Digital Citizenship- Week 2

Before I begin, I'll reiterate my relative ignorance in terms of the nuances and norms of social media. With that said, the majority of my experiences are not through my own use of different platforms, but through my experiences with my students. As a person who is not a "digital native", fully comprehending the purposes of various social media norms, such as streaks or a plethora of selfies, was difficult to grasp, but Boyd's chapter on identity (2014) has shed some light on these and other practices that I often witness.

Although the chapter does explain some behaviours that I viewed as odd or pointless, it does caution both adults and teens. Firstly, if one's virtual friends are varied in terms of their ages and connections to the person posting, it is important to note that  "In speaking to an unknown or invisible audience, it is impossible and unproductive to account for the full range of plausible interpretations" (Boyd, 2014, p. 31-32). With that said, "Many teens post information on social media that they think is funny or intended to give a particular impression to a narrow audience without considering how this same content might be read out of context" (Boyd, 2014, p. 44). As such, this may explain why some people create different profiles, as they do not wish to have collapsing contexts.

If parents, for instance, were to check on their child's social media posts and view something alarming, they need to remember that their posts may have taken "place over a long period of time and [are being read] outside the social and temporal context in which they were produced" (Boyd, 2014, p. 33). I feel that this is a cautionary tale for parents and may serve to mitigate some of the concern that parents may experience.

In terms of my lack of comprehension of social media norms, the single most perplexing practice that I view are selfies posted on Snapchat. However, these are not typical selfies, but are often the top of one's head, or one's feet, etc. Boyd shed light on this practice when she states that "the norms of social media are shaped by network effects; peers influence one another about how to use a particular site and then help collectively to create the norms of that site" (2014, p. 40). With that said, teens are simply partaking in what has become a norm for Snapchat.

The chapter opened my eyes to some of the nuances and behaviors that I witness on social media by better explaining why students and others partake in them.



Boyd, Dana. (2014). It’s Complicated: the social lives of networked teens. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press