"Kids today..."

by Barry Fishman 

Welcome to the "Kids Today..." column. In this space, I will try to keep you updated on the technology that kids (both Safe Sitters and their younger charges) are using to express themselves, to entertain themselves, to educate themselves, and to keep themselves connected. 

Our objective is to examine trends, pointing to the best research and data, clarifying what seems truly worrisome and what you don't need to be so concerned about. We will talk about cell phones, social networking, video games, and other emerging technologies that seem so natural to kids, but feel unnatural to many adults. We begin with a general consideration of kids and digital media. 

Are Kids Today Different? Or: The More Things Change…
#1, Spring 2012 

The kids of today seem different than just a decade ago, and vastly different from our own childhood. But this is nothing new. Each generation has its own evolving social norms, its own ways of communicating, and of course its own technology. So how can we communicate with this generation, to help them become responsible and responsive teens and young adults? 

As I said, these changes may be accelerating, but they really are not new. My great-grandparents used Western Union to send short text messages. My grandparents used rotary phones. My parents were the first to use cordless phones, and my generation was first with the cellular phone. Now it seems like our teens all have cellular phones, only they've stopped talking on them… they've gone back to sending short text messages! 

You may have heard about a divide between "digital natives" and "digital immigrants." Natives are those who have been born since digital technologies and the Internet became widespread (and cannot imagine life without it). Immigrants still recall what life was like in the "old country," and we sometimes miss it there. No matter how up-to-date we immigrants may fancy ourselves, this new land will always seem a bit strange. We don't think about texting when we could call. It would never occur to us to "tweet" about what we had for breakfast this morning. 

But are "kids today" really all that different? To quote the title of a 2010 study of children and technology use by Mimi Ito and colleagues, they are actually doing what kids have always done: " Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out." 

Sure, there are a small set of youth who "geek out," constantly amazing us with their online creations and innovation. But this is a small group on the whole, and there have always been kids like this (think of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates). Many more kids are in the "messing around" category. They use technology to explore creativity and identity, but in a casual way. The vast majority of kids are just "hanging around" in the online equivalent of the food court at the mall.  They are using technology to connect with friends, build and maintain relationships, and just kill time. 

These kinds of youth activity, especially the "hanging around" part, have been around forever (see: American Graffiti). But because the technology itself is more pervasive, the activity is harder to draw boundaries around and seems to reach into more aspects of everyday life. It's no longer just the telemarketer interrupting dinner. Now its also the text message from a friend. 

Another change is that online messages are persistent. A Google search can bring up youthful indiscretions that in the past would be, well, ancient history. Some employers are now requesting that job candidates reveal their Facebook passwords. (Note: this might not be legal.) And did you know that all public posts on twitter.com are archived by the Library of Congress? Now posterity will know what you had for breakfast. 

In an always-online world the stakes for one's identity are tremendous. We need to do a better job of understanding these stakes and teaching our children how to craft, manage, and protect their online identities. How can we help kids make better choices? A first step is to better understand their behavior. 

An excellent source of data on teens and the Internet is the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. A recent report entitled " Teens, Kindness and Cruelty on Social Network Sites: How American teens navigate the new world of digital citizenship" is revealing both in terms about what teens experience online, but also in terms of what is revealed about how adults can provide guidance. 

Pew reports that 80% of teens currently use some form of social networking (primarily Facebook). Among teens ages 14-17, use is higher (92% for girls and 85% for boys) than among younger teens, ages 12-13 (60% for boys, 67% for girls). I recommend reading the report for the actual numbers; I will share more general observations based on their data. 

Though teens report that overall they have positive social experiences online and that their peers are "mostly kind" to each other, there is a sizable subgroup who get caught in a loop of negative interactions and feedback. Discouragingly, Pew found that 1 in 10 teens report having been bullied by phone, text, or online. But in the "the more things change" category, old-fashioned real-world bullying is still prevalent, with nearly 1 in 5 teens reporting this kind of trouble offline. 

What is most interesting is that, when teens seek advice, 86% of teens turn to their parents. 70% say that they get advice from teachers or other adults at school. This is encouraging, as it indicates that if adults are willing to give advice, teens seem willing to listen. 

However, only a third of teens who have experienced online bullying seek out advice, and boys and older girls are less likely to seek out advice in response to an adverse event than younger girls. This should worry us, because children most need support after negative experiences. But for those teens who do ask for help, they overwhelmingly report (92%) that the advice they got was valuable. The majority of teens (58%) say that their parents have the greatest influence on their thinking about appropriate or inappropriate behavior online. That is truly refreshing. 

What to think about this data? Often, when we perceive a threat, we try to protect our children by prohibiting certain kinds of interactions. But "grounding" someone in the digital age is likely to be an exercise in futility, given the tremendous range of ways to get online. A more responsible approach is to listen and give teens good advice about how to interact online, which is to say, how to interact with others. The Golden Rule still applies, even in the online world. 

Of course, this entire enterprise is complicated by the native/immigrant divide. Unlike topics in which the cross-generational experience is more similar than dissimilar (like sex education), social networking tools may be better understood by our children than by ourselves. But at root, these tools are about people interacting with other people, and that is something we can all understand. As parents and instructors of Safe Sitters, it is crucial that we take responsibility for this and talk with children about managing their online identity and safety before trouble arises. 

As we consider other technologies in this column, you may note a recurring theme: problems that arise with new technologies are hardly ever inherent to the technology itself. Rather, technology acts like an amplifier for our own foibles and tendencies. Any technology that is sufficiently powerful or transformative will have both positive and negative effects. We can and should use technology to foster the development of healthy and engaged youth. I'll try to help. 

Barry Fishman, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Learning Technologies in the School of Education and School of Information at the University of Michigan. He served on the Safe Sitter, Inc. Board of Directors from 2009-2012.