the creativity, composition, and design skills students need

online collaborative inquiry, and online content construction 

Changes in media, from page to screen, make ‘‘it easy to use a multiplicity ofmodes...in particular the mode of image – still or moving – as well as other modes,such as music and sound’’ to convey one’s message.

we as educators need to move beyondcustomary views of these media as simply curriculum-delivery devices, teaching aidsor ‘‘neutral’’ tools for learning (p. viii) to find ways of engaging with them morecritically and creatively as ways ofrepresentingthe world, ofcommunicating,and associalandculturalprocesses

hyperpersonal,even more friendly, social, and intimate than face-to-facecommunication

boyd (2006), however, describes how the meaning of ‘‘Friend’’ connections inMySpace differs from traditional conceptualizations of ‘‘friendship’’ offline. Withinsocial network sites ‘‘Friendship’’ can mean a variety of different relationships (

A form ofself-publishing, personal home pages also canbe viewed as online multimedia texts constructed through a process of ‘‘inclusion,allusion, omission, adaptation, and discovery’’ (para. 11) and shaped by one’sassociations, connections, and conventions in Web subcultures.

The majority use MySpace (65%) with Facebook (37%) being the second mostpopular site,

The majority use MySpace (65%) with Facebook (37%) being the second mostpopular site,

devoting an average of 9 hours

An important goal of this paper is to articulate how the insightsfrom this research might help us make education more engaging for all studentsand more meaningful to their present and future lives in a technologically mediatedworld.

Threequestions guided our investigation: How do young people themselves talk abouttheir social network site and its role in their lives? How are social network sitesseen to be supporting young people’s interpersonal needs? How are young peopleusing social network sites for creative and communicative purposes, if at all?

Madden,

The Pew study did not consider newer forms of expres-sion, such as podcasting, game modding, or machinima. Nor did it count other forms of creative expression and appropria-tion, such as music sampling in the hip-hop community. T

urpose of the study, a media creator is someone who has created a blog or Web page; posted original artwork, photography, stories, or videos online; or remixed online content into their own new creations.

They developed much of their skill and knowledge through their participation in the informal learning communi-ties of fans and gamers.

hrough the joint participation of thousands of other volunteer youths and adults working on his project worldwide, the Firefox Web browser was born. Today, Firefox enjoys more than 60 times as many users as Netscape Navigator. By age 19, Ross had the venture capital needed to launch his own start-up company. His interest in computing originally was sparked by playing the popular video game

Injecting digital technologies into the classroom necessarily affects our relationship with every other communications technology, changing how we feel about what can or should be done with pencils and paper, chalk and black-board, books, films, and recordings

some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices

Indeed, many of these youths were frustrated with school

Contrary to popular stereotypes, these activities are not restricted to white, suburban males. In fact, urban youths (40 percent) are somewhat more likely than their suburban (28 per-cent) or rural (38 percent) counterparts to be media creators. Girls aged 15–17 (27 percent) are more likely than boys their age (17 percent) to be involved with blogging or other social activities online. The Pew researchers found no significant dif-ferences in participation by race or ethnicity

—learning how to campaign and govern; how to read, write, edit, and defend civil liberties; how to pro-gram computers and run a business; how to make a movie and find distribution—

Yet Schrier was surprised by another phenomenon: the young people took the game’s representation of historical evidence at face value, acting as if all of the information in the game were authentic.

that game players seek to identify and exploit the rules of the system in order to beat the game.26

Ex-panding access to computers will help bridge some of the gaps between digital haves and have nots,

Some cities, such as Tempe, Arizona, charge users a fee

Children and youths do indeed know more about these new media environments than most parents and teachers.

