Adolescence is a time for children to move away from parents and express their own pre-adult independence. Filtering self-expression can be a frightening problem for youths and for adults.
Susannah Stern says,
“Cognitively, young people move through adolescence with an increasing preoccupation with how they appear to others. Trying to understand themselves and their role in the greater society (who am I?), Adolescence frequently look to their social world for cues about what principles and traits to internalize, although the mixed messages they inevitably encounter can be bewildering as they figure out which to incorporate.” (Stern, 2008, p.97)
“Cognitively, young people move through adolescence with an increasing preoccupation with how they appear to others. Trying to understand themselves and their role in the greater society (who am I?), Adolescence frequently look to their social world for cues about what principles and traits to internalize, although the mixed messages they inevitably encounter can be bewildering as they figure out which to incorporate.” (Stern, 2008, p.97)
As more and more teenagers are turning to the Web to express themselves, one has to wonder who is providing feedback. Webpages provide the opportunity to create an “online presence” to interact with (counteract with?) daily life. By creating an online self, young people are able to create mass media messages about anything. Moreover, these messages are free, and available to the world at the touch of a keystroke. The Web can be a critical avenue for young people to express themselves freely and without censor – an online double-edged sword.
Let me express why I find this personally frightening. When I am nervous, I try to be funny. It's gotten me into a lot of trouble over the years. In college, my nickname was “Mr. Rude.” Even now in my mid-forties, driving home from a party, inevitably, my wife will comment, “Why did you say that? You really put your foot in your mouth” And she’s right, I can be an idiot. She is my social filter… my censorship board… my vocal coach as I try to hold my uncooperative tongue. Now, transition that to the online level where I post things my wife has banned me from saying in public and what have we got? Trouble for me.
This phenomenon of self-expression is exactly what researchers have been studying with young people’s personal web pages. There must be a “rightness” or “wrongness” within online self-expression that provides feedback with some regularity and in some similar fashion to face-to-face communication. Without feedback, adolescents would fail to receive adequate confirmation for appropriate roles and behaviors (Stern, 2004, p.220)
Do youth receive this type of feedback? How do social cues and filters affect online self-expression?
The research provided by Susannah Stern is already out of date according to my friend Michael Alvidrez. Michael, a techno geek, :) says
“Stern points out that 1/5 of online teens kept a personal website and 19% of those kept a blog. According to a 2010 study conducted by the Pew Research Center, blogging for teens has actually gone down. What is growing rapidly is what they have listed as “micro blogging”. Which are the status updates on social networking sties. 73% of wired American teens us a social networking site, and 8% use Twitter. With technology constantly changing so does you online authorship. Youth aren’t creating webpage’s anymore; they are posting to their Facebook wall.”
“Stern points out that 1/5 of online teens kept a personal website and 19% of those kept a blog. According to a 2010 study conducted by the Pew Research Center, blogging for teens has actually gone down. What is growing rapidly is what they have listed as “micro blogging”. Which are the status updates on social networking sties. 73% of wired American teens us a social networking site, and 8% use Twitter. With technology constantly changing so does you online authorship. Youth aren’t creating webpage’s anymore; they are posting to their Facebook wall.”
Michael provides this resource: http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1484/social-media-mobile-internet-use-teens-millennials-fewer-blog
Michael’s full text can be read at: http://alvidreznmsu.blogspot.com/2010/09/producing-sites-exploring-identities.html
Reflection:Past failures and social faux-pas influence our interactions. My worry is the progressive levels of online faux-pas “fallout” for youth authors – the larger failure due to the larger media audience. Further research should be conducted to understand young people’s reactions to instantaneous critique from online commentors. Research should also address online levels of proximity of commentors to youth authored webpages. Levels might include: 1) school audience – youths that attend the same school as the author, 2) peers – youths that are the same age but whom the author will probably never meet, and 3) everyone out there – people who are not closely connected to the author.
References:Stern, S. (2008). Producing sites, exploring identitites: Youth online authorship. In D. Buckingham (Ed.), Youth, identity, and digital media (The John D. and Catherine T. Macarthur Foundation series on digital media and learning ed., pp. 206). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Stern, S. (2004). Expressions of identity online: Prominent features and gender differences in adolescents' world wide web home pages. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 48(2), 218-243.
