My last post picked up on the autonomy technology provides, and one of the claims made for social networking and blogging by teens is that they give young people a sense of individuality and “cultural expertise” (Siva’s term).

That’s so, and it sounds like an incontrovertible benefit. But the activities have a down side, too, and not just in the standard terms of kids’ neglecting homework and tuning out parents. Social networking and blogging do have a pitfall, and it arises precisely in the terms of praise mentioned above, individuality, and cultural expertise.

Here are two illustrations.

A few weeks ago I went on CBC (Canada) to debate a 24-year-old on the talents of digital youth. She was a marketing whiz immersed in technology, bright and articulate and eager to take on an aging professor knocking the kids. It was a lively exchange and she scored several strong points. At the end, though, she voiced an opinion that settled the issue, but not in the way she and many others listening realized.

I had played the fuddy-duddy by insisting that students memorize poems and recite them to the class, and maybe that would push their verbal skills beyond IM banter. My adversary had a resounding reply, which went something like this:

“What Professor Bauerlein doesn’t realize is that the world has changed, and those kinds of exercises don’t fit 21st-century skills. You can’t ask students to sit back passively and repeat what the teacher says any more. In fact, the whole education system has to change and adapt, ‘cause the kids are doing incredible things on their own.”

I let it go, but had a bitter reply in my head: “Wait a minute. You’re 24-years-old. What do you know about how the world has changed? What do you know about the education system? Have you ever graded a paper? Have you ever observed middle schools in urban areas? . . .”

Where does this presumption come from? My guess is this: Having their own blogs and personal-profile pages gives teens an inflated belief in their own judgment. They put their experiences and attitudes onto the screen for others to see, and it goes to their heads. How tempting it is for fragile teen egos to conclude that what happened yesterday in their personal lives merits expression and comment. Yes, post pictures of yourself. Talk about the things you like and detest. And don’t keep your reflections under lock and key in a dresser drawer. Send them into the public space where they can shine forever.

The process damages one of the building blocks of maturity and wisdom: humility in the shadow of others, self-criticism in the light of tradition.

It happened just this month in the state of Maine. When the results of the state writing test for 8th-graders came in, officials looked them over, ranked the scores, and threw them out. Yes, they junked the whole thing. Fully 78 percent of test-takers failed to write a persuasive essay on an assigned topic. The rate marked a 50 percent increase from 2006-07, an impossible slide, and one embarrassing enough to compel officials to withhold the results until the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram forced them to do so under the Maine Freedom of Access Act.

So what happened? According to state education officials, the prompt evoked strong reactions from the kids, making the assessment invalid. “Kids got ticked off at it,” stated the state education commissioner. Another official explained, “They reacted emotionally, spouted a bit, and did not use the fact sheet information to support their argument.”

You might expect the prompt had something to do with a delicate subject such as race or politics or sexuality or religion. Nope. It read: “Television may have a negative impact on learning.”

That’s all. Students were free to agree or disagree with the prompt, so long as they used evidence to make an argument. But a sizable portion of them simply shot at the notion from the hip. One essay began, “These facts are lies. I do my homework and get good grades, even though I watch TV.”

The outcome reveals a new sensitivity among the kids. One educator in Maine remarked, “If I were a kid, knowing what I know about the influence of technology on their lives, my first reaction would be to completely disagree with the prompt.” It seems that technology is so personal to them that they can’t even entertain the idea of harm. Moreover, they feel confident enough to dismiss such ideas with all the indignation of an aged moral sage.

Plus, Maine middle-schoolers have been told for years that screens are, indeed, great learning tools. Back in 2002, Maine began distributing laptops to every 7th and 8th Grader in the state, and a year ago we got this report affirming that laptops decidedly improve their writing.

No wonder, then, that with screens both inside and outside the classroom telling them that they’re smart and important, the students should find this year’s prompt an abomination. They believe they possess the “cultural expertise” to sound off about the topic, and they have developed enough “individuality” to believe that their personal experience is a norm.

This is the opposite of open-mindedness and reflective thinking. I believe, too, that it’s a powerful component of teen Web 2.0.