SOCIAL MEDIA & YOUR TEENAGER FALL 2014

Adolescence is a time of life that is both exhilarating and terrifying. It can be filled with excitement and disappointment, self-confidence and insecurity, camaraderie and loneliness.

Today’s social media have the potential to amplify

age-old anxieties and rites of passage in ways that

yesterday’s communication media did not — by

opening once-private exchanges for an entire school

to see, adding photos and videos to words, allowing an

entire community the chance to comment on what is

seen or heard or said online, and by maintaining a

permanent record of all those interactions (Boyd,

2007).

90% of all American teens have used social media 75% of them have a social networking site Nearly 1 in 3 teens visits their social networking profile several times a day or more CommonSense Media Study, February 2013

Facebook utterly dominates social networking use among teens: 68% of all teens say Facebook is their

main social networking site, compared to 6% for Twitter

1% for GooglePlus and 1% for MySpace

(25% don’t have a social networking site) Pew Research, 2013

HOWEVER! Some youth culture experts argue

teenagers maintain a Facebook

presence, but interact mostly across

other, less mainstream social media

outlets because of the lack of parental

presence.

cpyu.org Mueller, 2014

SOCIAL MEDIA WHICH SHOULD BE ON THE RADAR SCREEN

ANONYMOUS QUESTION SITES

What are they?

Lets kids create a profile page where they can field

questions from other users who can remain

anonymous. Caution: Cyberbullying is common.

What to do?

Discourage your teenagers from using question

sites. If that fails, encourage them to block

anonymous questioners & use the strictest privacy

settings

IMPERSONATION Ways kids can impersonate others online:

- Creating a fake social media profile page in another kid’s name

- Using that person’s password to hack into his or her accounts

- Creating a bogus email address

- Swiping someone’s phone & texting under the owner’s name

What to do: Tell your kiddos never to share passwords, Review a site’s abuse-reporting procedure, Discuss the consequences (sometimes legal) & block the perpetrators

SELF-DESTRUCTING APPS

Snapchat BurnNote Blink

SELF-DESTRUCTING APPS

What it is: These have tapped into a desire among children & teenagers to share casual moments and avoid their parents’ attention and knowledge. Sometimes, these are used to share inappropriate photos because of the perception these photos disappear.

SELF-DESTRUCTING APPS

What to do: Have frequent conversations about what is appropriate to share & what isn’t. Explain the pictures don’t really disappear, and there is always an option for someone to screenshot the picture or video and spread it around.

CATFISHING Remember Manti Te’o?

CATFISHING Remember Manti Te’o?

What it is: Catfishing is creating a false online identity to lure an unsuspecting person into an online relationship. What to do: Coach your teen to reveal very little of themselves in their online profile Ask them to internet research their online friends

A MAJOR CAUTION OF WHAT WE SEE ON SOCIAL MEDIA

SOCIAL MEDIA: PERCEPTION VS. REALITY

“What Facebook [and social media in general] seems to present is not a

snapshot of the user as much as an idealized picture- a virtually

airbrushed one, perhaps, with flaws hidden and strengths highlighted

and magnified…Conveying and discerning reality on Facebook [or any

social media outlet] is a nuanced, tricky issue.”

Halos and Avatars (2010)

Contributor: Liz Lin

THE SELFIE

THE SELFIE “Teens and tweens also agreed there is

a constant -- and at times anxiety-

inducing -- fixation with likes.”

CNN study

October 2014

THE SELFIE "People will be like,

'Oh, are you in the 100 club?'" Sadie said of

getting 100 or more likes for a post.

CNN study October 2014

SOCIAL MEDIA

Likes translate into validation and attention,

said Diana Graber, co-founder of CyberWise.org,

a digital literacy site for parents, educators, and

tweens and teens.

A 2013 study conducted by the University of Michigan reported

social media can actually make you feel bad about yourself.

German researchers found a third of people felt worse after

spending time on Facebook, especially if they spent time viewing

vacation photographs (January 2013).

A Utah Valley University study found correlations between the

amount of time people spent checking Facebook and negative

feelings about their own lives after talking to 425 students

(February 2012).

SOCIAL MEDIA

DO WE ABANDON SOCIAL MEDIA?

In a spring 2014 qualitative study of selected youth ministers in

Oklahoma, Texas, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and

Alabama found the majority opinion on utilizing social media as

a ministry tool was positive.

In essence, youth ministers feel the ministry available in

maintaining a presence on social media outweighs the potential

dangers.

SOCIAL MEDIA & YOUR TEENAGER FALL 2014