comScore: Teens flocking to Twitter now

"As the Twitter audience has mushroomed in recent months – to 21 million US visitors in July 2009 – the younger age groups are the ones flooding in the fastest," the comScore blog says about the micro-blogging service. In fact, people under 35 are "fueling Twitter's continued growth," with July usage spread evenly among the 12-17, 18-24, and 25-34 age categories, blogger Andrew Lipsman shows very visually with his growth charts.

A summit for saving lives

I learned so much last week at a two-day gathering in Washington called a "Summit to Save Lives." SAMHSA, the US government's Substance Abuse & Mental Health Administration, brought together activists in the areas of suicide prevention, healthcare, social media, online safety, and government to develop strategies for growing the presence in all social media of information and help for anyone thinking about or affected by suicide. And this was not just about prevention, but online intervention and postvention (e.g., help for survivors) as well. [Please see the links list below for a sampler of the amazing people and organizations present.]

Here is just a partial list of info and insights:

The need: Some 33,000 people in the US took their own lives in 2006 (the latest figure available) - 91 people a day. And last year there was a 436% increase in the number of online suicide crises (people in suicidal crisis reaching out online), the reason for great interest at SAMHSA in social media. The normal range of dark thoughts in human beings is deeper and wider than most people know, I learned, and people need to be reassured of that - in many cases they don't have to believe they're in crisis and act that out.

Help on the social Web: The SAMHSA-funded National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (800.273.TALK) has 2,000 friends in MySpace, 1,100 fans in Facebook, and has had 16,000+ views through the YouTube Abuse and Safety Center, but that and other projects aren't enough....

More help coming: SAMHSA and others in the fields of mental health and suicide prevention want to be everywhere - all online spaces - where there are people even thinking about suicide as well as friends who can help them. Because of social media, the range and number of helpers are growing. And even though the very social-network sites where they want to reach out are blocked at SAMHSA and other government agencies, the summit showed their determination to get past bureaucratic resistance. [Fortunately, they can use their cellphones at work - they recognize text-messaging as an important channel too.]

Users make the difference, Chris Le, CEO of Emotion Technology in Austin, told us. And Gallup, which has been doing research for SAMHSA, told us that "thousands of social-network-site users are active in educating and supporting fellow users to prevent suicide."

Other key risk prevention: I learned that RAINN (Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network), the US's largest anti-sexual assault organization, now has a national sexual-assault online hotline that goes to great measures to protect callers' anonymity and privacy. Why online? Because teens and 20-somethings are online, and 80% of all rape victims are under age 30. Why anonymity? Because the vast majority of sexual exploitation involves people the victims know, and it's vital that abusers don't know when victims are calling for help. Also: "More teens use the Web to find health information than to download music (75% vs. 72%)," RAINN told us. Other risk-prevention communities: Summit participants represented work with soldiers and veterans, youth, gay and lesbian youth, and native Americans and other ethnic communities.

To Write Love On Her Arms: You have to read this organization's story, really, to understand what it's about, because it's based on the story of a young woman in crisis, as written by someone who helped her - and who founded this organically growing organization on that story of hope. I saw heads around the room nodding as founder Jamie Tworkowski illustrated how people respond to honest messages of hope and inspiration (see NBC News).

Non-conventional media: I have been involved with social media for so long that I forget how revolutionary new media like social networking, tweeting, and texting are and how mysterious they can seem to those who, like me, didn't grow up even with email. I realized many people think...

1) social media are complex, sort of interactive conventional mass media in which people "get the message [or education] out" rather than the more appropriate approach: create a space and be an unintrusive, caring, credible, presence that people find, "friend" or "follow" and send friends to if or when needs arise
2) online community is somehow something in addition to and separate from people's offline social groups, instead of a visual representation of people's offline social networks
3) messaging has to be perfect before it's published, rather than - in the more spontaneous and social nature of new media - put out there as a kernal developed in collaboration with users. Social media is about creative networking and social producing, not the we're-the-experts, unidirectional style of mass media.