Beck and Wade conclude that gamers were more open to taking risks and engaging in competition but also more open to collaborating with others

even if sometimes only through the “second lives” offered by massively multiplayer games or online fan communities.

young people who create and circulate their own media are more likely to respect the intellectual property rights of others because they feel a greater stake in the cultural economy.13

Informal learning communities can evolve to respond to short-term needs and temporary interests

While formal education is often conservative, the informal learning within popular culture is often experi-mental.

affinity spaces,”10 and explores why people learn more, participate more actively, and engage more deeply with popular culture than they do with the contents of their textbooks.

Our goals should be to encourage youths to develop the skills, knowledge, ethical frameworks, and self-con-fidence needed to be full participants in contemporary culture.

Yet these activities become widespread only if the culture supports them

black hole that consumes resources that might be better devoted to traditional classroom activities (in the more critical version).

Historically, we have valued creative writing or art classes not only because they help to identify and train future writers and artists, but also because the creative process is valuable on its own; every child deserves the chance to express him- or her-self through words, sounds, and images, even if most will never write, perform, or draw professionally.

The study also does not include even more widespread practices, such as computer or video gaming, that can require an extensive focus on constructing and performing as fictional personas.

The Pew researchers found no significant dif-ferences in participation by race or ethnicity

a media creator is someone who has created a blog or Web page; posted original artwork, photography, stories, or videos online; or remixed online content into their own new creations.

Indeed, many of these youths were frustrated with school; some dropped out

—learning how to campaign and govern; how to read, write, edit, and defend civil liberties; how to pro-gram computers and run a business; how to make a movie and find distribution

the Firefox Web browser was born

Heather Lawver was 14 years old. She wanted to help other young people improve their reading and writing skills, so she established an online publication with a staff of more than 100 people across the world.

The Sims Online

Yet many young people seem willing to lie to access those communities.

Young people are creating new modes of expression that are poorly understood by adults, and as a result they receive little to no guidance or supervision

Yet Schrier was surprised by another phenomenon: the young people took the game’s representation of historical evidence at face value, acting as if all of the information in the game were authentic.

Even if these opportunities were not for-mally valued by our educational institutions or listed on a resume when applying for a job, the skills and self-confidence gathered by moving across all of these online communities surely would manifest themselves in other ways, offering yet another leg up to youths on one side and another disadvantage to youths on the opposite side of the participation gap

There are three core flaws with the laissez-faire approach. The first is that it does not address the fundamental inequalities in young people’s access to new media technologies and the opportunities for participation they represent (what we call the participation gap). The second is that it assumes that children are actively reflecting on their media experiences and thus can articulate what they learn from their participation (the transparency problem). The third is that it assumes children, on their own, can develop the ethical norms needed to cope with a com-plex and diverse social environment online (the ethics challenge).

The first is that it does not address the fundamental inequalities in young people’s access to new media technologies and the opportunities for participation they represent (what we call the participation gap). The second is that it assumes that children are actively reflecting on their media experiences and thus can articulate what they learn from their participation (the transparency problem). The third is that it assumes children, on their own, can develop the ethical norms needed to cope with a com-plex and diverse social environment online (the ethics challenge).

will be able to collaborate better with people from diverse cultural backgrounds.

Beck and Wade conclude that gamers were more open to taking risks and engaging in competition but also more open to collaborating with others and more willing to revise earlier assumptions.

Yet the new par-ticipatory culture offers many opportunities for youths to engage in civic debates, participate in community life, and even become political leaders

David Buckingham argues that young people’s lack of interest in news and their disconnection from politics reflects their per-ception of disempowerment.

Informal learning communities can evolve to respond to short-term needs and temporary interests, whereas the institu-tions supporting public education have changed little despite decades of school reform. Informal learning communities are ad hoc and localized; formal educational communities are bureaucratic and increasingly national in scope. We can move in and out of informal learning communities if they fail to meet our needs; we enjoy no such mobility in our relations to formal education.

A focus on expanding access to new technologies carries us only so far if we do not also foster the skills and cultural knowledge necessary to deploy those tools toward our own ends.

black hole that consumes resources that might be better devoted to traditional classroom activities (in the more critical version).

