What Kind of Decisions Would You Make if Your Future Didn’t Depend on it?

Posted on June 21, 2017 by marc meyer

Image result for kids in school

What if you had no filter? What if there were no repercussions for your actions both offline and online? What kind of world would that be? That would be 2017, where streaming your crimes, your transgressions or other people’s flaws, misdeeds, and imperfections on your phone seem to be the norm. Then you go to sleep and you go to work.

Check your phone. Check Facebook. Check Instagram, check Snapchat. Post some pics. Film some things. Say some things. Rinse. Repeat. Regress. Check your phone. Check your email. Sound familiar?

Where did things go so terribly off the rails? When did we become a society with zero filters, zero morals, and zero discretion?

Unfortunately, we’ve been heading down this road ever since the world wide web was open for business so to speak. The difference now is that that type of world, the one in which no one has an off switch much less a digital moral compass, currently exists for generations that extend from Boomers all the way down to Gen Z and everything in between. As each year passes, more and more digital natives become the face of our societies. Digital immigrants, not so much. I, in our breakneck quest to evolve, technologically speaking, we have regressed to a point in which we all have become numb to a society some of us don’t recognize.

As each year passes, more and more digital natives become the face of our societies. Digital immigrants, not so much. Ironically, in our breakneck quest to evolve, technologically speaking, we have regressed societally, to a point in which we all have become numb to actions, words, and images that would have offended most of us a decade ago.

Is this HBO’s Westworld? Where we’re not “really’ responsible for our actions?

Maybe we’re living in that kind of world now. The only difference is that in our world, things don’t reset. There are consequences. At least I would like to think there are. Other’s however, think nothing of posting, streaming and saying whatever they want. when they want and on their terms. No filter.

I would contend that we now live in a world where the shock value of what we see or do just doesn’t register with us or others the way it used to. Thus, either the bar has been raised or lowered, depending on your outlook; and thus seeing someone being murdered on Facebook will be alarming and disturbing for a lot of people, or it’s just another day in our always-on, digital, mobile and social world. A new low if you will, but one in which we are not surprised. Again, where did things get so sideways?

It’s because of these reasons that I have vowed to do something about it. Along with some others, we have created The Digital Futures Initiative. Our goal isn’t about blaming anyone or anything, it’s more about creating a baseline level of knowledge and understanding for parents, teachers, and children about the power and impact of digital, mobile and social. Similar to having a solid foundation of fundamentals if you were to play a sport, DFI wants to do the same for children. The simple goal? A fundamental understanding. Knowing what you have, what it can do and what to do with it.

Keep in mind that even if you were a digital native, that doesn’t mean that you automatically knew how to use the internet, your mobile device, your favorite app or Google search for that matter. It’s that understanding and realization that we want to bring to the schools. What do you think? Maybe the goal should be to just get the point across that there are repercussions for our online actions? It’s a start but we need to do so much more.

Social Media is the Back Channel for Teen Angst

Posted on October 6, 2014 by marc meyer

First I want to quote a paragraph from the abstract of a 2011 paper by danah boyd, a renowned expert on teen culture and social media at Microsoft Research. The paper is titled, The Drama! Teen Conflict, Gossip, and Bullying in Networked Publics. Here’s the quote:

“Drama is a gendered process that perpetrates conventional gender norms. It also reflects discourses of celebrity, particularly the mundane interpersonal conflict found on soap operas and reality television. For teens, sites like Facebook allow for similar performances in front of engaged audiences. Understanding how “drama” operates is necessary to recognize teens’ own defenses against the realities of aggression, gossip, and bullying in networked publics.”

Now for the back story. For some time now I have been reading the tweets and Instagram posts of my children and the kids I coach. Initially I thought it was amusing to see how middle school and high school students use Twitter and Instagram. Upon further reflection, it in no way really resembles the way I use it both platforms either personally and professionally. It’s different, to put it mildly. I could say it’s hopeful and idealistic on their part, but that’s not really revealing the whole story. It is, on the one hand, nakedly transparent and on the other, completely narcissistic.

Per danah’s paragraph above, and I’m paraphrasing, Twitter and Instagram for teens can be like the equivalent of passing notes in class, spreading gossip at the tables in the cafeteria at lunch and or stopping for a quick chat in the hallways between classes all rolled up into 140 characters or words and hashtags with pictures… Both platforms are now very public digital platforms for high school drama, love, hate, desire, trends, trouble, music, coolness, drug use, alcohol abuse, sex and above all, angst.

How do you react to what you read? How should you process it?

After reviewing thousands of tweets, I can easily say that for a lot of teens, they say things, they would never say IRL (In Real Life) and they do things and post things that are just not thought out too well. Not much different than what adults and companies do, but what one has to question though, is the impact. The ripple effect.

