The majority of my articles have focused on why social media can potentially be dangerous not only for adults, but especially for children and teens. While this can be the case for many situations, in all actuality, your teen may not be doing anything different than what you did when you were their age. Instead of teens hanging out at the mall, restaurant, or movie theaters, they are hanging out online and chatting with one another on various social media sites. A new book It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens by Danah Boyd, uncovers many of the major myths of teens and their use of social media.
Danah Boyd has been researching social media, youth practices, tensions between public and private, social network sites, and other interactions between technology and society for several years (www.danah.org). Boyd’s research has focused primarily on teenagers and their use of social media, how this has evolved, and what it means in terms of social construct.
On a side note, I plan to purchase this book out of my own curiosity and I am excited to review Boyd’s conclusions on society and culture for my next PATH Press article. I think that while things can be dangerous if used improperly, our society has changed and what used to be considered “typical”, in terms of socializing for children and teens, has evolved. Overall, I hope this new book provides insight for the constant change in technology and the many reasons why people are becoming more interested in online communication with their peers.
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