All We Ever Wanted and Digital Natives

Dr. Dennen's recent blog post on her site prompted me to do some deeper reflection on a book I finished this week that deals with a dark side we see with social media and some digital natives. The book is "All We Ever Wanted" by Emily Giffin. This book follows the complex lives of two families who are brought together when a high school aged boy sends an inappropriate picture via Snapchat of a teenage girl (both are digital natives). The photo is then screenshotted and distributed widely via text message and smartphones to many other digital natives. This book caused me to think more deeply about digital natives relationship to social media in particular and how we consider ethics within Web 2.0.

Prensky (2001) refers to digital natives as the generation who are "native speakers" to the Internet and have spent their "entire lives surrounded by and using computers, video games, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age" (p. 1). He also writes briefly about ethics of content on social media. But what this book by Emily Giffin challenged me to think about more deeply is how parents, loved ones, and educators can educate youth on the ethics of social media. The teenage boy in this book sent the Snapchat to his friends individually but did not post it on his story so he did not see an issue with his actions. I have often heard students of mine share they send content on Snapchat because it "disappears" in 24 hours, but does it? We know content on the internet is not immune from immortality. In this case, this teenage boy did not think about how easy it was for his peers to screenshot the photo and share it widely, all with his name as the person committing the original unethical act. The wide distribution of this content by his peers is also highly unethical.

So this week I continue to think about ethics and digital natives. Many loved ones work very hard to make sure their children learn their native language and avoid curse ("bad") words. Well, if digital natives are "native speakers" of social media like Prensky states, shouldn't we all be working to teach them ethics within this new language and way of being?  As we have seen in the last few decades, our social media and Web 2.0 presence cannot be separated from our character. Think of Anthony Weiner sending inappropriate content on Twitter. Former Bachelorette, Hannah Brown, saying a racist word on Instagram Live. There are countless examples where content shared on social media and Web 2.0 platforms was directly correlated to the character of the person behind the screen. These Web 2.0/social media based scandal are very real and relevant today and often have immense, wide spread repercussions. Teaching digital natives about the ethics of social media and how Web 2.0 actually operates is imperative to teach them best practices. Just as we teach children not to use physical violence when they are angry, we must also teach them to not become a social media troll when their favorite celebrity upset them.

References:

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants part 1. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-6.