Technology Affecting Teens
According to Boyd, the society has created an inaccurate perception that the teens digital literacy than the adults. She argues that since teens are born to the age of technology invention, most people have promoted the idea that the young generation is highly equitable with technology knowledge. The society has created a generational divide between the youth and the adults. The teenagers are perceived to be digital natives and the adults seen as digital immigrants. However, Boyd puts up the disagreement that teens only have technological knowledge but lack the essential critical skills and experience they need to poses. Her view is that the generation gap can not determine critical skills and experience.
Teen’s technological skills have been facilitated by quick access to internet information. Boyd agrees that a large population of youth have access to technological resources through school and other public facilities. Although young people have extensive access to online information, their knowledge is limited to the quality of access (Khurshid & Ahsan 2015). The quality of access depends on economic status, which determines how deep a teen can explore the internet. Hence, Boyd argues that some teen’s digital literacy only goes as far as social medial experimentation and curiosity exploration. Young people who own computers and other technological resources tend to have better skills than those who only access digital facilities in schools or in a limited way. In her general way, youths have the advantage of gaining exposure to the technology world and getting familiar with it but lack the extensive commitment needed by one to acquire digital literacy fully. The media advocates politicize digital literacy among youths based on highly hypothesized assumptions.
The politicizing of native digital ideas has led to adults and other digital literate people to avoid the responsibility for assisting the youth to use a networked society. The framework of youth being digital natives has undermined efforts to critically investigate how teens engage with what they see and interact with social media. Boyd says that the assumption that the society has spread the idea that teens have more knowledge about the technology, parents and other responsible people see it as irrelevant to examine the content their young engage in the media. Therefore, Boyd considers the idea of referring teens as digital natives as worse than inaccurate; to her, it is dangerous. The assumptions put the teens in a dangerous world of exploration without any guidance. She further says that political activists such as Palfrey and Gasser nuanced arguments supporting the idealism of digital native language have been used by journalists and scholarly as proof of reclaiming the idea. The more the idea is reclaimed through educational articles and television, the more the society reinforces the idea. Thus, neglecting the possibility of keeping watch of the young generation link with technology.
According to Boyd, the youth’s technological knowledge is filled with naivety. Determining the credibility of technological information is difficult. Teenagers do not have the experience to critically analyze the quality of information they access from online sources. Boyd argues that teen’s technical skills on technology can be influenced by highly sophisticated peers they interact with. Hence, adult’s goals should change from pioneering the idea of youths with digital literacy and find ways to help the teenagers acquire the skills they need to understand how to evaluate media content independently. Proclaiming the digital native language is agreeing to expose the teens in danger of possessing passive knowledge, which overvalued.
Agreeing to promote the digital native language disregards the organized efforts arranged to pass needed forms of literacy. Boyd’s reasoning points out that society has decided to popularize the idea of teens as digital-savvy, which means people are forgetting that gaining wisdom on anything requires an active learning process. Teens turning to media to gain socializing services with their peers only earn them skills, which is part of the social learning process. However, the media literacy required to be digitally savvy goes beyond what teens gain from their social media Applications interactions; deep engagement is needed for one to obtain what can be said to be digital literacy. Technical skills required for digital literacy demands active learning. Young people, social exposure should not be translated as them being fluent and informed about technology.
Boyd’s claims are supported by her assumption of what she views as essential for society to adopt. One, she says that empowering the youth needs much more than referring to the digital natives. The framework does nothing more than create generation inequalities that build up a gap and separates the society in other ways. Learning opportunities need to be developed for the youths to gain the critical skills the media advocates have been advocating for decades. Teens having essential skills to engage productively with networked circumstances should be prioritized. Also, Boyd supports that parents can help the youth by assisting them in turning the technological skills they have into the experience. She says that censorship of inappropriate content does not do good to the youth since it does not give the young people understand how to evaluate online information independently. Guiding the young generation to acquire technical skills through active learning would be more suitable than proclaiming the digital native language. According to Boyd, the idea of digital natives should be controlled and restricted.
In conclusion, Boyd claims seem to address the actual problem existing in society about the teens and the technological world. Adults have unburdened themselves the responsibility of examining their children’s interactions with social media content by agreeing to give them technology superiority (Kirschner & De Bruyckere2017). Boyd arguing that knowledge varies from experience is a logical claim. Most youths have the expertise to navigate through the networked world and social from one social media page to another, but they have zero how the pages they are social on getting developed. Also, young people can understand how to socialize with each other but be unable to online sources credibility. Boyd is claiming that most youths do not know how the Google search engine systems works are accurate. Most teens only have limited knowledge to understand that Google is a reliable online source of information. Still, they cannot explain why search queries provide content in specific criteria. The teens have been influenced and mislead by adults about online information. Globally, educators disregard any information or sources obtained from Wikipedia. Parents and teachers have been discouraging parents from staying away from Wikipedia sources. The proof that adults can dictate the type of content their children feel free to engage with supports Boyd’s argument that parents should be helping their kids to turn their technological knowledge to user experience. The experience will help the teens stay aware of social media content dangers and direct them to bring the best from technology. Parents involving themselves in the social media interactions of the young people could help reduce the naivety existing among the teens about technology.
Relating to Boyd’s reasoning, it would be worthy of encouraging the youths to be more engaged with the active learning of media literacy. Assuming that their informal social learning skills give them the necessary skills shows that skills and knowledge are generationally inherited, which is a hypothetical skill. The teens were both in a technological invention world, but to acquire essential wisdom about anything demands an intellectualized form of learning. Society and other influencers could help the technology to have a more meaning impact on young peoples’ lives other than the advantage of exploration. Age does not get to determine who digital literate is and who is not. Some adults born before the technology resources were introduced to the world have better skills than some other young people because of going through a learning process that educates them about technology. The technological world would be of better benefit if the society moved past the assumptions of today’s youth being media literacy and helping them attain the skills they assume they already possess.
References
Gallardo-Echenique, E. E., Marqués-Molías, L., Bullen, M., & Strijbos, J. W. (2015). Let’s talk about digital learners in the digital era. The International Review of research in open and distributed learning, 16(3).
Khurshid, F., & Ahsan, S. (2015). Factors Affecting Teenagers’ Adjustment in Educational Institutions and Home Environment.
Kirschner, P. A., & De Bruyckere, P. (2017). The myths of the native digital multitasker. Teaching and Teacher Education, 67, 135-142.