Youth Development Insight

Click activism: Are social media changing civic engagement?

2012-12-05T15:57:31Z

Have social media changed how the youth you know engage in civic activities? Are charities and civic organizations too out-of-touch with today's youth to engage them in their communities?

Recent research suggests that digital citizenship (regular and effective use of the Internet) is associated with civic engagement and participation in democracy. Further, innovative use of social media has become a key factor in engaging youth (as well as adults) in working and supporting the causes they believe in. We've recently seen evidence of this in news accounts about its use in super storm Sandy and political campaigns. The Internet and its social media tools have already, or soon will change the traditional civic and social organizations in our society.

]]> Social media have been shown to powerfully grab our attention. They can dramatically expose us to problems and issues, encourage us to care about them, to want to fix the problem and better our world. For many it can be a life-changing experience. Social media support our ability to organize, to shape our message and to share it widely. But do they promote real civic engagement? Or do they provide just an easy, relatively meaningless, form of social activism?

What is at work here is more than just the Internet and its social media tools. It is how these tools are being used that can promote civic engagement. They can provide a mechanism for youth to form and join in a "participatory culture", defined by Henry Jenkins as one with a strong sense of community, low barriers to participation, informal mentorship, and opportunities for creative work. These are cultures where youth have voice and power, where they act and can influence, where they can make a difference, cause change, have autonomy.

But informing others requires that one first inform one's self. This is fostered through youth learning by doing and sharing, and by within-community mentoring and networking. The mentoring provides scaffolds for further learning, building skills and knowledge that enable us to grow and take action effectively on the issues we care about.

Another attribute of a participatory culture is youth-developed materials or products: telling the story, retelling, and remixing. These can be tweets or blogs and videos, building on a shared experience to give voice to their ideas and take action.

Think of the Eight Essential Elements for positive youth development. It is easy to see that most are present in a participatory culture. The caring adult may or may not be there, but it does include friends and mentors of various ages. And when the culture is organized around a social issue that youth care about, it provides an opportunity for generosity, to value and practice service to others.

Adding Internet and social media to our youth development programs has great potential for enhancing youth voice and youth leadership in today's society, providing an opportunity for them to be more actively engaged in their community and their world. Online participatory cultures researchers are finding examples of the attributes and strategies these organizations use to enhance youth voice and engagement. And, as these organizations are demonstrating through their community chapters and clubs that meet face-to-face, they do not have to replace more traditional youth programs. But we can enhance these traditional programs by adding the social media tools and participatory culture attributes.

Have social media changed how the youth you know engage in civic activities? Have they changed how youth programs engage youth in civic activities?

-- Trudy Dunham, research fellow

You are welcome to comment on this blog post. We encourage civil discourse, including spirited disagreement. We will delete comments that contain profanity, pornography or hate speech--any remarks that attack or demean people because of their sex, race, ethnic group, etc.--as well as spam.

Positive youth development through gaming

2012-07-11T14:16:42Z

I was in New York City recently for the Games for Change Summit, where keynote presenter Jane McGonigal reminded us how computer games can change our lives through enhancing our personal development, helping us learn and adding years to our lives. Heady claims.

Yes, we know that games are engaging and get us moving at twitch speed. We've heard they can change how our brains are wired and how we learn. But did you know that games make us happier, that they enhance our emotional resiliency? That they can help us build the mental resilience we need to trust, to take risks and to fail? That they can increase our confidence in self, our sense of self-efficacy?

