The Young and the Digital Interview w/MacArthur Foundation Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning

In a follow-up to a recent set of events I did an interview with the MacArthur Foundation Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning. Here’s an excerpt.

As the digital divide closes, thanks in no small part to mobile media, the question is no longer who’s using digital media, but how. Are African American youth engaging with digital in dynamic ways that will help them develop useful skills and greater capabilities?

You can read the full feature story here.

Another story on the Spotlight blog related to my research and a collaboration between the UNCF and MacArthur is here

Also, a great summary of MacArthur’s successful Digital Media and Learning conference held in San Diego can be read here.

Follow The Young and the Digital on Twitter @ scraigwatkins.

Changing the Conversation: Rethinking America’s Digital Divide

Over the last three weeks I’ve been involved in a series of events that address the changing digital media landscape. Flashback twelve years ago. In 1998 the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released the third installment of its Falling Through the Net report. The graph below gives you a sense of the state of household internet access by race in 1998.

Whereas 30% of white households were accessing the internet only about 13% of Latino and 11% of black households had home internet access. That gap established the framework for what we know as the digital divide, the rise of the “technology rich” and the “technology poor.” Consequently, as we entered the new millennium the debate about technology and social inequality was focused squarely on the “access gap.”

Fast forward to today and profound shifts in the social and digital media landscape are apparent. Black and Latino kids are going online from a vast array of places–school, libraries, community tech centers, and home. Data from a variety of sources confirms that we have shifted from the “access gap” to what Henry Jenkins and others describe as the “participation gap.” What is the participation gap? Well, it’s a reference to the fact that as a more diverse population joins the digital world how do we begin to understand the different skills, interests, ethics, and cultures that produce different new media ecologies, literacies, and modes of participation in digital media culture?

Even though the access gap has closed in some corners of the digital world (though certainly not all; a huge age gap still persists) race, class, education, geography, and economics continue to matter in the digital world. In my presentations I have focused specifically on how African American and Latino youth, through sheer determination and innovation, are remaking the participation gap. Twelve years ago young blacks and Latinos hardly figured in the conversations about young technology users. The data today strongly suggests that they may in fact be leading the digital transition.

Here are a few of the points that I’ve been addressing in my public talks.

1. In 1999, when the Kaiser Family Foundation released its first national study investigating the media behaviors of 8-18-year-olds they found that black and Latinos were significantly less likely to go online from home than their white counterparts. Moreover, young whites spent more time online than black or Latino youth.

2. Ten years later the media environments of white, black, and Latino youth has changed significantly. In their 2010 report Kaiser finds that the amount of time young people spend using media throughout the day has risen sharply, especially among blacks and Latinos. When you combine all media used, multitasking and otherwise, Hispanic youth spend about 13.0 hours a day with media. Black youth spend just about as much, 12:59 hours whereas white youth spend 8.36 hours. Even more interesting: on a typical day young Latinos (1:49 hours) and blacks (1:24) are spending more time online than their white counterparts (1:17).

3. When it comes to mobile media the gap is even wider. According to Kaiser, black and Latino youth are the heaviest consumers of media content via the cell phone. Black youth spend the most time using their phones for music, games, and videos: almost an hour and a half (1:28), compared to 1:04 for Hispanics and 26 minutes among white youth.

4. Since 2004-05 we have learned from Amanda Lenhart, an analyst from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, that black and Latino youth are just as likely as young whites to create a social network profile. There is growing evidence that young blacks and Latinos are spending more time on social sites like MySpace and even Facebook and Twitter than young whites.

5. In our recent work with a group of black and Latino teens they talk passionately about the role of mobile phones in their lives. The mobile, quite simply, is the hub of their social and informational world. That’s true of a growing number of all young people. But African Americans, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, are more likely than their white or Latino counterparts to go online via a mobile phone than a desktop or laptop computer. They are emerging as early adopters of the mobile web.

When I spoke with Amanda at the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning conference this past weekend she said that Pew would soon be releasing results that further support my observations. We all know that mobile is the future. By 2020, according to one Future of the Net report, the majority of Americans will be accessing the internet via a mobile device. But the future is now for some internet users, especially for young African Americans.