For girls in particular danah nails it:

“Drama is the language that teens—most notably girls—use to describe a host of activities and practices ranging from gossip, flirting, arguing, and joking to more serious issues of jealousy, ostracization, and name-calling.”

My concerns with the wild west mentality of middle school and high school social media usage are fivefold.

The impact that comments and tweets have on those involved or affected; as well as those that are indirectly involved, is more precarious than first thought. What happens in school is now being played out on Twitter and a myriad of other social sites. Picture concentric rings of influence like a dart board and you get the idea of impact and influence. It resonates. Social media extends the drama for students involved.
There are conversations we don’t see that sit behind social chat apps like Kik, WhatsApp and WeChat and Ask.fm that are 10 times worse than the conversations that we see or hear about.
The lack of parental guidance and or knowledge as well as sub-par levels of teacher engagement and intervention might be more pervasive than first realized.
The perpetuating or perpetuation of a lifestyle that is neither real nor realistic or is in fact very real.
A fealessness of posting anything coupled with a complete disregard consequences.

Transparency is Opaque

Concerns aside for a minute. I think what’s interesting is that the levels of attack and angst ebb and flow fairly regularly amongst teens. To the degree that most are descentized to the point that they either don’t care that their tweets/posts are being read, or are just not aware that the public can read them. Though they do erase from time to time, most don’t care.

Either way, the view into their social digital lives reveals a dystopian society where:

It’s cool to post that you do lots of cool things, even if it’s not true.
Your last “selfie”, Instagram or Vine is all that really matters.
The more inspirational yet vaguely aspirational your tweet or pic is, the better.
Their devices are always on and always with them.
They are always one step ahead of what’s hot in digital and social apps and platforms, which is in direct contradiction to what they’re parents know and school administrators think they know.
Everyone and everything is fair game to be digitally documented.

So what do we do about this? Do we do anything?

In my profession as a digital and social strategist,the first things we tell large organizations is that if you are not listening and monitoring the conversations, you will never know what is being said about you and your org. The same holds true here as well. Am I qualified to say that? Absolutely. With over 13 years in the digital space and nearly 7 of those spent in social media, I can without hesitation say that the more you listen, the more you learn.

Taking the first steps

The bottom line for parents is, if you’re not listening, then you’ll never know. Some parents either prefer not to know what their children are doing on their devices or don’t know what they don’t know. Either way, that’s unacceptable. I get that sometimes parents may feel like asking too many questions about just what it is their children are doing on their devices is prying, but remember who bought the device and who pays the bill. That might be trivializing a more appropriate response, but at the end of the day, that might be what resonates.

The days of being informed via other parents, teachers, administrators, students and traditional news outlets on what is happening at school and with your children, their friends and their circle of friends might have worked before the age of digital, but it doesn’t and can’t fly in 2015.

By the time you find out, it’s old news. How do I know? I’m a digital native and I am still surprised daily by what I read, what I hear, and what I observe. Truly, the digital dynamic has changed peer and parental relationships forever. At its core, it has created a whole new layer of responsibility and outcomes for better or worse. Expectations in this new digital realm need to be level-set.

Maybe then the question for parents isn’t so much how do you stop it, as much it might be how can you learn how to listen to the conversation?

Protecting Children from Social Media

Posted on April 19, 2010 by marc meyer

How can you protect your children from social media?

One might say, “Do we really need to”? and another would say “We have to”.. and still another will say, “We’re all overreacting”.. and you know what? All three opinions are in a certain way, correct.

Do some of the following questions and comments sound familiar?

“I’m on top of it, I know what this social networking thing is all about”, “My child doesn’t really use it”, “Does it really matter? It hasn’t been a problem yet”, “My kids are good, they’re responsible and know what they are doing, nothing has happened, nothing ever will”. “Facebook seems harmless”, and besides, all they do is text”.

Your children, and for the sake of this post I will keep it to those children that are under 18, are exposed to so many different forms of media and channels of communication, that one has to wonder…

How do you shield them from the dark side and at the same time allow them to explore, absorb and learn without acting or being perceived as the enemy?

Right?

Before we dig into the what to do, let’s review something real quick that may help you to understand the landscape a little bit.

Though the above graphic refers to adults, children are not too far off from this model. This graphic by Forrester Research, refers to the types of people that hang out in communities and what they do in those communities. Your children hang out in communities, both online and offline, and all of those communities have their own sets of things to do, their own sub cultures and their own cliques; and within those groups there is as well, unwritten rules and what not.

But more importantly, aside from the breakdown of percentages in that graphic above-look at the number of ways that people can consume and create content. It’s just the tip of the iceberg in ways that a child can communicate with their peers and others. We are, and they are, consumers of media and creators of it. We are, and even more importantly they are, in the digital age.

