ED 5131 - Assignment 1, Post 4: The kids are (probably going to be) alright
[Image of The Offspring]. Broadcast Music Inc. https://www.bmi.com/news/entry/punk_progeny_the_offspring
If you didn’t catch the reference to The Offspring in the title of this post, I’d understand. In their song The Kids Aren’t Alright (you’ll find this hit on The Offspring’s award-winning 1998 album Americana), the band sings about kids living on the same street that have, in their adult years, experienced some sort of downfall.
Dramatic for this post, yes, but stay with me here.
Since becoming an educator, I’ve found myself worrying pretty constantly about how my students, both present and past, are faring in the digital space. GIven their prolific use of social platforms like Instagram, Tik Tok, Be Real, and Facebook (though not since about 2017, because apparently according to them, “Facebook is for old people”), they’ve uploaded so many photos, videos, and audio voice clips that I start to fear for their prospects as they enter post-secondary life and the professional world.
But you know what? Maybe I shouldn’t be so worried. Maybe the kids will be alright, after all. As Boyd (2014) notes in her work, and what stood out most to me in this reading, was the concept of unintended consequences: “[…] as content becomes increasingly persistent, teens are also much more aware of the unintended consequences of having data available that could easily be taken out of context at a later time” (p.64). Further on, Boyd also discusses the practice of social steganography, or encoding messages in artifacts like in-jokes and culturally specific references (p.66). Importantly, this practice isn’t seen as something new - indeed, it’s something teens have been doing since the invention of the teenager, but it’s one of the things that makes me feel more positive about the way youth negotiate digital spaces. From the perspective of an educator, this practice can be confusing when I see my students laughing about something that I don’t understand, but on the other hand, it’s good to know that this practice hasn’t been lost in the context of platforms that make sharing so easy.
Similarly, the ability for young people to articulate what they are doing in obfuscating their activity, as opposed to simply sharing content, gives me a positive feeling about how they will adjust to the social web as they get older.
All that being said, one of the things that makes me concerned is that this approach to privacy can be a double-edged sword. Boyd states that by using encoded language, “teens can exclude people who are not part of the cycle of gossip at school, including parents, teachers, and peers outside their immediate social sphere” (p.69). The strong sense of privacy and encoding has made it increasingly easy to exclude others, often to the detriment of real-world relationships. In my practice as a teacher, addressing this is definitely a challenge - I can get students to be civil to one another in person, but in a digital context, I rely on creating positive relationships with my students and hope that my students trust me enough to let me in on what exactly it is they’re talking about.
I suppose it’s always been this way though - the adults being on the outside while the young people laugh about something that is unnoticed or incomprehensible. In a present day context and as we push forward with the development of digital competencies and citizenship, I feel like positive rapport and strong relationships will play an even stronger role in encouraging acts of citizenship that are meaningfully grounded.
And if we can encourage that sense of authentic citizenship? All things considering, I’m sure the kids will be alright.
Bibliography
Boyd, Dana. (2014). It’s Complicated: the social lives of networked teens. Yale University Press.
[Image of The Offspring]. Broadcast Music Inc. https://www.bmi.com/news/entry/punk_progeny_the_offspring