It's Complicated
Image Source: David Brock
What is Social Media?
Social media is a communicating tool that allows for people in the internet to interact and contribute to online content. There are some popular social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. In our current classrooms, if we were to ask our students if any of them are familiar with these, I would not be surprised if most hands would go up. The reality is, that we live in a world were social media has become a component in our daily lives.
Image Source: danah.org
To go along with the social media impact, Danah Boyd, a technology and social media scholar, wrote a book called It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens (2014). In her book, Danah presents her findings on how young people use social media as part of their everyday lives. Although I have not yet read this book, I was able to see the highlights in a presentation titled It's Complicated. The presentation begins with a word cloud display of social media and then leads into information about Danah Boyd. One of the highlights is in this presentation says, "social media has become an important public place where teens can gather and socialize broadly with peers in an informal way" (2014, Slide 8). That is, social media provides teens with a place where they can interact and communicate with peers with common interests.It is a place where teens can voice their opinions and make sense of their surroundings.
In the presentation, Danah includes her observations of the use of technology at a football game. Most of the teens at the game where using their phones to share with peers sitting next to them or to post on social media. Surprisingly, parents were also on their devices and were in fact paying more attention to their phones than to the actual football game. This part made me reflect on how today it is very common to see parents on their devices. If you go to a park, mall or even swimming pool, you will often catch parents on their cell phones, instead of interacting more with their children. Unfortunately, this is today's reality and it is important to be aware and see what positive changes we can make.
Source: Focus Pocus LTD/Fotolia
Another highlight in the presentation that got me thinking more about our young generation, was the part in which Dana compares "Networked Publics" to places like the mall and park. In this section, she talks about how today teens are very likely to interact more on social media, just like they would do before at the mall or at a park. To me, this presents a reality that we face today in the world. With today the online shopping business taking over shops and malls, I can see why and how teens would turn more to social networks as a way for communicating and interacting.
Considering that social media has crept its way in our everyday lives, it is important that as educators we introduce our students to social media in appropriate and meaningful ways. It is also important that we help our young learners understand ways for what it looks like and sounds like to be an information sharer. In other words, we need to help build social media literacy.
Resources:
Danah Boyd at https://www.danah.org/
Danah Boyd Presentation available at https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1fIRPos0mpd
Ten Types of Social Media available at https://blog.hootsuite.com/types-of-social-media/
No comments:
Post a Comment