of time such that at 5AM i was still playing multiplication games to earn more points so that Nimmo could get food and books about yoga and meditation. Frankly, it's quite an adorable online site (although i was under the impression that there would be a lot less advertising than there was).

Category: youth culture

   

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