Next steps: As I listened, immersed for two days in a culture and language new to me, it occurred that these organizations had already taken the biggest next step. They were right then engaged in social-media development. As they spoke and acknowledged each other's work, they were networking as individuals, organizations, and interest areas. And just as "social networkers" do on the Web, it's just a matter of giving digital representation to the networks that are already in place. The Lifeline's pages in MySpace and Facebook are perfect examples. Now they can include links to, e.g., RAINN, The Trevor Project, the Hispanic Communications Network, Indian Health Service, Active Minds, the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and other sources of help. In social media, ideas and work grow organically - we learn as we go as individuals and organizations. There's something unnatural about ideas being preplanned and presented perfectly right out of the gate, as in old mass media. And there's safety and help in approaching both the medium and each other in this humble, open, authentic way - one that's based on and represents the respect and trust already in place in the "real world" network. Thank you, SAMHSA!

Related links

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline - 1.800.273.TALK

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

RAINN (mentioned above)

SAVE.org (Suicide Awareness Voices of Education)

JeffreyJohnston.org (honoring a boy who committed suicide by raising awareness)

TheTrevorProject.org, which operates "the only nationwide, around-the-clock crisis and suicide prevention helpline for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth"

JedFoundation.org, "preventing suicide and emotional distress" among college and university students

To Write Love on Her Arms (mentioned above) - first online presence was on MySpace here

CopeCareDeal.org - "a mental health site for teens" from the Annenberg Foundation

ActiveMinds.org - "changing the conversation about mental health," with chapters on more than 200 college and university campuses

SPANUSA.org (for "Suicide Prevention Action Network")

The Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention and Treatment

Inspire, which started 10 years ago in Australia, is now "creating opportunities for young people to change their world" in the US

In the federal government: Veterans Affairs, Indian Health Service, and SAMHSA

Felony charges for teen nude-photo sharer

A 15-year-old girl in Ohio has been arrested and charged for "taking nude cell phone photos of herself and sending them to high school classmates," Foxnews.com reports. "On Monday, she entered denials to juvenile charges of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material and possession of criminal tools. A spokeswoman for the Ohio attorney general's office says an adult convicted of the child pornography charge would have to register as a sexual offender, but a judge would have flexibility on the matter with a convicted juvenile." A prosecutor told Fox News that authorities are also considering charging students who received the photos. The girl spent the weekend in jail, the Arizona Republic reports. [Thanks to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children for pointing out this story.]

Online video of teen's beating in FL

A terrible video of six teenaged girls beating a peer has sparked nationwide discussion on where blame should be placed for the behavior and the video, which police said they put on the Web. According to a local paper, The Ledger, the beating was vicious and remorseless and the situation complicated, involving a group of cheerleaders, one of whom (the victim) - reportedly a troubled teen and honor student, who was not living at home and on probation at the time of the incident - allegedly had been trash-talking the other girls in phone text messages and on MySpace. The six other girls retaliated by setting up the 35-minute beating for videotaping with a couple of boys serving as lookouts outside the house where it occurred. They then reportedly either uploaded or linked to the video from profiles in MySpace and YouTube (MySpace and YouTube both told InformationWeek that the footage had not been uploaded to their sites, which could mean it was linked to from elsewhere on the Web). "The girls ... ranged in age from 14 to 17. All have been arrested and charged with felony battery and false imprisonment," according to The Ledger, and doctors are hoping the victim, who was still recovering from a concussion a week after the beating, would fully regain hearing and vision on her left side. MySpace and YouTube are reportedly working with law enforcement on investigations. The local sheriff told The Ledger that "investigators suspect there were as many five video clips of the incident taken by more than one camera," and they'd so far only been able to track down one of them. Here's a discussion NPR aired with bullying expert Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabes.

