Category Archives: Teens

Raising Digital Natives on the News

Leave a reply

I got an interesting call the other day, asking for commentary on a brand new application that allows you to see tweets, instagram streams and any other geotagged, shared material. If you want to see what your neigbors are posting, or what people at your child’s school are posting, just sign up for Geofedia . You can also find some of this information through the apps themselves, but this makes it much easier. I’ve perused some middle and high schools and seen images like this…

parenting speaker

A momement of sharing from a suburban high schoolSo NBC news

So NBC News Chicago invited me to comment, and you can see the full newsclip with my comment here:

As well as a little more of the interview here:

If this creeps you out, don’t geo-tag your posts! I can only imagine that within weeks, this will mean that someone will walk up to you in a store to say: “I see you are tweeting about wanting a warmer coat. We have one on sale.” The journalistic potential is incredbible, but the marketing potential is what this app seems designed to capture.

Texting: How the Medium Shapes the Message

Leave a reply

Derek Baird posted an insightful article on his Barking Robot blog titled:

Nancy Lublin: Social Media That Saves Lives

In her TED talk, Nancy Lublin, CEO of Do Something describes in harrowing detail how kids responded to her advocacy texts with serious and heartbreaking calls for help.

“I think it [texting]might be a lifeline.”

Reminds me of McLuhan’s oft repeated “Medium is the Message” Something about the intimacy, the silence and the immediacy of this medium  makes it possible for kids to be  so open that they would send desperate texts in response to a social advocacy campaign. Lublin responded to their cries for help, describing cutting, incest and other serious problems, by creating a text crisis hotline, which collects data about teen experiences, as well as responding with resources to teens’ individual issues. Lublin compares this to a census or a crime map that tracks issues such as date rape, or self-injury.

You can see Lublin’s talk here.

Snapchat? Fun times…What’s it really for?

2 Replies


So Nick Bilton of the NYTimes (and others…) have identified the new app, snapchat as being tempting for sexting. The marketing does seem to favor temptingly topless young women…Any thoughts on other possible uses for snapchat? The idea of a photograph that only exists in the moment has a haunting and fascinating quality…Snapchat art anyone? I want to imagine kids using this for other cool stuff. I searched Twitter Streams to see what the buzz in on the new app, and found this droll tweet:

Funny/sad/sarcastic? Would have to know this young woman more in context to say. If one of my adult women friends said it, I’d think it was pretty funny.

Generation Z! Kids today,”digital hoarders” and into “Brand Me” according to research from The Intelligence Group

Leave a reply


Allison Arling gave an engaging talk at Sandbox Summit at MIT.

To summarize her talk: The Intelligence Group’s research makes some bold claims regarding Generation Z. These kids, born since 1995, are focused on  ”brand me.”
They are parent influencers, making decisions about purchases with parents. Their integration of the digital and physical world is totally fluid, and many of them prefer an online app to a physical toy. They are growing up in a racially diverse generation with an African American president. They are aware of recession and Arling described them as “digital hoarders.”

Play webkins with a Gen Z kid to see what she means!

One encouraging piece of data, at least for the environmentalists among us is that they are “less concerenced with owning phsycal possessions vs. having access when they need.” I can see I-Go cars and other forms of sharing really succeeding with this generation if this research is accurate.