Many adults would say they feel bemused and confused by the digital culture, but the digital is a part of our everyday lives, and it’s not going to go away. There are huge opportunities available for those who have learnt how to be critical, constructive and confident inhabitants of the digital environment. 42% of the world’s population is online, with that increasing to around 80% in developed nations. Within the UK, 83% of adults are now online, amongst 16- to 34-year-olds that increases to 98%. Those aged 65 and over are the fastest growing segment of users, especially via mobile devices. Youth workers hold a powerful position in contemporary digital culture, working directly with some of the keenest users of digital technology. Those users are not an unreachable generation apart: teenagers learn what is ‘normal’ among their social circle by watching what others are doing online, or in conversation with others offline, and by observing their role models in action. Youth leaders have a great opportunity to listen to the concerns of their groups, and introduce those as conversation topics, encouraging positive peer behaviours.
Chris Davies and Rebecca Eynon’s Teenagers and Technology in 2013 drew upon an extensive survey of British teenagers, highlighting the variable experiences that teenagers have: some love technology, some hate it, some are ambivalent. They highlighted how important responsible adult’s attitudes to technology are, for children to echo. Often, when people speak about the digital, they talk about it as a ‘virtual’ space. It is more helpful to think in terms of online and offline, rather than ‘virtual’ and ‘real’. Online life is part of ‘real’ life, and life is not risk-free. We cannot lock ourselves away, and the more that we understand the digital environment, the more confident people can be in using it. In the same way that in learning to swim or ride a bike, we are supported and use auxiliary devices, or when we take children to the park, use care in which areas that we visit and who our children speak to, understanding the digital environment empowers us to use it responsibly. We need to judge it on its own merits, rather than measuring it against other forms of communication:
Even though in practice, face-to-face communication can be angry, negligent, resistant, deceitful and inflexible, somehow it remains the ideal against which mediated communication is judged as flawed.
Few teenagers see what they are using as ‘technology’, but are interested in what they can do with it. An <href=”#.Uv-RhPFm6MZ” >infographic released in 2013 highlighted that teenagers particularly enjoy being online because it augments their face-to-face connections, connects them with friends they rarely see and helps them find others with similar interests. Most seem to understand that people often share the best of themselves online (as we do in most situations) and therefore are not suffering ‘Facebook depression’ (jealousy of others ‘perfect’ lives).
My book, Raising Children in a Digital Age: Enjoying the Best, Avoiding the Worst, was designed to help adults working with children to understand digital culture, and have confidence in engaging with all age groups. Teenagers use a wide range of social networks. Current favourites include Instagram (photo-sharing), WhatsApp (texting-style), and Snapchat (private photos lasting 10 seconds). They are increasingly accessing the internet via smartphones, giving them independence and privacy of access. Online conversations give teenagers control over the pace of conversation, and allow those developmental blushes to be hidden. There is, however, a real expectation that quick responses ‘prove’ the quality of a friendship, pressure that group conversation can help resist. Other important areas of conversation include what kind of information to share online, who they interact with, questions of identity, self-worth, belonging, integrity, and respectful behaviour online. Youth leaders need to consider questions of permissions and consent, language used online, setting up accountability structures, confidentiality of information shared by young people and setting up boundaries for digital interaction.
Dr Bex Lewis is Director of social media consultancy Digital Fingerprint, and author of Raising Children in a Digital Age, and is Senior Lecturer in Digital Marketing at Manchester Metropolitan University.