Guest blogger Diane Levine looks at the delicate and often sensitive balance between prying or protection, and offers some useful tips for how parents and their teenagers can journey together in the online world. Diane has worked in government research on technology in education, and recently completed her PhD in the Centre for Education Studies at the University of Warwick. She is a mother of two

Levine, Diane

LSE Research Online

2017­5­10 Parenting for a Digital Future – Teenagers just seem to get bad presshttp://blogs.lse.ac.uk/parenting4digitalfuture/2015/12/09/teenagers­just­seem­to­get­bad­press/ 1/3Teenagers just seem to get bad pressCredit: D. Li, CC BY­NC­ND 2.0Guest  blogger Diane  Levine  looks  at  the  delicate  and  often  sensitivebalance  between  prying  or  protection,  and  offers  some  useful  tips  forhow  parents  and  their  teenagers  can  journey  together  in  the  onlineworld.  Diane  has  worked  in  government  research  on  technologyin  education,  and  recently  completed  her  PhD  in  the  Centre  forEducation Studies at the University of Warwick. She is a mother of two.According  to  a  recent  BBC  News  story,  there  is  a  debate  ‘raging’  inSouth  Korea  about  how much  control  parents  should  have  over  theirchildren’s  browsing  –young  people  under  the  age  of  19 must  install  an  app  that  enables  theirparents to block sites and see their children’s activity online. If the app is not installed, the phonewill not work.Do we demonise teenagers?Two things struck me about this news story. First, it shows some of the tensions often reported byparents  of  teenagers,  and  teenagers  themselves. Paternalism  versus  autonomy,  privacy  versusprotection. Second, we often see this sort of  language about teenagers in the media. Ever sincethe  famous  quote  from  Aristotle  about  their  ‘fickle,  changeable  and  violent’  natures,  teenagersseem to get bad press.As  parents  we  sometimes  experience  that  adolescents  can  be  challenging.  We  blame  theirhormones,  but  we  rarely  stop  to  think  how  difficult  it  might  be  for  them  to  manage  the  bigphysiological changes happening during this life phase.Finding a way to talkI  recently  completed  a  project  looking  at  the  technology  use of  girls  aged between 9  and 17.  Ifocused on girls because we know girls and boys navigate puberty  in quite different ways, bothstructurally in the brain and in psychological terms. The girls I worked with were from a range ofHome About On our minds From our notes Around the world Publications ResourcesSubscribe 2017­5­10 Parenting for a Digital Future – Teenagers just seem to get bad presshttp://blogs.lse.ac.uk/parenting4digitalfuture/2015/12/09/teenagers­just­seem­to­get­bad­press/ 2/3backgrounds,  but  were  not  those  who  we  are  most  worried  about  societally  –  like  researcherdanah boyd, I wanted to know about the technological practices of ‘ordinary’ girls.I focused on the interplay between technology and ‘social cognition’, a psychological term for howwe understand ourselves within the different social worlds that we inhabit. I used Valsiner’s ZoneTheory and life course perspectives to understand my participants’ activities, and found that youngwomen have strong and highly personalised perspectives relating to technology use.For  example,  one  12­year­old  self­defined  gamer  shared  her  critical  perspectives  of  availablegames, and contextualised her gaming behaviours  in the context of her extra­curricular dancing,French, gymnastics and violin  lessons. A quiet nine­year­old talked about how e­readers did notappeal to her, finding physical books a more immersive experience.In the best tradition of research with teenagers, my participants and I busted two common myths.Myth 1: Technology overrides impulse control, robbing teenagers of their sense of choiceWhat we really foundYoung  people  exercise  choice  on  a  moment­by­moment  basis  in  every  moment  of  theirtechnology­mediated  lives.  Sometimes  these  choices  are  based  on  their  prior  experiences,personality,  brain  structure  and  impulses.  Daniel  Kahneman  calls  these  System  1  choices.Sometimes they are System 2 choices, which are much more conscious and deliberate. Most ofmy participants spoke about the conscious choices they made in choosing to participate or not insocial media communities.Some didn’t participate because of because of  in­depth e­safety  training at school. According  toone 12­year­old, “… everyone has done the internet safety lesson.” For others it was because of awish to remain private. For example, one 16­year­old maintained tight privacy settings and a verysmall group of  friends on Facebook,  including her mother, excluding anyone she did not  interactwith regularly at school, and she used a generic photo rather than a personal one.A  third  group  chose  their  online  spaces  on  the  basis  of  their  interests.  