Teen Technology Misuse

One video and a few readings this week…. This week, I want you to watch a 19-minute TED video by Ken Robinson, who “makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.”  Please watch all of it.  It’s only 19 minutes of your life. 

It matters because we can do a lot in the homes – which are the front line when it comes to youth…but the schools are right behind homes in importance.  We have to do education right, or it does not bode well for these problem behaviors we’ve studied all semester, or for our country as it competes with other world powers, or society in general. (Links to an external site.) I look forward to receiving your analysis of the content, personal reflections, and opinions on this video in your Summary for this week.

Digital Media and Civic and Political Participation This week, we are going to mix it up a little and concentrate on the POSITIVE ways youth are using technology – for example, to promote social causes or foster improvements on the political and economic front – both nationally and worldwide.   I want you to randomly select ONE of the following three papers and review/critique it (in your Summary). 

You can then also create a discussion post/reply about it, or post/reply about any other teen technology issue, like you’ve done all semester.  Digital Media Literacy Education and Online Civic and Political Participation  There is a stark contrast between youths’ participation with new media and their civic and political participation.

Judged by traditional standards, levels of youth civic and political commitment, capacity, and activity are the lowest of all demographic groups and until recently have been declining (Macedo et al., 2005). At the same time, youth are highly engaged with digital media, such as social media, blogging, video games, and smart phones (see, e.g., Lenhart. et al., 2010; Kahne, Middaugh, & Evans, 2008). Youth, in fact, are frequently the generation that is closest to innovation (Krueger, 2002; Mossberger, Tolbert, & McNeal, 2008).  The Civic and Political Significance of Online Participatory Cultures among Youth Transitioning to Adulthood  Most existing scholarship that measures the impact of the Internet on civic or political engagement focuses on political uses of new media.

Drawing on two large panel studies, we find that youth engagement in nonpolitical online participatory cultures may serve as a gateway to participation in important aspects of civic and political life, including volunteering, community problem-solving, protest activities, and political voice. These relationships remain statistically significant for both datasets, even with controls for prior levels of civic and political participation and a full range of demographic variables.

While politically driven online participation is clearly worthy of attention, these findings indicate that it should not be seen as the only relevant bridge from online activity to civic and political engagement. 

Youth Online Activity and Exposure to Diverse Perspectives  Some see the Internet as a means of exposure to divergent perspectives, while others believe that it is likely to foster echo chambers. We agree that it is important to attend to these possibilities, but we find that this discussion is often framed inappropriately.

Drawing on a unique panel survey of the online practices of youth (ages 16-21) and on their civic and political engagement, we find that most youth are not consistently exposed to echo chambers or divergent perspectives. Rather, we find that most youth are exposed to views that align with and diverge from their own, or they are exposed to neither.

We also find that political interest, particular forms of online participation, and digital media literacy education can promote greater exposure to these diverse perspectives. — Read: LiteracyEducationandOnlineParticipation.WORKINGPAPER.pdfPreview the document — Read: OnlineParticipatoryCultures.WORKINGPAPERS.pdfPreview the document — Read: outhOnlineActivityDiverseExposure.WORKINGPAPERS.pdfPreview the document