Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
such firmly set hierarchical structure. Adolescence is generally a period of engag-
ing and experimenting with complex social realities such as status, popularity, and
success, with social behaviors taking center stage. Moreover, sorting out changes in
the contemporary student-student relationship brought about by engagement with
NDM tools poses a unique challenge, as NDM use is so ubiquitous it has become a
standard point for social contact.
Most of the educators we spoke with insist that the basic desires of teens have
remained essentially unchanged: they make friends and enemies, flirt, engage in
romantic liaisons, and painful breakups. However, adolescents have less time to
devote to peer relationships and casual recreational activities. In the past, says a for-
eign language teacher, there was much more unstructured time available to students.
NDM appear to help bridge the gap by allowing teens to converse throughout the
school day despite prohibitions to the contrary.
Managing Offline Relationships
: Whether interacting with peers or teachers, stu-
dents use the same strategies of removal and elective distance. A student wearing
headphones or texting someone sends a signal to others that he is otherwise occu-
pied. An art teacher at an elite private school reports, “There used to be a boom box
in the print room. Now it's an individual environment. Most people listen to their
iPods, and there's less of a sense that 'we're all doing this together.'”
A few educators in our study note an increase in the number of students who
appear to have fewer or no discernible social connections with their classmates or
who shy away from face-to-face interactions with others altogether. While there
may be many reasons for this development, a significant change facilitated by NDM
is how a student can retreat to his room alone but continue to engage with peers
through online media. Given the nature of our study, however, we cannot determine
with what frequency this happens (cf. Ito et al., 2008).
Managing Online Relationships
: Educator participants note that their students
often use NDM as a way to manage social contact, as one educator puts it, their
“socialization is mediated by electronic devices.” Students in our study rely heavily
upon sites such as MySpace and Facebook to communicate with their friends and
to keep tabs on associates. In the past, there was no Facebook or MySpace, no
“online” space for adolescents to meet, no texting; given the relative newness of
the technology, it is stunning how fully integrated into teen life these tools have
become.
Online socializing may transpire in chatrooms, SNS sites, or (again primarily
relevant for young men) video games that are played together online. Online social
engagements are particularly popular for both youth residing in boarding schools
and commuter students living at home and likely at some distance from their class-
mates. Online socializing is also attractive to students who are less socially adept,
with the media inserting a measure of distance between the parties and lessening the
problematic intensity engendered by face-to-face social interactions.
A number of teachers mention that the typical student needs to be online con-
stantly, even during school hours, both to observe social interactions between other
people and to monitor one's own reputation from slanderous attacks. Cyberbullying,
in particular, is a widespread problem related specifically to the ease of posting