Not every member must contribute, but all must believe they are free to contribute and that what they contribute will be appropriately valued.

Too often neglected, except as a source of risk, these communication and entertainment–focused activities, by contrast with the information-focused uses at the centre of public and policy agendas, are driving emerging media literacy.

The study also does not include even more widespread practices, such as computer or video gaming, that can require an extensive focus on constructing and performing as fictional personas.

Nor did it count other forms of creative expression and appropria-tion, such as music sampling in the hip-hop community.

Indeed, many of these youths were frustrated with school; some dropped out and others chose to graduate early. They developed much of their skill and knowledge through their participation in the informal learning communi-ties of fans and gamers.

This research suggests some tendency to read “professional” sites as more credible than “amateur” mate-rials, although students lack a well-developed set of standards for distinguishing between the two.

Ex-panding access to computers will help bridge some of the gaps between digital haves and have nots,

Children and youths do indeed know more about these new media environments than most parents and teachers.

David Buckingham argues that young people’s lack of interest in news and their disconnection from politics reflects their per-ception of disempowerment.

While formal education is often conservative, the informal learning within popular culture is often experi-mental.

Participants in the beta-reading process learn both by receiving feedback on their own work and by giving feedback to others, creating an ideal peer-to-peer learn-ing community

In fact, urban youths (40 percent) are somewhat more likely than their suburban (28 per-cent) or rural (38 percent) counterparts to be media creators. Girls aged 15–17 (27 percent) are more likely than boys their age (17 percent) to be involved with blogging or other social activities online.

more than half of all American teens—and 57 percent of teens who use the Internet—could be consid-ered media creators

Participatory culture is emerging as the culture absorbs and responds to the explosion of new media technologies that make it possible for average consumers to archive, annotate, appropriate, and recirculate media content in powerful new ways.

The tools available to a culture matter, but what that cul-ture chooses to do with those tools matters more.

Rather than dealing with each technology in isolation, we would do better to take an ecological approach, thinking about the interrelationship among different communication technol-ogies, the cultural communities that grow up around them, and the activities they support.

every child deserves the chance to express him- or her-self through words, sounds, and images, even if most will never write, perform, or draw professionally.

One-third of teens share what they create online with others, 22 percent have their own Web sites, 19 percent blog, and 19 percent remix online content

it sure seems like the younger the youth, the more they understand new media environments such as my 6 year old 2nd cousin knowing how to maneuver an iPad and IPhone better than me

eschewed privacy

they wish to avoid paternalistic adults who use safety and protection as an excuse to monitor their everyday sociality

I could portray myself as the person that I wanted to be. I took on fictitious identities in an effort to figure out who I was.

He doesn’t want to ostracize her on Facebook,

As a result, the imagined audience defines the social context. In choosing how to present themselves before dis-connected and invisible audiences, people must attempt to resolve context collapses or actively define the context in which they’re operating

He used a different style of speaking when he addressed white political leaders than when he addressed southern black congregations.

A context collapse occurs when people are forced to grapple simultaneously with otherwise unrelated social contexts that are rooted in different norms and seemingly demand different social responses.

To teens, these technologies—and the properties that go with them—are just an obvious part of life in a networked era, whereas for many adults these affordances reveal changes that are deeply disconcerting.

What Skyler meant is simply that social acceptance depends on the ability to socialize with one’s peers at the “cool” place. Each cohort of teens has a differ-ent space that it decides is cool.

In 2006, seventeen-year-old Bly Lauritano-Werner wrote a piece for Youth Radio

arguing that social norms around privacy have changed in order to justify their own business decisions regard-ing user privacy.

As British sociologist Paul Willis argued in the 1980s, when youth attempt to change their socioeconomic standing, they often risk alienating their home community

In most cases where people share to maintain privacy, they do because they do not want someone to have power over them.

tchotchkes

Some admitted to using this freedom in problematic or destructive ways—recounting acts of ganging up on girls whom they deemed annoying or using a combination of wits and trickery to manipulate Facebook administrators into providing data.

may be amusing to watch Kramer face embarrassment when he and George accidentally run into Kramer’s mother on Seinfeld,

it’s easy to get lost in the back-and-forth on Twitter.

