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davidrickert 's review for:
It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens
by Danah Boyd
This is a book every teacher and parent should read, not because you'll agree with everything that Boyd writes but because she questions some widely held assumptions about teens' use of technology. Her basic premise is that teens are "addicted" to social media because parents have created a sheltered environment governed by fear in which teens don't have anywhere else to go but online to create a private environment to socialize. My favorite story is one where a mom had a group of her daughter's friends over but was afraid to leave them unsupervised. Her daughter began to text at the dinner table and when her mom said she was being rude, her daughter replied that she was actually texting the same friends at the table because she wanted to have a conversation without her mom listening in.
The way that teens use social media is quite a bit different than adults (and there's another great scene where the author is at a high school football game and observes that parents were tied to their phones much more than the kids were). Teens use it as an extension of their lives at school and a place to socialize because their over-programmed lives don't allow for them to create their own social environments. I disagree in part with the author here because it seems like sports and extracurriculars should provide the environment for such socialization, even if they are school sanctioned activities.
If there's a weakness to the author's argument it's that at times she's too sympathetic with teens who obviously aren't always the most reliable at reporting why they do what they do and often portray themselves as victims rather than having control over their circumstances. Teens may go to Facebook to socialize, but they also do it when they have nothing else better to do. Still, the author challenges a lot of the commonly held assumptions about teens' use of social media and whether or not you agree with her position, they are important questions that should be raised.
The way that teens use social media is quite a bit different than adults (and there's another great scene where the author is at a high school football game and observes that parents were tied to their phones much more than the kids were). Teens use it as an extension of their lives at school and a place to socialize because their over-programmed lives don't allow for them to create their own social environments. I disagree in part with the author here because it seems like sports and extracurriculars should provide the environment for such socialization, even if they are school sanctioned activities.
If there's a weakness to the author's argument it's that at times she's too sympathetic with teens who obviously aren't always the most reliable at reporting why they do what they do and often portray themselves as victims rather than having control over their circumstances. Teens may go to Facebook to socialize, but they also do it when they have nothing else better to do. Still, the author challenges a lot of the commonly held assumptions about teens' use of social media and whether or not you agree with her position, they are important questions that should be raised.