Gangs on the social Web

Teen gang members use social-networking sites as much as other teenagers. What social networkers and their parents might want to be aware of is how gangs recruit new members online and off. Johnny Vance, a probation officer in Ohio, told the Dayton Daily News the "5 Hs" that tend to make kids most vulnerable to gang overtures: when they're "helpless," "hopeless," "hungry," "homeless," and "hugless." Just like youth who are at high risk for sexual exploitation, "it's a breakdown in communication within the family that leads to youngsters getting into the gang life," according to the Daily News (see also "Profile of a teen online victim"). Check out the article for what's being done to protect vulnerable youth in the Dayton area. [Thanks to Nancy Willard at the Center for Safe & Responsible Internet Use for pointing this piece out.]

'Predator' myths exposed: Study

Despite all that parents hear, "sites such as MySpace and Facebook do not appear to increase [children's] risk of being victimized by online predators," according to a new analysis by the Crimes Against Children Research Center. US society has been overreacting, the CACRC's article in American Psychologist, "Online 'Predators' and Their Victims," indicates. Another myth, the Seattle Times reports, is that "Internet predators are driving up child sex crime rates," when in fact sexual assaults against teens "fell 52% from 1993 to 2005" (US Justice Dept. figures). A third myth is that online predators "represent a new dimension of child sexual abuse," when in fact most Net-related crimes against minors "are essentially statutory rape: nonforcible sex crimes against minors too young to consent to sexual relationships with adults." Another finding by the Center at the University of New Hampshire was that "most [teen] victims meet online offenders face to face and go to those meetings expecting to engage in sex" - they were generally not deceived by the offenders about the offenders' age or intentions (only 5% of offenders posed as other teens). One more myth: that online predators "go after any child." In fact the young people at greatest risk are "adolescent girls or adolescent boys of uncertain sexual orientation.... Youths with histories of sexual abuse, sexual-orientation concerns and patterns of off- and online risk-taking are especially at risk." See also "Profile of a teen online victim," "Online victimization: Facts emerging," and Reuters's coverage of this study. Here's the article in the February-March 2008 issue of American Psychologist, the journal of the American Psychological Association.

'Growing Up Online': Discussion needed!

It's the best piece of journalism I've seen about the online experiences of youth in 10 years of following this subject. It's actually representative of teens' use of the Net and the research we now have on it. If you haven't seen it, consider watching PBS Frontline's one-hour documentary "Growing Up Online" (it can be viewed online at your convenience here). I have a few soundbytes in it, but I'm recommending it not for self-promotion (when I did the interview with Frontline last July, I had no idea how it would be used for a program to air six months later), but because it advances a vital discussion in American society - how teens can use the social Web to their benefit, not their harm. Parents can't really help them with that until we begin to understand how they're using this technology, and Frontline's treatment actually helps.

Some of the experiences the documentary portrays are extreme - particularly Ryan Halligan's suicide and his father's moving account of piecing together how it happened - and others are just challenging, but they challenge the public in an intelligent way. The stories also illustrate a lot that is normal about adolescence, online and off, and what kids' online lives reveal, certainly more publicly than ever, about adolescence as it always has been (maybe we need to ask ourselves what part of what we're seeing in social sites is new).

All the stories have something to teach us. The story of Jessica/"Autumn Edows" has a great deal to say about adolescents' exploration of identity online and how it affects their development to good or bad effect. I would love to ask a psychologist about Jessica's exploration of an entirely different kind of life by having an online persona completely different from her "real world" one. Certainly many adults would find Autumn's photos shocking for a 14-year-old girl, but if they thoughtfully compared hers to the equally risqué snapshots of her peers all over the social Web, they'd see something quite different going on - but distinctions can be made only thoughtfully, once we get past the shock of seeing teenage life more exposed to the public, including to us parents, than it has ever been. As hard as it was for Jessica and her parents, it could be argued that her experience was healthy, maybe necessary for her, although - if this were a different, more reckless or self-destructive child and because her experiment was so public - her experience could've been dangerous.

