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September 18, 2008, 12:11 PM ET
Wired Youth Dialogue: Mark, on the Sources of Stress
Siva cites danah boyd’s work on social networking as an important space in young people’s lives for them to acquire a “sense of autonomy (in terms of reputation, persona, and cultural expertise).”
Here, I think, we get down to a crucial element of social networking, technology, and independence. Siva mentions the “stressful life” young people endure, and he cites the “surveillance of parents, teachers, and security guards.” But according to the American Time Use Survey, young people enjoy about 5½ hours of leisure time per day. Most of it is spent with television, which remains the most popular leisure activity, but computers-for-fun time is rising, and according to the National School Boards Association, social networking last year was at nine hours per week.
Might it be, too, that a fair portion of the stress teens feel comes not from adults, but from peers? I haven’t looked at boyd’s work yet, but it seems to me that while autonomy may be one element, peer pressure is another. Youth social life is heavy on judgment, ridicule, mockery, gossip, bullying, emulation, groupy-ness, and other tribal formations. For some of them, walking through the cafeteria is a gauntlet. Wear the wrong clothes, sing the wrong songs, sport a blemish on your chin . . . they put you at risk.
Digital tools have cranked up the anxiety. They have extended and intensified peer-to-peer contact so much that kids feel they have no retreat, no place to go. Indeed, with social contact reaching all the way into their bedrooms at midnight, they’re with one another all the time. Or at least it feels that way. Someone could be commenting on your blog while you sleep, posting a photo of you while you’re having dinner. (Check out the photo-sharing sequence in the recent film American Teen, the one that ruins the girl’s life.) I see the fretting when students leave class and flip up those cell phones to check on anything that’s come through in the preceding hour. Their faces don’t emit joy. They emit worry.
Lots of them want a rest, but they feel that if they take one, they’ll miss out. Go offline for six hours and withdrawal symptoms set in. They feel exiled. So, parents, if you want to punish your 15-year-old, don’t tell him or her, “Go to your room!” Say, “Go outside and play, and give me that cell phone first.”
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