Journalists, parents, and technologists seem to believe that a willingness to share in public spaces—and, most certainly, any act of exhibitionism and publicity—is incompatible with a desire for personal privacy

prompting parents to fret over conversations that adults deem inappropriate or when teens share “TMI” (too much information)

In an effort to learn more about him, the committee members Googled him. They found his MySpace profile. It was filled with gang symbolism, crass language, and references to gang activities. They recoiled.

What the drive-in was to teens in the 1950s and the mall in the 1980s, Facebook, texting, Twitter, instant messaging, and other social media are to teens now.

But they also track celebrities like Kanye West and Kim Kardashian to imagine the freedoms they would have if they were famous.

The internet presented me with a bigger world, a world populated by people who shared my idiosyncratic interests and were ready to discuss them at any time, day or night.

It used to be the mall, but for the youth discussed in this book, social network sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are the cool places. Inevitably, by the time this book is published, the next generation of teens will have inhab-ited a new set of apps and tools, making social network sites feel passé. The spaces may change, but the organizing principles aren’t different.

I had spent my own teen years online, and I was among the first generation of teens who did so. But that was a different era; few of my friends in the early 1990s were interested in computers at all.

So many people talk about youth engagement with social media, but very few of them are willing to take the time to listen to teens, to hear them, or to pay attention to what they have to say about their lives,

I’ve met les-bian, gay, and transgendered teens who extensively share to appear straight so that people don’t ask about their sexuality, and I’ve met abused teens who tell extravagant stories about their lives so that no one asks what’s really happening at home.

“subtweeting,” to refer to the practice of encoding tweets to render them meaningless to clueless outsiders

journalists often referred to this application in the same breath as sexting or the sharing of inappro-priate sexual images.

Teens do think through the social cost to what they post, but they don’t always get it right

Linda Tripp’s decision to record Monica Lewinsky’s confession and paparazzi using long-range cam-eras to capture celebrities from afar.

perhaps this young man is simply including gang signals on his MySpace profile as a survival technique.

I came to realize that, taken out of context, what teens appear to do and say on social media seems peculiar if not outright problematic

Many teens complain about parents who look over their shoulders when they’re on the computer or friends who copy and paste updates and forward them along.

it’s often hard to remem-ber that viewers who aren’t commenting might also be watching

Because social media often brings together multiple social con-texts, teens struggle to effectively manage social norms

because he wants to have control over a given social situation

Turkle was critical of some people’s attempts to use fictitious iden-tities to harm others,

ree people of the burdens of their “material”—or physically embodied—identities, enabling them to become a better version of themselves

they are whimsical responses to sites’ requirement to provide a login handle

Facebook was the primary place where friend groups collide. Other services—like Tumblr or Twitter—were more commonly used by teens who were carving out their place in interest-driven communities.1

relished the anonymous norms of the site

teens responded to social media sites’ requests for information by providing inaccurate information that actually contains meaningful signals about friendship and sociality.

Instead, they’re simply refusing to play by the rules of self-presentation as defined by these sites.

In doing so, they ignore teens’ privacy while undermining their struggles to manage their identity

given and what is given off. In other words, what we convey to others is a matter of what we choose to share in order to make a good impression and also what we unintentionally reveal as a byproduct of who we are and how we react to others.

They may want to be seen as cool among their peers, even if adults would deem their behav-ior inappropriate.

Teens who try to manage context collapses by segregating information often suf-fer when that information crosses boundaries

They have long seen revealing clothing as an indica-tor of teens’ rejection of privac

The idea that teens share too much—and therefore don’t care about privacy—is now so entrenched in public discourse that research showing that teens do desire privacy and work to get it is often ignored by the media.

