Danah Boyds on Social Lives of Networked Teens - Book Report/Review Example

An Analysis of Danah Boyd’s book on Social Lives of Networked Teens Introduction Social media has taken the place of the Internet God that ruled till late nineties. While students and teens in those days were more inclined in finding new information through the worldwide web, students today are more prone to hit search directly on Facebook or Twitter. Danah Boyd’s book “it’s complicated: the social lives of networked teens” is more a story of one such student who grew up in the warmth of nineties and is watching scores of teens around her now, who live starkingly different online lives than what she did. The writer brings about some interesting facts through her personal observation and interviews of students in today’s world, and the book is a great compilation of her work spanning eight years. Through our essay we try to analyse in which direction her book has led the reader to, in understanding the power, impact and possibilities of social media. Has the writer succeeded in her goals behind writing the book? Or are there factors that need more clarification to a discerning learner like me looking for more details in a book of our times? Man is a social animal. And today’s man is a social geek. Yes, he learns more from his friends than from his books. He lives in dynamic clouds and microenvironments where brainstorming happens over handsets and desktops, and not necessarily in a library or a classroom. Dr. Boyd’s observations are from the very beginning personal and informative. However, there are distinct places which need an extra note or explanation to make sure the writer reaches the goals of the book adequately, namely, to be able to answer questions and doubts of parent and concerned family of these teenagers who are required to use, live, study and shop on social media. Chapterwise Analysis Bringing the concept of online socializing practices to as simple terms as she can, Dr. Boyd decides to make thing simple in her book and defines social living and learning in a new way. She compares social media to a kind of a round table classroom, where every individual is completely visible to the other, as along the teacher, and is sharing his/her thoughts in full public glare. While this negates out privacy, this also ensures that whatever happens falls under the scrutiny of ten eyes instead of one. One of the flaws of social media that she has ideally pointed out is that the round table classroom encourages everyone to speak and act but does not determine the outcome of the practices or the habits that they will lead to. The thick window affordances example is definitely not what one would relate to especially in the social network scenario of today. It does not suffice when the writer says that the thick glass window does not allow sound to travel across (limitation in its affordance), she forgets to mention the overall visibility and security benefits of the window. Therefore students online are not like people across a sound absorbing window unable to speak to each other across, but a bunch of youngsters who like to enjoy serene communications from within the safety of the thick glass window. In the first chapter, Boyd carefully files teenage mentality and freedom of expression basing on teen psychology. Her assessment that teens and social media users select and share with their audience is a great revelation for friends and family members as to why teenagers are more prone to speak out socially than speak out in real life. And when they do, their presentation of more facts than they are expected to know explains itself. (Boyd, 2014, p.30) The mental model of the audience that a teen addresses may be different from what he or she assesses it to be. However, in no way, is this unique to just social media. In the ripe age of late teens, every person would have misunderstood the world around and lived in self-made understandings, till the understanding finally broke with real life incidences and revelations. Social media offers to disillusion faster, since the audience here is quite freely expressive and receptive of the thoughts being shared. Ultimately, social media enables the student to assess himself/herself through the eyes of his/her peers, which is very important for personality development. Not all opinions are right on social media, and Boyd fails to point that out in her studies. Danah Boyd’s Book at One Glance (Performance of each chapter towards goals of the book rated out of 10) Chapter Identity Privacy Addiction Danger Bullying Inequality Literacy Searching for a public of their own Reader Engagement 7 8 6 6 5 7 7 8 Parent’s Concern 6 5 8 9 7 4 7 4 Teenage Psychology 9 9 6 7 6 9 9 9 Inference 6 5 5 9 5 9 6 9 Add to that the lack of flexibilities pointed out by her when the mother approaches and the girl wants to change context of chat. Not that these are necessary in social media life, but some of these points should not have been neglected, while some should have been let go. Parents do understand the places where recorded chat histories give away the doings of their kids, and are not always snooping around to find out what the chat is about or worse criticize the child for what she is involved in. While Hunter’s example speaks of his expectations of etiquette and context, his usage of the tools provide by Facebook to limit family members and friends who do not leave a chance to embarrass him, is what the latest social media trend is all about. Young minds want control on what they choose, and society usually does not allow that except in the world of social media. With Dr. Boyd’s explanations in this context, we agree and are sure that there is no mistake on his part. The section on privacy and the freely sharing youth tendency to filter who sees the posts is more complete and accurate at showing teenage psychology. It dwells upon the challenges of how a teenager has to be publicly visible and yet not privately violated in thoughts or words. (Boyd, 2014, p.54). The entire chapter shows how teenagers today are facing bigger world challenges in just within the social media platforms and defining their preferences through the easily-usable interface. The addiction chapter is thoroughly marvelous giving parents a reason to understand the teen psychology and act in directions that allow the teen at home to grow in the right direction. At the core of all parental practices driven by concern, Dr. Boyd suggests that parents must help their children understand and tackle the challenges they face at social media life. This is true in real life as well. The chapter on danger assesses the same evils, parental concerns, teenage mistakes, and probable solutions that are to be considered seriously in real life. Parental jurisdiction is important in both the scenarios and it is the duty of the teenager and the parents to develop mutual trust to the fullest, before the children venture to develop social undertakings (Boyd, 2014, p.100). The chapter on inequality is one that keeps the reader hooked to real social concerns. Hatred is not something that social networks were created for, but since this emotion is to mankind as fly is to soup, social media platforms are direct witnesses of outrages that are not justified. Concerned parents must be more inclined in seeing which direction or side their child takes in these arguments, if that is right or wrong, and if the mentality of the child is neutral or not. Neutral mindsets succeed in accepting new suggestions and theories while the biased ones can only see one side of the coin. A recent study suggests that although students and teenagers of the new millennium are more on Facebook and other social networking sites, the older generations are not far behind. (PewSocialTrends, 2014). Therefore, the gap and distance between parent thinking and the mindset of teenagers who are active on Facebook is slowly reducing. And this helps in a great way to allow parents understand the need of their teenage children. Towards the end of the book, the last three chapters very sequentially develop the reader’s thinking towards a certain direction. The need to encourage equality leads to the understanding that networking and open criticisms are healthy for teenage interactions. In order to achieve that, the teenage population seeks and finds a public of its own. This leads to growth in literacy (Boyd, 2014, p.177) and abolishment of prejudices and inferior habits. Conclusion: Boyd’s work has been an excellent summary of thoughts of teenage and young adults in the social networking scenario. Per chapter, the author has developed arguments but in a few places needs more back-up to produce better outlines as elicited in this article. References: Boyd, Dr. D. (2014). Its complicated: the social lives of networked teens, New York: Yale University Press. Retrieved on June 23rd, 2014 from: http://www.danah.org/books/ItsComplicated.pdf PewSocialTrends (2014) Millenials in Adulthood. Pew research Social & Demographic Trends. Retrieved on June 23rd, 2014 from: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/03/07/millennials-in-adulthood/ Read More