Kevin, I see that blogs are moving to an information mode as they provide a free means for professionals and organizations to get information to others and promote ideas and/or products. There are still students (Anna, who is featured on my blog) who have created a website that acts as an online diary that many of her friends follow. In fact, we talk about it in drama class as she is a former SHS thespian. She also Facebooks on a regular basis. My daughter has a blog promoting through personal review, “mommy things” and has been extremely successful. Her blog mommykatie.com is read by young mothers around the world. These are very different uses of the blog, but both expand on individual expression.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that living in Quatar has affected your perspective of self-expression when engaging with others face-to-face? Schools affect people interactions as do churches, offices, social functions, etc. Because they are not face-to-face, blogs aren’t subject to inhibitive or restrictive mores. The only inhibitions are those imposed by the online author.
Jill,
ReplyDeleteI think age and experience has affected my self-expression more than the Qatari environment.
You are correct that blogs aren't subject to restricted inhibitions and yet I seem to control it better. The filtering of my online self seems to be much more sensitive than my face-to-face interactions. I believe this is because I have more time to think about what I am writing before I push 'send'. Now if only I can apply this to my vocal chords...
What do you think, Kevin about the danger of our adolescent selves living forever in cyberspace? I am, in some ways, grateful to have missed the era of public self-exploration that today's teens live in.
ReplyDeleteThere are all sorts of media horror stories about employers looking at Facebook and being appalled by the past indiscretions of prospective (or current) employees. Blogs seem a little more filtered, as you say. I wonder, though about social media. Most of us (myself included) went through embarrassing stages in our roads to adulthood. I'm grateful that mine are not recorded on a server somewhere.
I remember reading somewhere (maybe Wired magazine)that someone had proposed a "social media" score, kind of like a credit score. Should the public exploration that the author of the article talks about follow us out of our adolescence and into adulthood? Should we be held responsible for what we present to the world when we are minors?
Kevin,
ReplyDeleteI love that you brought up the need for youth to get feedback as they navigate through this temporary state, called adolescence, using online authorship as an outlet. Your point, “By creating an online self, young people are able to create mass media messages about anything…these messages are free, and available to the world at the touch of a keystroke,” has potentially dangerous implications because of precisely what you emphasized from Stern’s other article: “There must be a “rightness” or “wrongness” within online self-expression that provides feedback with some regularity and in some similar fashion to face-to-face communication. Without feedback, adolescents would fail to receive adequate confirmation for appropriate roles and behaviors (Stern, 2004, p.220)”
What is absent from the discussion about youth authors, their freedom of expression, and their need to publish their voices is the issue of “rightness” and “wrongness” in terms of their ability to discern the boundaries between the two. I think we spend so much time trying to be their friends –as adults – instead of imparting wisdom into their lives in meaningful ways that we look for other hands-off, less time consuming outlets, like blogging, instead of just listening to them in face-to-face conversations.
Digital tools do not make good parents or mentors. Kevin, I consider myself to be a techie in the sense that I use technology in every aspect of my life – to study the Bible, maintain my bank account, in education, and so on. But there are appropriate spaces for 21st century tools, which do not include raising our children to be moral, upright, compassionate, empowered young people (this begins with parents modeling those appropriate roles and behaviors that you mentioned) We must make sure that as youth create online versions of themselves, that they don’t loose contact with the physical world – meaning they are careful not to let cyberspace become the platform on which the foundation of their character is built; especially since they are very vulnerable at this age to negative social clues that may very well circumscribe their futures.
Kevin,
ReplyDeleteIt is a scary place...I like how you discussed about the need for a sound board. When I read this I thought about the teens who say things and later regret them. Maybe using blogging is the way they feel is a safe sound board?? But it is scary to know anyone can answer them...
Doesn't it seem like parents can warn their children about the potential dangers we are discussing, but the child will go ahead and do something careless anyway? As a young boy watching my mother in the kitchen, I remember telling me "Don't touch the burner!" And what do I do? touch the burner and burn my finger.
ReplyDeleteSolutions to these types of problems are not simple. Sure, young people can filter who sees their Facebook page but this offeset their desire for popularity. It also "masks" as a safety net when it really isn't.
One of my children was very upset when a picture of her in a modest swimsuit at a beach activity with other youths was spread all over Facebook. I asked her about her security settings and she said they were good. What had happened was that one of her "friends" did not have any security settings in place and that was the leak. Now, our family is much more aware of the potential dangers of instantaneous online freedom...