Finally, in our research with black teenagers they offer a host of reasons for why they prefer going online from their mobile phones. Some believe it’s a more affordable on ramp to the online world. Some believe it is more reliable, that is, no need to worry about the old or broken down computers they encounter at school or at home. The main reason: their mobile device offers a more empowered online experience. Many schools have all but made going online a painful experience. Students can’t do the things they want to do–communicate with their peers, access Facebook, or “mess around” with technology. Libraries place time and content restrictions on what young people can do online. The mobile web, in short, limits the ability of adults to control what kids do online. This can be liberating and, at times, limiting.

Truth is, we do not know a lot about what young people are doing online with their mobile phones. What are the perils when young people’s participation in new media communities drifts further away from adults? Are teens sexting? What kinds of new literacies are they engaged in? Is the mobile web used principally to play games, listen to music, and watch videos? Or is it also used as an educational and informational resource? These are just some of the kinds of questions that need to be answered.

We will continue to update you from the field as we strive to learn more about how black and Latino youth are remaking the participation gap and, along the way, changing the conversations about technology and social inequality.

Teens, Technology, and Sexting: Criminal Acts or Teachable Moments?

The Pew Internet & American Life Project released a new report on teens and “sexting,” a reference to teens who use their mobile phones to send nude or partially nude photos to their boyfriends and girlfriends. NPR did a story on the report which you can see here. Teens and Sexting was written by Amanda Lenhart of Pew in conjunction with Richard Ling who teaches at the IT University of Copenhagen and Scott Campbell of the University of Michigan. I know Scott and recently had a chance to share a panel with him on social networks. Their report is timely for several reasons. Here are a few of the findings from the study:

• 4% of cell-owning teens ages 12-17 say they have sent sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude images of themselves to someone else via text messaging.

• 15% of cell-owning teens ages 12-17 say they have received sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude images of someone they know via text messaging on their cell phone.

• Older teens are much more likely to send and receive these images; 8% of 17-year-olds with cell phones have sent a sexually provocative image by text and 30% have received a nude or nearly nude image on their phone.

Sexting was just entering our societal vocabulary when I was finishing The Young and the Digital. When a small number of prosecutors around the nation began charging teens who engaged in sexting with disseminating and possessing child pornography the headlines grew. But does it make sense to treat sexting as a crime? Further, how do we make sense of teen sexuality in the digital age?

As I read the Pew report I recalled how some of my research for The Young and the Digital addressed issues of teens, technology, and sexuality. In one of my research interviews Mr. Walker, a high school teacher, discussed his students use of MySpace. He was clearly disturbed by some of the content they were posting and suggested that I see for myself the kinds of online identities his students were creating. So, we surveyed about twenty profiles. It was an eye-opening experience.

In nearly all of the profiles that we looked at, the online identities were incredibly theatrical and aspirational. Specifically, his students were living out many of their fantasies through the identities they created with social media. As we continued to scan the profiles Mr. Walker noted how many of his students were striving to appear older. One thirteen-year-old student, for example, listed his age as fifteen. Likewise, a fourteen-year-old pupil listed her age as sixteen. This, it turns out, is a typical tendency in young people’s online behavior. One study found that while most teens did not pretend to be someone else in the social sites they visit, 86% of teens did pretend to be older online.

In most instances the desire for a more mature persona took on a decidedly sexualized tone, an expression of online identity that worried Mr. Walker. But as we looked at the profiles much of what I noticed was pretty normal behavior. Both the young men and women flirted with the camera while playing to the gazes of the peers they presumed would be watching. The young men proudly displayed bare chests, meticulously places tattoos, and flexed muscles. Similarly, the young women performed in poses that were simultaneously provocative and submissive. I walked away from my conversation with Mr. Walker convinced that much of what I saw was playful and not profane; indeed, exploratory rather than explicit. Of course, sexting takes place in more private communication so we did not see anything even remotely similar to what has been reported.

