Emery wants his own Youtube channel and Boyd’s book It’s complicated.

First, grad students can be wonderful resources for information. They may not recognize it yet, but they really do have the luxury to stay current and immersed in a particular area of interest. And, they are innovative. Rarely do I have the wonderful, crazy, provocative ideas I once did when I was reading Lacan for one course, watching punk rock movies in another, and discussing the future of education in another.

Which is why I am grateful I expressed my woes about Emery wanting his own Youtube channel so he can make his own “Let’s Plays.” This student recommended that I read Danah Boyd’s (2014) It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, which I had actually already heard about on NPR, but then immediately dismissed as one of those books I didn’t need to read yet (heaven help Emery when I can finally justify how to prepare your child for college books). This student patiently explained to me (my apologies if I paraphrase this conversation inaccurately) that Boyd argues that many parents’ fears about their children going online might not come true—that our children have this “imagined community” with whom they will interact, and really, how many people are going to seek out his channel. So, I went to my library and, would you believe it, found an online version of the book.

The book is divided into several chapters and based on eight years of research. Here are the chapter titles:

-identity why do teens seem strange online?

-privacy why do youth share so publicly?

-addiction what makes teens obsessed with social media?

-danger are sexual predators lurking everywhere?

-bullying is social media amplifying meanness and cruelty?

-inequality can social media resolve social divisions?

-literacy are today’s youth digital natives?

-searching for a public of their own

I tried to figure out which chapter to read first by trying to figure out my objections to Emery’s getting his own channel (Victor’s is easy—he would read the bullying chapter as he is afraid of the cruel comments people might make on the site. He might be speaking from personal experience). To be honest, my fear is all of the work I’m going to have to do—help Emery create the channel, purchase all of the equipment he kindly wrote for me in a list and left by my stack of work stuff, figure out how to use all of that equipment, etc. Unfortunately, there’s no chapter on children whose pursuits make more work for the mom who can’t let her son figure it out for himself. . .

So, I read the chapter on addiction because as someone who only blogs (I opened a Twitter account but haven’t posted or even looked back at it since then), it’s hard for me to understand why Victor has to check his Twitter every few minutes during dinner or a concert or while driving.

Basically, Boyd begins with the notion that maybe addiction (she likens the passage of time that goes by to being in Csikszentmihalyi’s flow) is a little too strong of a word and that the public is blaming social media instead of other social ills. She likens the amount of time spent social networking to the time teens used to spend on the phone (I spent hours on the phone as a teen). She says teens are not addicted to the technology but to each other (p. 80).She then moves to a discussion about how societal changes (parental fear, increased structured activity time for youth, etc.) has led to less down time for kids to spend with each other face to face. Guilty as charged.

Boyd ends the chapter without a recommended list of strategies for parents or even an idea of how much is too much but instead with the words: “Rather, adults must recognize what teens are trying to achieve and work with them to find balance and to help them think about what they are encountering” (p. 99).

I think this is a book Victor won’t read, but Emery will. I think it would be a good way to start some of the discussions we should be having—and maybe something he needs to do before we agree to his request.

I just didn’t think it would happen so soon.

Emery's comment: she knows me. now i'm probably going to read the book. also, heaven help me when mom prepares me for college books. i can help figuring out the equipment and i can self-teach quickly! ... okay, i'll need help with imovie but thats about it! though, part 4 of the book does make me re-think this.