]]> McGonical backs her claims with evidence from the fields of psychology and neurology. She makes a strong case for the role of gaming in positive youth development. For example:

Young cancer patients who play Re-Mission learn why painful treatments make a difference in their health, and become more treatment compliant, even if they only play once. That's because game play where we take actions and overcome challenges follows through to life experience and feelings of self-efficacy.
Youth who play DoJo learn strategies and techniques (breathing, self-talk, relaxing muscles, etc.) to control their emotions and calm themselves. Then they advance to stressful game situations where remaining calm is essential to mastering the challenge. Biofeedback tools shown on the computer screen monitor reactions to stress and challenges as you play, and the actions needed to win can only be accomplished if your muscles are relaxed and your breathing slow.
Haiti is a role-play computer game developed for the Red Cross for the purpose of getting people to stay at home and send money instead of things to disaster victims. Using real video from the aftermath of the earthquake, players take on the role of survivor or aid worker and mimic the "rationalizing mental chatter" that can lead to poor decision making. The player learns to first do no harm.

Increasingly, games are becoming a platform for learning. If we need the facts and skills to master the game challenge, we learn them because they have utility. But game-based learning is going far beyond what we often think about - the content of science, math and history. Games are also helping us develop as humans. We can become better people, happier and more adept in all areas of our life by playing games.

It's summer, traditionally, a time to play. What games are you playing? For some ideas, check out this list of 100 games that everyone should play.

After you have tried a few, share what you learned from these games. Have they made you happier, improved a relationship with a friend, or made you feel differently about what you can accomplish? How can 4-H, and other out-of-school venues for youth development, take advantage of games to promote youth learning and development?

-- Trudy Dunham, research fellow

Online research warning: Your results may vary

2012-03-28T17:00:00Z

How do you search for research-based information? How do you find out about the topics you need to know as a professional? How well do you know the tools you use to search? Perhaps not as well as you think you do.

If you are like most people today, you rely in part on the Internet as a research tool. More specifically, you rely on a search engine such as Google, Yahoo or Bing. What are your expectations of these tools?

]]> We know to carefully check out our online sources. Anyone can publish online, so we check that the source is identified, credible and current. But we assume that the most relevant and representative of what is known is going to show up on page one of the search results. And we assume that the search I conduct will result in the same resources as yours, as long as we use the same search terms. And that the computer or mobile device used is irrelevant to the research results.

We can no longer make these assumptions. The algorithms used today by search engines are filtering the information we are exposed to based upon our own past behavior (and that of our computer). So the results that I get will be different from the ones that you get. And the results that I get on my home computer may be different from those I get at the office. In fact, the search engine may be limiting search results to those that agree with what I already know -- just the opposite of what a researcher wants!

So what are our options? Many of us use Google Scholar to locate scholarly information. It is free, and as convenient and as easy to use as the other search engines. There are just two problems: we don't know what resources are searched or excluded, and the algorithm for ranking them is unknown.

Google Scholar does include many peer reviewed journals, other periodicals, and scholarly books. Studies comparing it to subscription or fee-based research databases have sometimes found it competitive, sometimes not. We know that "free" resources (those that do not require a subscription), and those with more citations are (or were) ranked higher. But we won't know when or if the ranking algorithm or what is searched, changes.

Does that mean we shouldn't use Google Scholar? No, it is probably the best free tool for locating research-based information online. But I recommend that you augment your search with other search strategies.

If you have access, conduct the online search on the Web of Science (many universities subscribe, and if you log in to your university account you can access it online).
Change your search terms to synonyms or to other aspects of the topic. If you know who conducts research in the area, search on author name.
Scan beyond the first couple pages of results
Remember, just because you didn't find it online doesn't mean that there isn't research on the topic.
Consult a librarian for more options.

What concerns do you have (or not have) about using Google or Google Scholar to conduct a research literature review online?

-- Trudy Dunham, research fellow

Is all this online socialization a good thing?

2011-10-05T17:00:42Z

Teens are texters. They almost all have cell phones, which they are more likely to use to text than call their friends, on average about 50 times a day. They are heavy users of the Internet, and of social networking sites (SNS). Is all this online socialization a good thing?

We've heard about the downside. The driving while texting or talking on a cell phone.The cyberbullying. Sexting. The idealized presentations of self in online profiles. The continuous partial attention that keeps us attentive to messages from our online friends while giving less to the teacher, hurting school performance.