Teens have long associated sexuality with greater independence, personal control, and a path to adulthood. Many adolescent researchers believe that teens’ exploration of sexuality occurs during a period of immense physical, hormonal, social, and emotional change. Today, teens are using social media to negotiate this period of great change.

Teens have been at the center of my research for more than ten years and one thing is clear. While they may not own much teens develop a very early and clever sense of the most important thing they will ever own: their bodies. In social network sites I noticed that teens take great pride in their rapidly changing bodies and use them quite literally to articulate what I call the “aspirational self.” The incessant desire to control and use their bodies as a source of pleasure and personal expression is a key theme in young people’s journey toward greater social, emotional, and physical maturity. In the universe of user-generated media this is realized in spectacular and sometimes troubling fashion.

Rather than prosecute young people for sexting, we need to use these as “teachable moments” about technology, sexuality, and intimacy. In the digital world teens are acting out many of the scripts and images they consume in popular culture. Unfortunately, the images of femininity and masculinity in pop culture provide narrow notions of gender identity for teens to experiment with. A 2005 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation titled Sex on TV4 found that between 1998 and 2005, the number of sexual scenes on television nearly doubled. In my 2006 book Hip Hop Matters I document the degree to which popular music and music videos marketed to young people incorporate increasingly sexualized content, bodies, and imagery.

It seems that among a minority of teens exchanging nude or semi-nude images with each other is acceptable. In some instances, according to Pew, sexual images “are shared between two romantic partners, in lieu of, as a prelude to, or as a part of sexual activity.” Some teens believe that their peers are pressured by a person they like to send a sexual image via text. One fourteen-year-old girl told Pew that she sent inappropriate images to boys that she liked. “I felt like if I didn’t do it, they wouldn’t continue to talk to me.”

In my research one parent noted how some of the teens in her son’s peer group were using mobile phones to control a romantic partner. Text messages were used as a surveillance tool, “where are you!” or “who are you with?” The Pew report suggests that teens are also using text messages to harass, embarrass, and even pressure each other into some kind of sexual activity.

In the age of social and mobile media, teens’ exploration with sexuality will likely become even more curious and adventurous but not necessarily dangerous. The ability to seek out more information and even exchange their thoughts about sexuality creates the possibilities for learning how to manage sexual situations in ways that are both safe and healthy.

In the case of sexting, technology is not the problem. Consequently, the solution is not to criminalize sexting but to help our kids grapple with the natural curiosities they develop regarding their sexuality. The use of social and mobile media in teen courtship rituals is yet another reason for us to engage our kids about technology, formally in places like schools and informally in homes and media.

Studies like the Pew report illustrate why educating young people about the social consequences of social media is one of the great challenges of life in the digital world.

Smart Phones, Dumb Ads: Men, Women, and Social Media

This past Sunday while watching pro football I could not help but notice two television ads introducing two new mobile phones, Verizon’s Wireless Blackberry Storm 2 and Motorola’s much hyped, Droid. Here are links to the spots if you have not seen them.

BlackBerry Storm2

Motorola Droid

What strikes me most is how overwhelmingly masculine both ads are.

The BlackBerry Storm 2 spot is loaded with testosterone. The dark and stormy setting, male voice-over, hard rock soundtrack, and masculine hand seen using the mobile device tilts decisively toward the male consumer. But many of the features boasted in the spot–the apps, texting, responsiveness–are exactly the kinds of things that women are more likely to do with their mobile phones.

Male iconography–ranchers, shots of the open prairie, and a squad of stealth fighter jets—defines the Droid spot, too. Between the two spots only one woman appears. I know it’s pro football and the presumed audience, rightly or wrongly, are millions of adrenaline-filled men rooting for their favorite teams and eagerly awaiting their fantasy football results. But as I thought about the multi-million dollar roll out for these campaigns I could not help but think: are these types of campaigns dated, culturally out of synch, and, ultimately, off-message?

