I would like to start my posting with a conversation I had with my daughter a few years ago when we bought her a cell phone. I told her that I was her age when my family got our first home telephone. She was amazed and after a big smile she told me, “Things change.” She is right and not. However, I think that we both accomplished something with different technology; communicate with our peers.
Susannah Stern in her article Producing Sites, Exploring Identities: Youth Online Authorship explores what teens are using as channels to communicate with others and express themselves and why they are doing it. Blogs and web pages provide those channels and the reasons for creating them vary from curiosity, challenge, peer pressure, self-expression, and self-reflection among others. Blogs and web pages seem to be journals and dairies (p.98), however the first ones have an audience (p. 99) which could provide comments, responses or opinions.
As I read this article I thought of the implications blogging may have in different areas. For example, teens are able to tell their stories and thoughts to an audience that perhaps they do not know. They allow others to enter their lives as they reflect about themselves. As a mother, I have concerns about privacy and how much a teen should post in blogs or web pages for safety reasons (p.95). I see the educational value, and even the emotional help blogs provide to teens. However, I wonder if teens view personal (face to face) communication as a threat to who they are or who they are becoming.
Also, technology provides an outlet for teens to exercise their creativity. As Trilling and Fadel (2009) one of the critical learning skills of the twenty-first century is creativity. Teens are able think creatively as they write, place images and sounds on their blogs, webs and social networking sites.
It is encouraging to see that through blogging, web pages and social networking sites teens are writing, reflecting, and determining an audience for their writing. Visiting with my teen daughter she told me that she visits a site where teens post their writing and she is learning so much about how to write. However, she has not been brave enough to post her own. As a teacher I see the value of all the skills being learned and practice through blogging and social networking, but I wonder how much of those skills are being transferred to other learning activities in school assignments. Moreover, in the area of education, my concerns arise in the topics of bullying, dating violence and stalking (especially among teens) and how, as a society, is that we are going to deal with this situation. It seems that through technology we have found new ways to oppress others.
Melvina,
ReplyDeleteI understand your concerns with teens and online authorship, and I completely agree. I have a teen step-daughter, and I worry about many of the things you mentioned. In addition to my personal worries about safety for teen authors, I worry and/or wonder about some social aspects related to online writing, and more specifically the time teens spend online rather than talking to people around them. While this might not be related directly to blogging or creating web pages, it is very much related to teens and technology.
I wonder about the social experiences that teens are missing by not communicating with those in their presence. For example, many of my college age students wander around campus with smart phones in hand, looking down and making eye-contact with no one. As I watch them, and they will literally run into each other because they are so engrossed in looking at their phone. They are texting, updating their facebook status, or reading something, but they are not communicating with those around them. Many cannot ‘make it’ through my hour and fifteen minute class without ‘checking’ their phone for messages. In the long run could this lack of face-to-face personal interaction affect our teens’ ability to communicate effectively with others?
Melvina and Jeannette,
ReplyDeleteI get what you're saying but my teenager doesn't.
I wish I could see a graph that shows a gradual decline of life spent in the virtual world as young people grow into adulthood.
But, I'm not sure it really happens.
What do you think?
Kevin,
ReplyDeleteI think that the "technology bug" (blogging, texting, chatting, social networking, and online classes among others) has bitten all of us. I can tell you that I never before thought I would blog or even have a Facebook account (I could blame it on my daughter's influence). Consequently, I think that across the board we spend a good amount of time in the virtual world.
Even my parents got it! We are getting them a computer for Christmas. They want a laptop, so they can carry it around. They want to get Skype to visit with us!!
Melvin,
ReplyDeleteI am there, my teenager loves the computer and we also worry about her f2f conversations being limited. When we are home she loves to talk on the phone and computer, I wonder how this will influence her f2f communications latter in life...Yet Iknow that the exposure is good and children need to have the understnding to use the available technology..