One  17­year­old  wasuninterested  in  social  media  except  for  Tumblr,  which  was  “opening  up  a  new,  more  visualcommunity.”What you can tryThe  most  empowering  thing  a  teen  can  do  is  to  learn  to  talk  about  how  they  understandthemselves and their choices. They need to make their choices explicit. This will make them lessvulnerable  to  temptations  they might  encounter  when  using  technology.  Parents  can  help  theirchildren manage their technological futures.Questions and activities to do together with a teenWrite down 10 words or sentences to describe yourself. Ask your teen to do the same. Talk about whatthese statements might mean about you as people.Talk about a person who has a big influence on your teen’s life. Does your teen interact with that persononline? Now have the same conversation about a group of people. What role do individuals, groups andsystems such as schools play in the ways teenagers engage with technology?Sit down with your teen during a time when they are using technology. Talk about what your teenunderstands about the motivations of other users, and also of the technology designers. What sorts ofbehaviours do these motivations lead to? For example, discuss the role of rewards in online gaming.Does your teen think that rewards make it more likely to become addicted to a game?Home About On our minds From our notes Around the world Publications ResourcesSubscribe 2017­5­10 Parenting for a Digital Future – Teenagers just seem to get bad presshttp://blogs.lse.ac.uk/parenting4digitalfuture/2015/12/09/teenagers­just­seem­to­get­bad­press/ 3/3December 9th, 2015 | Featured, On our minds | 0 CommentsMyth 2: Teenagers don’t want adults poking into their online worldsWhat we really foundAs Leslie Haddon recently showed, adult  interest in teenagers’  lives isn’t always resented; it cansometimes be welcomed. The teens in my project do not live in another world – their many worldsintersect with ours  in ways  that  can be quite  carefully  chosen and managed. For example, oneBritish participant wrote  fan  fiction with an online  friend  in  the US. She was an enthusiastic andcommitted  writer,  and  found  herself  struggling  to  maintain  distinctions  between  the  online  fanfiction that she was creating and her day­to­day experiences. She turned to her mother:I  think  I’d sort of subconsciously known for a  long time that  this was what was happening. But  Ihadn’t really cared. And then somewhere along the line I thought, ‘This is getting kind of serious.I’d  better  do  something  before  it  goes  any  further.’  And  that’s  when  I  talked  to  Mum.  I  can’tremember what  she did. She kind of  talked  to me and helped me decipher what was  real,  andwhat wasn’t real. I think it was mainly the talking that did help. (17­year­old)What you can tryFind a place where you and your teen are both comfortable. Begin to make a shared language totalk  about  your  child’s  increasing  independence,  their  fears,  the  changes  in  their  bodies,  theinfluence their peers and technology­mediated media has on their  lives. Self­awareness will givethem  a  greater  feeling  of  personal  control  as  they  develop  positive  relationships  andunderstanding of others. This will help them to remain safe online.Questions and activities to do together with a teenAsk your teen to keep a short diary noting changes in their body and feelings. Do they notice anythinginteresting? If you are a mother and have a regular cycle, make your own diary.Keep a family diary of how much technology you all use over a weekend. Which technologies are youusing, and why? What sorts of family interactions happen around technology?Get into the habit of visiting sites together with your teen, make recommendations to each other, sendeach other links to funny things you find online, follow each other on Twitter.These  ideas  should  help  parents  and  teenagers  to  begin  to  talk  about  the  ways  in  whichtechnology relates to their developing social cognition. Talking works – enjoy your journey!Home About On our minds From our notes Around the world Publications ResourcesSubscribe 

Teenagers just seem to get bad press

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