Jessica's story, thankfully, had a positive ending. So did that of Sara, who told her parents about her secret anorexia and got help after her interview with Frontline. The "ending" of the story of Evan Skinner and her four teenage children in small-town Chatham, N.J., was mixed. We meet a loving, well-informed mother who maybe overreacted a little to scary news-media hype about social networking and, out of a sense of duty to her community, put her son in a very difficult position at school, which temporarily hurt their relationship. We don't know how they're working it out - thank goodness for them we don't - but we are fortunate to be exposed to the questions both generations in that story raise: What are a teenage child's privacy rights and needs (online and off)? How "in their face" should parents get in order to protect their kids, and how risky is their Internet experience anyway? How can a parent tell how risky it is? How activist in a child's school community should a parent be about student online activities in which her child is involved - how does it affect the child? At one point Evan, the mother, tells Frontline that when her son is social networking he's "edgy." She seems to view social networking as causative, when she might consider that it's the socializing, not the framework for it, that causes the edginess. Or maybe having Mom constantly breaking in on his online conversations - in the kitchen, where she requires him to be when he's online - is what makes him edgy. Small questions to us, maybe, but not so small to teens.

No clear answer to any of these questions is put forth in this documentary. There isn't one. A single solution - a sort of "pill" for teens' online safety - would be like a pill for risk-free adolescence. The answers and solutions change with each child and family and change as each child matures. And pediatricians tell us we can't and shouldn't try to remove all risk from their lives, since the risk assessment is how they develop their prefrontal cortexes, the impulse-control, "executive" part of their brains that isn't fully developed until their early 20s.

The program has a few gratuitous dramatic elements - the music, the almost cliche sonorous narrator's voice. But the stories it tells are representative of the complex challenge, and the questions it raises are essential to a progressive public discussion that moves from fear to rational thought and folds in all the forms of expertise we've always called upon for healthy adolescent development - not just that of law enforcement, the Internet industry, and online-safety advocacy, but also the expertise of parents, educators, child psychologists, researchers, social workers, and teens themselves.

Come to our online forum at ConnectSafely.org to talk about these issues and tell your friends, your kids, and their friends to come too. Let's keep the discussion going!

Related links

Of the show, Totally Wired author Anastasia Goodstein writes, "What I felt was missing from the documentary were the teens who are close to their parents and share pieces of their online lives with them, whether it’s what they write on their blog or even playing a video game together.... I also wanted to see some positive examples of how teens are using the internet to create social change, show off their creativity or launch their own businesses...." I agree. Frontline should turn this into a series!

In the show, there's also the thought-provoking part of the chapter about how teens' technology and online lives spill over into school. Tech educator Doug Johnson in Minnesota has a thoughtful post about this in his blog: "Engage or entertain?"

Columnist Joanne Weintraub's review of the program in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"'Growing Up Online' and still bored" at Mother Jones.

Extreme cyberbullying: US case comes to light

Unlike other extreme cyberbullying cases I've written about, this one occurred in the US and ended in a teenager's suicide. In this case, covered this week in a suburban newspaper in the St. Louis area, Megan Meier, 13, committed suicide allegedly because a 16-year-old boy had changed his mind and no longer wanted to be her friend. It was a cyberbullying case because the "relationship," from beginning to end, was conducted entirely online. Adding to the tragedy, the "boy" never existed. As in the New Zealand cases, the "owner" of the social-networking profile around which the "relationship" developed was a fictional character.

What's different about this case - and what makes it even more perplexing - is that the cyberbully, the creator of the fictional profile and relationship, was an adult. The mother of a teenage girl who had parted ways with Megan allegedly created a MySpace profile for "Josh." The story she made up - because, she told the paper, she wanted to see what Megan would say about her daughter online - was that "Josh" was new in town, being home-schooled, came from a "broken home," and had no phone number. Helped by her daughter and another teenage girl, the mother reportedly had this fictitious boy contact Megan through her MySpace profile and ask her to "friend" him. The girl, who had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and struggled with being overweight, reportedly was thrilled - for the six weeks last fall that the Josh profile's creators led her on. She committed suicide on Oct. 16, 2006.

