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Social media literacy 101 (for adults)

June 14, 2015 By Anne 1 Comment

“I can’t even” possibly know what I’m seeing in teens’ tweets, texts and posts. Not until I ask them. The very fact that I continued that sentence past the close quote demonstrates that. What do I mean? They hide meaning in plain site. Have you heard researcher danah boyd’s term “social steganography”? It means hiding in plain view in social media. She wrote about that way back in 2010, and it’s no less a reality here in 2015.

We adults need context. Witness the “I can’t even” phenomenon. Which, by virtue of the fact that it was covered in the New York Times this past week, probably means it’s no longer a phenomenon. “I can’t even” can be an entire comment on things – whether tunes, posts, pics, people or anything. It’s words for speechlessness – expressing yearning or some other positive high emotion or just high sarcasm. It’s definitely a “you had to be there” kind of thing.

No time for snap judgment

“Teenagers may not be able to drive or vote or stay out past curfew or use the bathroom during school hours without permission, but they can talk. Their speech is the site of rebellion, and their slang provides shelter from adult scrutiny,” Times commentator Amanda Hess writes. And they (like all of us) deserve shelter from snap judgment, right?

Hess gives other inscrutable examples that are current till maybe later this week: “the keysmash” (too excited to type, so “&^%$*@#”) and “your fave could never” (sorta “my favorite celebrity’s better than your favorite celebrity,” but how clunky is that?!).

Don’t even go there

What’s important for adults to remember is that, as Hess writes, “teenage slang curdles from ingenious to embarrassing in record time” and “‘I can’t even’ has already embarked on its promotional tour,” which means that marketers are capitalizing on it in social media, having hired recent college graduates (who will too soon be too out of context).

So there’s the bottom line, parents and educators: Get some context if you want to respond intelligently, and it’s probably best not to go there (in terms of using the terms) because, if you do, you’ll probably be too late to do so without embarrassing yourself. Which significantly reduces one’s credibility. It’s hard enough for marketers to “go there” while employing young adults. Oh, and don’t use trending hashtags if you don’t know what they mean. The other bottom line for when you want to find out what you’re seeing a teenage peer group doing in social media: use plain English (or whatever your spoken language is), kindness, genuine curiosity or interest, and respect. This is called social literacy, and it will retain its appeal way past next week.

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Filed Under: adolescent development, Literacy & Citizenship, Parenting, Social Media, teens, Youth Tagged With: danah boyd, I can't even, media literacy, Parenting, social literacy, social steganography, teens

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Comments

  1. Marti Weston says

    June 14, 2015 at 2:32 pm

    Great post, Anne! I just gave a speech on this topic at the National Women’s Democratic Club luncheon last Thursday!

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Our (DIGITAL) PARENTING BASICS: Safety + Social
NAMLE, the National Association for Media Literacy Education
CASEL.org & the 5 core social-emotional competencies of SEL
Center for Democracy & Technology
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Childnet International
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ConnectSafely.org
Control Shift: a pivotal book for Internet safety
Crimes Against Children Research Center
Crisis Textline
Cyber Civil Rights Initiative's Revenge Porn Crisis Line
Cyberwise.org
danah boyd's blog and book about networked youth
Disconnected, Carrie James's book on digital ethics
FOSI.org's Good Digital Parenting
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The Good Project at Harvard's School of Education
If you watch nothing else: "Parenting in a Digital Age" TED Talk by Prof. Sonia Livingstone
The International Bullying Prevention Association
Let Grow Foundation
Making Caring Common
Raising Digital Natives, author Devorah Heitner's site
Renee Hobbs at the Media Education Lab
MediaSmarts.ca
The New Media Literacies
Report of the Aspen Task Force on Learning & the Internet and our guide to Creating Trusted Learning Environments
The Ruler Approach to social-emotional learning (Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence)
Sources of Strength
"Young & Online: Perspectives on life in a digital age" from young people in 26 countries (via UNICEF)
"Youth Safety on a Living Internet": 2010 report of the Online Safety & Technology Working Group (and my post about it)

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