I was reading this article about Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What? by Danah Boyd. - Danah Boyd is a PhD candidate in the School of Information at University of California, Berkeley and a fellow at the University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg Center for Communications
It really struck a chord with me considering all the moral panic over spaces like 'myspace' and the fact that many of our organisations are blocking these sites from our workplace as if that will stop the 'dangers' that are perceived as being there.
Here is a comment from the article that I really liked:
"When a teen is engaged in risky behaviour online, that is typically a sign that they’re engaged in risky behaviour offline. Troubled teens reveal their troubles online both explicitly and implicitly. It is not the online world that is making them troubled, but it is a fantastic opportunity for intervention. What would it mean to have digital street outreach where people started reaching out to troubled teens, not to punish them, but to help them? We already do street outreach in cities - why not treat the networked world as one large city? Imagine having college students troll the profiles of teens in their area in order to help troubled kids, just as they wander the physical streets. Too often we blame technology for what it reveals, but destroying or regulating the technology will not solve the underlying problems that are made visible through mediated publics like social network sites."
What do you think about this? Are we using the spaces in a way that will help our young people? Are we using the spaces at all?
It really struck a chord with me considering all the moral panic over spaces like 'myspace' and the fact that many of our organisations are blocking these sites from our workplace as if that will stop the 'dangers' that are perceived as being there.
Here is a comment from the article that I really liked:
"When a teen is engaged in risky behaviour online, that is typically a sign that they’re engaged in risky behaviour offline. Troubled teens reveal their troubles online both explicitly and implicitly. It is not the online world that is making them troubled, but it is a fantastic opportunity for intervention. What would it mean to have digital street outreach where people started reaching out to troubled teens, not to punish them, but to help them? We already do street outreach in cities - why not treat the networked world as one large city? Imagine having college students troll the profiles of teens in their area in order to help troubled kids, just as they wander the physical streets. Too often we blame technology for what it reveals, but destroying or regulating the technology will not solve the underlying problems that are made visible through mediated publics like social network sites."
What do you think about this? Are we using the spaces in a way that will help our young people? Are we using the spaces at all?
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