No criminal charges have been filed, the Suburban Journals reports, and the parents "do not plan to file a civil lawsuit." A police report has been filed, but local law enforcement told the paper there was no charge that fit the case. There was a brief FBI investigation, the Journals reports. It spoke of problems the FBI had accessing content on the family's hard drive, but it didn't mention whether the FBI contacted MySpace with a subpoena for evidence on its servers. The town's working on making online harassment a crime, a "Class B misdemeanor," the Journals reported separately, "punishable by 90 days in jail and/or a $500 fine." At the state level, that would be a Class A misdemeanor, possibly leading to a year's imprisonment and/or a $1,000 fine, the Journals added. Missouri State Rep. Cynthia Davis, R-19th District, of O'Fallon (Mo.) said she would explore proposing state legislation but acknowledged that cyberbullying is a problem that goes well beyond town, state, and even national jurisdictions.

The case could eventually have national implications, starting at least with raising public awareness. The hundreds of individual responses posted below the article fill about 90% of the Web page, and the story apparently has caught national media attention - CNN was to interview Megan's parents this week, the Journals said. SuburbanJournals.com added that local officials said they would call on the federal government to address cyberbullying.

Related links

On the latest US cyberbullying research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project

"Cyberethics training needed"

Various aspects of the cyberbullying problem

"'eBullies': Coping with cyberbullying"

"Predators vs. cyberbullies: Reality check"

"Extreme cyberbullying: 2 cases"

Cyberbullying & Cyberthreats: Responding to the Challenge of Online Social Aggression, Threats, and Distress, by Nancy E. Willard of the Center for Safe & Responsible Internet Use

Cyberbullying.ca - a help site by award-winning Canadian educator Bill Belsey

Cyberbullying.us - a research site by Profs. Sameer Hinduja Florida Atlantic University and Justin Patchin at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

Teens in Net prostitution ads

Two high school students and a 19-year-old "ringleader" advertised themselves as "party girls" available as a threesome in an online classifieds sites, the Pioneer Press reports , citing an FBI investigation. The 19-year-old "was arrested by the FBI last month and charged in US District Court with sex trafficking of minors, a federal offense." The Pioneer Press adds that the case is just the "latest in the Twin Cities involving sex rings" using free online classifieds to advertise; "but this time, the participants are minors." These teens fit the profile of online teens most at risk for sexual exploitation (see the profile). The Press adds that investigators are debating whether teen prostitution is on the rise because the Internet, but "the majority of juvenile prostitutes is still thought to be runaways, illegal immigrants and children from poor urban areas. But an August 2003 Newsweek exposé examined the increase of juvenile sex workers in suburbs. The story focused on a Twin Cities girl from an affluent home who relished the fast cash and picked up men at the Mall of America."

Prevention on the social Web

A tragic teen double-suicide case in Australia underscores the importance of loved ones and caregivers monitoring what at-risk youth say in their online profiles and blogs. Two 16-year-old girls in the Melbourne area apparently killed themselves in a suicide pact, posting "their own death notice – a farewell message to their online friends" in MySpace, The Star in Malaysia reports. The Star reporter seems to be making the assumption that "the idea of suicide emerged from the Internet," but I don't think the posting of a farewell message in a social site profile necessarily indicates this was where the girls' suicidal tendencies got started. Profiles and blogs are, however, the first places parents should check for what kids are really thinking if the latter are acting strangely at home. "The likelihood of a 'depressed, disaffected and disaffiliated' young person communicating with a soulmate online is a sure thing," The Star cites an Australian professor as saying. And there is certainly the possibility that at-risk people are getting the wrong kind of reinforcement online, such as sympathy or even promotion of destructive behavior from other people with mental health issues.