Teen+Girls+and+Social+Networking

“Message me,” “send me a friend request,” and “inbox me” are just a few examples of the growing social media Facebook lexicon; a vocabulary that accompanies an exponentially growing communication and networking tool used by a global population. A social media network that has become part of a day-to-day, minute-to-minute, second-to-second lifestyle especially for the Millennial generation. Wikipedia defines the Millenial Generation with people who have “birthdates ranging anywhere from the mid 1970s to the early 2000s” and who are “ generally marked by an increased use and familiarity with communications, media, and digital technologies.” Millennials, or as Marc Prensky labels them “digital natives” (2001), tend to be “very social and more tolerant than past generations” (Farmer 2008). But what are these Millennials, especially female Millennials primarily doing with their technology skills? Millennials are turning to social media sites such as Facebook to maintain their social lives. In short, Millennial women are “Facebooking”; they are socializing, communicating, and sharing. “In May and June of 2010, NBC Universal’s Oxygen Media conducted a survey of women’s social media habits. Twenty-one percent of women, ages 18-34 admitted to checking their Facebook in the middle of the night, some even sleeping with their PDA beside them. Other results include:

(Parr, 2001) Keeping connected socially via social media sites, especially Facebook is not unique to 18-34 aged women, teens in general and thus teen girls are growing rapidly in number on Facebook: “Technology is not a separate world; it almost serves as an electronic wallpaper in their lives” (Farmer, 2008). While all this time spent using social media might make women and girls appear “to have a sense of entitlement and appear egocentric” (Farmer 2008), these same women and girls “want to make a difference in society” (Farmer, 2008). They may want to make a difference in society, but what are these girls actually doing on-line.
 * · 34% make Facebook the first thing they do when they wake up, even before brushing their teeth or going to the bathroom
 * · 63% use Facebook as a networking tool
 * · 42% think it’s okay to post photos of themselves intoxicated
 * · 79% are fine with kissing in photos
 * · 58% use Facebook to keep tabs on “frenemies”
 * · 50% are fine with being Facebook friends with complete strangers

**//What are teens doing on-line?//**
“Girls prefer collaborative work” (Farmer, 2008) and social media is an outlet that girls use with their natural aptitude for collaborative skill sets. Social media allows for girls to share, comment and collaborate on a variety of ideas and tasks. In fact, they already are, albeit not necessarily for academic endeavors. A Pew Report indicates that most of teens time in general is used for sharing content (i.e. pictures, music files, and videos). In fact, teens “download copyrighted commercial software and other digital music” (Farmer, 2008). Thus presenting the ethical issue, that teens are “more concerned about getting a virus than getting into trouble with the law because of illegal downloading” (Farmer, 2008). Pew Research shows that they are doing what teenage girls do best, they are communicating. What used to be a struggle in many households over the use of the house phone, girls now use the Internet and texting to sustain and manage relationships with their peers. “Ninety-six percent of Internet users age 9 to 17 do online social networking such as Facebook and blogging. Almost half of them visit such sites daily. Girls are the majority participates and tend to use these sites to reinforce existing human relationships. In fact, over 90% of girls use social networking as a way to keep in touch with friends they see frequently” (Lenhart & Madden, 2007; Farmer, 2008).

Even the United States government recognizes the trend in social networking for teen girls. In the 2010 Report To The White House Council On Women And Girls, the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, which is funded and supported by Office of National Drug Control Policy, targets Facebook and other social-networking sites (i.e. MySpace) as a way to connect with Millennial girls, recognizing their struggle with self-identity.

**//My own classroom//** In an informal survey of my own Millennial teen girl students, conducted using an on-line survey that I conducted by “Inboxing” on Facebook. I sent the survey out to 50 students, current and former, and within 5 minutes received 2 responses, within 20 minutes I had received 18 responses. Before even reading the results, the power of content sharing via social media networks, in particular Facebook, as a communication and collaborative tool was demonstrating its prowess.



**//Is social media usage just a fad?//**


But trends change, and in this technological age, trends change at a rapid pace. It wasn’t that long ago that cd-roms were the music revolution only to be replaced by mp3s and their media device players. So will interest in social media networks and Facebook fade. After all MySpace has been replaced by Facebook in the past few years. A Pew Report indicates that the social networking trend is

here to stay. The report states that there is a growing trend from privacy to “publicy”. One response, “Publicy will replace privacy. Privacy will appear quaint, like wearing gloves and veils in church” Stowe Boyd, social networks specialist, analyst, activist, blogger, futurist and researcher; president of Microsyntax.org, a non-profit and director of 301Works.org).

**//What can schools do to compete?//**
Can schools and educators choose to ig

nore the overwhelming trends of social media and networking among the Millennial generation? Are the controversies and dangers of the Internet too substantial and overwhelming or can schools and educators get girls to be interested and pursue careers in science and technology given their interest in social media? Can schools and educators harness girls’ collaborative skill set, technical aptitude, and desire to make a difference in the world in the classroom setting? Social media can continue to only be a place to gossip, swap media files, and play video games or it can become a vehicle for social change, “ social media symbolizes is increased access to both information and platforms to express ideas. It has opened the door for new leaders, experts, and voices,” (Carter, 2010). Facebook can provide a platform for grassroots projects, etc. and it can be argued that social media can even play a role in electing presidents. In Lesley Farmer’s book, Teen Girls and Technology, she addresses the areas that educators and schools should use to bring structure to the vast and rapidly growing changes in technology. These include: curriculum, instructional design, collaboration, and especially mentoring and coaching. Instead of avoiding (or even admonishing) social media tools such as Facebook, other web 2.0 technologies such as blogs and wikis that use the same skill sets as Facebook etc can give girls a chance to express, engage and challenge themselves embracing technology and perhaps create a life-long interest in science and technology instead of dismissing it as a “boy’s club”.