Mean-while, technology executives like Facebook’s founder Mark Zucker-berg and Google chairman Eric Schmidt reinforce the notion that today’s teens are different

generational disconnect

What’s at stake is not whether someone can listen in but whether one should

she thinks that everything online is bad, and you seem to get it, and you’re an adult.

privacy is always rooted in context

The ability to understand how context, audience, and identity inter-sect is one of the central challenges people face in learning how to navigate social media.

Without knowing the teen, my guess was that he was genuine in his college essay. At the same time, I also suspected that he would never dare talk about his desire to go to a prestigious institution in his neighborhood because doing so would cause him to be ostracized socially, if not physically attacked.

as adults have started participating in social media and, especially, Facebook.

For Heather, social media is not only a tool; it is a social lifeline that enables her to stay connected to people she cares about but can-not otherwise interact with in person.

AIM screen names either,

They may want to be seen as cool among their peers, even if adults would deem their behav-ior inappropriate.

Teens’ determination to set their own agenda can be nerve-racking for some parents, particularly those who want to protect their children from every possible danger. Coming of age is rife with self-determination, risk taking, and tough decision-making.

. Most teens are not compelled by gadgetry as such—they are compelled by friendship.

Teens continue to occupy an awkward position between childhood and adulthood, dependence and independence. They are struggling to carve out an identity that is not defined solely by family ties. They want to be recognized as someone other than son, daughter, sister, or brother. These struggles play themselves out in familiar ways, as teens fight for freedoms while not always being willing or able to accept responsibilities. Teens simultaneously love and despise, need and reject their parents and other adults in their lives. Meanwhile, many adults are simultaneously afraid of teens and afraid for them.

They felt that ano-nymity gave them a sense of freedom they didn’t feel they could have on sites for which constructing an identity

A popular T-shirt designed by John Slabyk and sold on the website Threadless sums up the disillusionment with failed technological utopias:they lied to usthis was supposed to be the futurewhere is my jetpack,where is my robotic companion,where is my dinner in pill form,where is my hydrogen fueled automobile,where is my nuclear-powered levitating house,where is my cure for this disease

The Walkman music player was viewed as an evil device that would encourage people to disappear into separate worlds, unable to communicate with one another.11

Search engines make it easy to surface esoteric interac-tions.

How they interact and with whom they interact in the school lunchroom is different than at afterschool music lessons than via group text messaging services.

many adults fear networked technologies for the same reasons that adults have long been wary of teen participation in public life and teen socialization in parks, malls, and other sites where youth congregate.

he only wants his family to stop “embarrass-ing” him.

Rather than being seen as a subcultural practice, participat-ing in social media became normative.

When social media sites offer streams of content—as is common on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram—people often imagine their audience to be the people they’re following

Yet, on Facebook, this has proven to be intrac-table and confusing, given the complex and constantly changing pri-vacy settings on that site.

When teens interact with social media, they must regularly contend with collapsed contexts and invisible audiences as a part of everyday life.4

Friendster, in particular, was designed as a matchmaking service. I

ols like email, instant messaging, and online forums are still used by teens. B

eens turn to a plethora of popular services to socialize, gossip, share information, and hang out.

“If you’re not on MySpace, you don’t exist.”

I had met, perhaps he imagined the audience of his MySpace profile to be his classmates, family, and community—not the college admissions committee.

As in many schools I’ve visited over the years, friendships at this school in Nashville were largely defined by race, gender, sexuality, and grade level, and those networks were immediately visible based on whom students were talking to or sitting with. By and large, the students were cordoned off in their own section on the sides of the stands while parents and more “serious” fans occupied the seats in the center.

how little things change. I’m guessing a lot of the drama is still the same, it’s just the format is a little differ-ent. It’s just changing the font and changing the background color really.”

the more things had changed, the more they seemed the same.

déjà vu

2005 to 2012

she thinks that everything online is bad, and you seem to get it, and you’re an adult.