]]> The best answer to my question might be 'it's complicated'. Because there really are some great benefits that offset the risks to all this online socialization.

In a recent research study by the Girl Scouts, more than haf of the girls surveyed indicated that their online social networking helped them feel closer to their friends. About half indicated that social networking had gotten them more involved with causes that they cared about. A study at Michigan State University found that college students with low self-esteem who were active SNS users felt more engaged with their university community than those who used SNS less often, and student SNS use strengthened their existing offline relationships. Research by Larry Rosen found that youth who spent more time on SNS were more empathetic toward their friends, in both online and offline interactions.

These are just a few of the recent studies that demonstrate that stronger, positive relationships and community engagement accrue to those who use SNS.

Do the benefits of social media and online socialization outweigh the risks? I think so. Our cell phones and the Internet are not going away. But our close friends are. Research by Robert Wilson noted that in 2004, American adults reported that their confidants (those people with whom we feel comfortable discussing matters of importance) had dropped from about 3 people to 2 over a 15 year period, a decline of nearly one-third. And about 25% of those surveyed reported they had no confidants.

A Pew Internet study, based on data collected in 2010, found similar numbers but a different trend when compared with their 2008 data: American adults were reporting slightly more confidants, and fewer reported that they had no confidants. The Internet users had more confidants than non-Internet users, and SNS users had more confidants than those who used Internet but not SNS.

This research is based on American adults, not youth, but adolescence is when many of us learn how to be in a friend relationship and how to be part of a community. Today's community, and society at large, could benefit from a greater abundance of empathy and engagement in its citizens. And I've never met anyone who couldn't use a true close friend and confidant. Have you?

Is all this online socialization a good thing? What do you think? What are you noticing in your work with youth?

-- Trudy Dunham, research fellow

Social media skills are essential in a participatory online world

2011-07-20T17:00:00Z

Social media have profoundly changed how we experience our connections with each other. But the connections are more than just social -- they help us to create and contribute to our world. They enable us to participate as citizens in today's participatory culture.

In a webinar this week put on by our center and PEAR , Karen Brennan drew on her research with Scratch, a computer programming language developed at MIT for use in education, to talk about the socialization-creation continuum. At the midpoint of this continuum is that space where we are most engaged and productive, doing more together than we could have achieved alone.

]]> Several years ago Henry Jenkins and his team at the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT described that midpoint as a participatory culture, as one with "relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one's creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to the novices. ... one in which members believe their contributions matter, and feel some degree of social connection with one another."

Social media contribute to the vibrancy of such a culture today. They have become an essential tool: increasingly how we participate as citizens, how we interact with each other, and how we experience our world. As programs and professionals dedicated to positive youth development, we must ensure that youth are skilled in their effective use.

Jenkins listed 11 skills that youth need to flourish in this world, including among them environmental scanning, collective intelligence and playing (experimenting with one's surroundings as a problem-solving strategy). Jenkins' skill set draws us further into the application and integration of social media, providing a deeper understanding of how our ability to work with social media, technology and information can impact our shared social experience of living in today's world. Are we building these skills into our youth development programs?

An area I've been thinking about is the need for a new paradigm to present information and discuss issues leading to new answers. The interactions of our leaders, from neighborhoods to multinational organizations, showcase the difficulty of agreeing on facts and solutions. Our classical debate format and scientific argumentation methods are not particularly effective in educating or persuading in today world.

Instead of pointing out the flaws or misstatements in another's argument, perhaps today's citizen needs to actively contribute to the knowledge base. Posting their experiences and ideas on an issue, reframing it from their perspective, using the iterative process of multiple posts from multiple people, connecting with each other and contributing to crowdsource our way to new insights, truths, and solutions.

As today's youth engage in civic activities that improve their communities and our world, we want youth to feel the sense of empowerment that comes from using social media to work collaboratively to solve problems and create in today's participatory culture. What are we doing, or could we be doing, to make this happen?

Trudy Dunham, research fellow