A decade or so ago it was fairly common to associate all things tech with men, call it the “boy toy” syndrome. That was certainly the case with the early marketing and selling of video games, an industry that up until recently all but ignored the fact that girls and women play games, too. A 2006 Active Gamer Benchmark Study by Nielsen Entertainment found that 64% of online gamers are women. Women, according to the study, generally seek out gaming experiences that are casual, recreational, and social. These styles of play represent the next era of gaming.

When you look at the data on who uses social media technologies the BlackBerry and Droid spots are out of touch.

Some of the more interesting gender differences related to technology use begin to form just as teens use of mobile phones and social network sites intensifies. When the Pew Internet & American Life Project produced its first report on teens use of social network sites, Social Networking Websites and Teens, clear gender patterns emerged. Among both young and older teenagers, girls used social network sites more than boys. Seventy percent of older teenage girls, ages 15-17, had used a social network site compared to 54% of older boys. Similarly, older girls were more likely to have created a profile on a social site, 70% to 57%.

Teen girls use of the Web, generally speaking, tends to be more social than boys. In a report titled Teen Content Creators and Consumers, Pew found that a quarter (25%) of online girls age 15-17 blog, compared with 15% of online boys of the same age. Pew’s data suggests that while boys are consumers of online content girls are sharers of online content. In other words, when it comes to participation in the online world boys take, girls give. Pew writes, “just 29% of boys ages 15-17 share their own creative content online, compared with 38% of girls in that age group.” Pew characterizes girls as “power content creators.”

These trends persist as teens grow into young twenty-somethings—an age segment my research focuses on.

At a recent conference in Chicago I spoke about how young people are using social network sites to maintain different types of relationships. When we began surveying college students about their media behaviors three years ago women stood out as the most innovative and intense users of social network sites. With the exception of massively multiplayer online games women are more actively engaged with social media platforms than men. For example, in our survey women were much more likely to use two or more social network sites, suggesting that they were using social sites to manage a diverse sphere of friends, acquaintances, and social contacts. Also, women were significantly more likely in our survey to rank “managing my personal profile” as one of their top three SNS activities. In some other data that we have gained access to we know, for instance, that women are much more likely than men to post and share photos in their online networks. Photo management is a main source of activity and social expression among Facebook’s youngest users.

The idea that women are more social in their use of technology is actually consistent with what we know, more broadly, about men, women, and expressions of intimacy and engagement with others. In his book Bowling Alone political scientist Robert Putnam writes, “women make 10-20 percent more long-distance calls to family and friends than men, are responsible for nearly three times as many greeting cards and gifts, and write two to four times as many personal letters as men. “ Putnam adds that, “ even in adolescence, women are more likely to express a sense of concern and responsibility for the welfare of others.” Women’s engagement with friends, family, and acquaintances compels Putnam to claim that they are “more avid social capitalists than men.”

Of course, platforms like Facebook are ideal tools for practicing many of these expressions of sociability including communicating with friends, sending friendly greetings and personal notes, long distance communication, and expressions of intimacy and caring for others.

Sociologist Claude Fischer came to similar conclusions about men and women after analyzing American’s use of the telephone in the early twentieth century. Women, Fischer found, were much more likely than men to use the phone for casual communication and conversation. This particular use of the phone was actually discouraged by telephone industry executives. They thought it was silly, a waste of time, and an inefficient use of the technology. Needless to say, they were wrong! The use of the phone as a primarily social tool—think AT&T’s old ad campaign “reach out and touch someone”—is one of the most enduring features of the technology.

Though technological innovations are often accused of making us less social, less intimate, and less community-oriented they can have the opposite effect. Today’s social media platforms are being used to expand how we build and cultivate personal and professional connections as well as manage friendships that are close by and far away.

With all of this in mind I can only scratch my head when I see ads like the ones currently in rotation for the BlackBerry Storm 2 and Motorola’s Droid. Both spots overlook the fact that in an age where media use is increasingly social women are crucial in terms of both cultural and consumer trends. It is time to do away with ads and attitudes that assume that social and digital technologies are the primary domain of men. If anything, the data suggests that in terms of social use and innovation these technologies are increasingly the domain of women.