They can:

Text with their phone
Online Chat via AIM
Create video on YouTube
Comment on YouTube
Create a blog on WordPress
Comment on any blog anywhere
Create a song
Create a network via Ning
Upload music and comment on the music
Upload an audio podcast
Tweet on Twitter
Create hundreds of profiles on hundreds on networks
Update their status on Facebook
Share images on Flickr
Share music
Share audio
Share content
They can use a desktop computer
They can use a laptop, ipad or itouch
They can use a smartphone
They can use a mobile device
They can use someone Else’s device or phone
They can use someone Else’s account
They can rate someone
They can vote for someone
They can create a poll or survey
They can use a Webcam
They can build a website from scratch

All of these forms of communication are just that, forms of communicating-with context and without. And… the majority of these activities have incredible SEO ( search engine optimization) ramifications. Simply put, when this content is created and uploaded or shared, if it was not done in the ever dissolving walled in garden of Facebook- then it is essentially waiting to be found by someone. Good context and bad.

I repeat, Good context and bad. Simply put, If I create or write something about Thomas Jones being a jerk-There is a high likelihood that it will be found in search. The problem? Thomas Jones might be a great guy, but you don’t know that. You just read that TJ is a jerk and so you decide to tell someone else…and so it begins. It goes viral in a social network and people get hurt.

Your digital footprint has never been more impactful than it is now, here in 2010.

So how, as a parent, do we deal with the firehose that is electronic communication, that is social media? How can we at least protect, shield and monitor our children from this new media evolution but still allow them to enjoy all that is has to offer in a positive way?

The first determination is the degree of involvement if any. If there is none, and they say there is none, don’t assume that. If it’s not happening in your house, don’t assume that it is not occurring next door, or in the school library or on the playground.

Assuming participation in social networks is going to happen and or is happening, then you need to take an active vital role in education, in creating policies, and creating ground rules for participation.

Believe it or not, even at the small business level as well as the corporate level, two things that we implore companies and businesses to do from the outset is to: 1) Start listening and monitoring to what is being said about you, your company and your industry and 2) set up and create policies, rules and guidelines for participation in social media. If they didn’t do #1, they won’t know what is going on and, #2, just like children, adults will take advantage of the zero social media policy and the situation and zero work would get done. So the same applies to children.

So I mentioned education. Do you know who needs the most education? You the parent. That’s right. You need to educate yourself on what the social networking landscape looks like and the texting landscape looks like.

u ned 2 kno what asl is as much as idk, wtf and omg…

The more you know, the more you will be able to understand. What do you know and how much do you know will be critical; but more importantly, how much of what you think you know and is it accurate, might be crucial.

Once you have a firm footing it’s time to create policies, rules and guidelines for usage. It starts simply with no computers in the bedrooms. Having the computer in a medium traffic area can be a game changer. Next as part of your rules, policies and guidelines, you will want to know, have or have done the following:

20 point checklist for letting your child engage in social networking

Know all social sites that your child is a part of it
Have access to all content pages that your child has created
Know all user names, passwords and profiles that your child has created
Know all email accounts with user names and passwords that your child has created
Create rules of engagement on social sites that are built on being “accountable” to you for their actions-A 3 strikes rule is not a bad idea.
Create your own accounts in these networks
Explain that though you will have all this information, you will only access it, should there be a need to.
Establish Trust.
Understand that that trust may be breached
Review the privacy settings in your child’s social networks and map it to their profiles and then review their profiles
See who is following of “friending” your child and vice-versa
No adult, unless it’s a family member should be in any network that your child is part of.
Explain the dark side of social networks to your child, there’s nothing wrong with being scared straight.
Periodically evaluate the content they are sharing and consuming.
Know what they are searching for
Don’t forget or ignore texting and email. Establish usage guidelines for those as well. Never assume they are harmless or easy to manage.
If you feel the need to establish time constraints for computer and phone usage, do it.
You’re not trying to be a friend here- we’re trying to be parents.
If you have to shut it down-don’t feel guilty. Do it without remorse.
The computer is not a babysitter. Talk to them.

In closing here are some things that you need to know that I told a group last week and it’s something that I have seen first hand. For the most part young children could take or leave using social networks and in my honest opinion-the usage of them, from a learning and sharing and creating standpoint in high school can have great value. But the usage of social networks for those below the age of high school freshman and possibly sophomores, I see no need.

For parents, knowing what your child is doing on a day to day basis is normal, but adding the dynamic of social media and social networks to the mix is definitely a challenge. especially without a road map.

Understanding social media, becoming educated about it and learning how to use it and monitor it are things that companies of all sizes are currently wrestling with. Take heart parents, you’re not alone. It does get better though once we all are on the same page. Just remember that you need to be controlling the technology, not the other way around and certainly not by your children; and though we call it a fire-hose, that fire-hose can be turned off.