Potential harm is often a concern when it comes to social media use among young people.
Parents and policymakers say online platforms such as Instagram and TikTok violate children’s privacy, threaten their safety, and damage their mental health, making them especially susceptible to social media addiction and cyberbullying. I am concerned that this may happen.
Additionally, there is a seemingly never-ending series of dangerous and deadly internet “challenges” such as the “blackout challenge” and the “choking game” that challenge children and teens to find themselves engaging in dangerous behavior online. We encourage you to record.
While concerns about the potential pitfalls of social media platforms are legitimate and should be taken seriously, they can overshadow some of the more positive ways that young people in general, and young people of color in particular, use social media. There is also gender. As I discovered in my doctoral thesis, #OnlineLiteraciesMatter, some young people are using social media to develop activist identities and call for a more just society. That is, they are using social media platforms to engage in what I call “digital activism” to address issues such as systemic racism and pursue racial justice. is.
My research has found that when young people of color learn to use digital tools to explore social issues and use those tools to defend their beliefs, they can make a difference. This is an addition to the series of studies.
fight for social justice online
For my research, I followed six young activists between the ages of 14 and 18 across the United States. I chose them through an online recruitment process. I found them by searching various hashtags and engaged with them online by sending them direct messages and leaving comments on their posts.
Four of the teens were identified as black and two as Latino. I observed their activity on platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. All of the young activists had been using at least one of these social media platforms for varying periods of time, ranging from 1 to 6 years.
In my research, each young person represented a case study. I interviewed each person individually. I also created my own social media accounts so I could observe their social media posts and interact with them in the same online space. I investigated their social media posts over a period of three months.
They often responded to what was happening at the time of the research I conducted in 2021, after the Black Lives Matter movement took off in 2020. As a result, they were concerned about social justice, civil unrest, police brutality, and violence. global pandemic. They are also concerned about the increasing hardships experienced by culturally and linguistically diverse communities, who are often disproportionately affected by these issues.
The young people who participated in my research worked on a variety of topics. Some of the themes they worked on can be seen through the hashtags they used, including #systemicracism, #climatejustice, and #mentalhealth.
new story
They also used social media to educate others through self-expression and challenge society’s negative perceptions of young people. Their focus is on storytelling, as evidenced by hashtags like #blackstoriesmatter, #teenwriter, and #blackwriter. The most important theme was driving change. Their identities are reflected in hashtags like #blackyouthvisionaries and #changemakers. They revealed that they view social media as a means to express their values.
“Everything I do online is a reflection of who I am as a person. I always want that image to be true to myself,” Laura, 18, said in an interview. I used pseudonyms for all of the young people in my study. “Those of you who have been with me in the classroom or in organizations know that I am an outspoken person who always needs to bring a perspective that I think is important to social justice discussions, and I do the same online. Everything I post represents my values.”
Higher education regularly appeared in the self-expression and activities of young people.
For example, 14-year-old Samira X said she was inspired by the protests after the police killing of George Floyd to write a script for a film called “You Change.”
“I take acting very seriously and am enrolled in classes at a local community college. Introduction to Film Production teaches directing, and Screenwriting teaches basic screenwriting skills such as format, character development, and motivation. I learned,” Samira told me.
Laura, 18, tweeted that her post about her university course was “so insightful and challenges my classmates to challenge their current thinking, and I’m really proud of it.”
As young people of color, they emphasized the need to channel their concerns into broader causes that do not always take communities of color into account.
“The climate justice movement is more than just advocating for the preservation of parks and the protection of endangered species. It must be intersectional,” Laura wrote in an Instagram post. “We must recognize that black and brown communities around the world are disproportionately disadvantaged due to air pollution, water pollution, food insecurity, and more.”
the most important thing
Sometimes they used simple statements to call attention to the issues they thought were most concerning.
One of the teens in my study simply wrote:
my mental health is important
my representation is important
my music is important
my joy is important
my art is important
My future is important.
The teens have made it clear that they believe there is an urgent need to take action now.
“In this generation, we’re not going to wait, we’re going to work for it even when we’re tired, and if we want something to happen, we’re going to go for it,” Dakari, 16, said in a YouTube post. . And Instagram. “Stubborn people, we don’t want to wait until we’re adults to do something.”