A recent Pew study, "Social Media and Young Adults," reports on how young teens are using social media. The stats indicate a decline in blogging, suggesting this platform might be more acceptable for the school curriculum than in the past, as young teens come to see blogging as a serious medium, compared to the the social networking they do with friends on other platforms. As expected, Facebook and MySpace remain popular, and younger teens are not using Twitter as much as older teens. Check the Pew study for specifics, flipping through the parts of the study. Let us know what you think after reading the study and what the implications might be teachers as they consider social networking sites and Web 2.0 tools like blogs, wikis, nings, and other collaborative tools, for use with students as part of the school curriculum.
5 comments:
While I realize I am not a young adult, I never considered my self in the category of older adult. I am just an adult. So I take a little offense to the summary categorizing anyone over 30 as an older adult. My parents are older adults, not me.
It seemed strange to me that their survey was lopsided. They interviewed 2253 adults but only 800 teens.
The statistic that 8% of teens still do not have computers and of those that do have a computer, 4% do not have it connected to the internet, should be a reminder that assigning any computer work for home may be an undue burden for some students. These students may be embarrassed to point it out.
The decline in blogging amongst teens does not surprise me as there is no immediate response back when you post to a blog. Most teens like to find what they are looking for fast and get gratification (a response back) fast. I think they are still fine to use in a classroom as teachers will mandate responses in a timely fashion (most likely each day). I never really understood the fascination with twitter in the first place, so I have no opinion on why teens are not using it as much.
I remain somewhat worried about the ability of the digital generation to be able to effectively communicate. While the internet has supposedly extended our global ability to communicate, I drive past six separate kids standing at the bus stop every morning where each child has headphones on and is living in their own private world. I also wonder why everyone has the need to tell everyone what is going on in their life and every moment of their life - via twitter or updating their facebook status. That seems like such a generational insecurity screaming for the approval of their peers by hoping to convince them they have access to technology and are doing something meaningful every hour in an attempt to be perceived as cool. Scary...
I agree with Joe about being worried with teens needs to be in constant conversation with others. In my office, we have had to collect cell phones when certain students come in because they cannot control their usage of the cell phone. You can tell when a teen's cell phone goes off in my office and he/she cannot answer it that he/she is bursting inside to get back the cell phone. It is really sad.
I am neither what anyone might consider an old nor young yet I find myself at a crossroads of this technology boom. I can remember when myspace and facebook were in its infancy when, at least facebook, was only offered to certain large college campuses. I remember writing to the publishers of facebook trying to convince them to extend their services to my small school in NH. In just 3 short years facebook has extended to colleges and universities all over the country, to middle schools, and high schools as well. Companies now use facebook, twitter, myspace, etc... to expand their brand names and reach a new customer base.
I've also noticed that the number of adults that have joined these social networking sites have increased dramatically over the last five years. While their motives for joining these networks may differ from their younger counterparts, none the less, they are joining these social networks ever expanding their reach and influence in society.
For instance, at my moms job they had to put a ban on facebook and myspace because a study came back from her resource team that productivity had gone down considerably due to workers ability to access their myspace and facebook pages. As a result the company put a filter on the site and now employees are no longer allowed to check or edit their "status" while at work.
These social networking sites provide many benefits for teens and adults alike, but left unchecked and unmonitored it can be detrimental to both adults and teens alike.
As a secondary high school teacher we are in a constant struggle to get students attention. Many times I have to repeat directions several times. I don't know if this is a direct reflection of the digital generation or not. On the other hand, blogging for educational purposes is a great way to get students involved. Educational blogging must have guidelines and be supervised, just in case inappropriate material makes its way in.
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