Exploring youth engagement in a digital age

Does a Facebook focus do us any favors?

When I started out researching Youth Work and Social Networking in 2007 I really wanted to look at ‘Youth Work and the Internet’, but the needs of focussed research meant the boundary was drawn to look specifically at social network sites. At the time, a considerable number of young people were on Bebo and MySpace, and only certain groups were using Facebook, which had not-long opened it’s doors to everyone - having started out restricted to students at selected Universities. Talk of social media would range over a wide range of tools - from YouTube and video sharing, to still take in ideas of online chat and instant messaging, and niche photo-sharing or art-sharing websites. Now when I talk about young people online, the conversation far too often becomes ‘Young people on Facebook’.

There is a tension. The youth work idea of starting where young people are means that Facebook may well be a natural starting point. Bebo and MySpace are all but gone, and Facebook is the starting point for many young people’s online lives. Yet, Facebook is not all there is to the Internet, nor should it be. I’ve undoubtedly been guilty at times of ‘promoting’ Facebook as an youth work setting and writing about online youth engagement in very Facebook centric ways. Facebook is a youth work setting; and it does offer powerful tools for youth engagement. But as well as starting where young people are, youth work principles also encourage us to ‘go beyond’ - and to work with young people to explore alternatives and to be critical about the dominance of Facebook.

What does this mean in practice?

When we think about young people’s media use and online lives - we should be careful not to focus entirely on Facebook.

In a presentation today by Stephen Carrick-Davies on how young people in a london Pupil Referral Unit are using the Internet Stephen emphasized “For Internet, read Mobile Phone” and highlighted the messaging and social networking taking place through Blackberry Messenger.
We should mix-and-match different online engagement tools. Even if there is a Facebook point of contact with a project, there might be other more open tools for hosting other elements of interaction and conversations.
I’ve long advocated for making blogging platforms the ‘home’ of any open access online content, with an ‘outpost’ taking the content into Facebook. Facilitating in the online space might involve encouraging young people to move from closed discussions in Facebook, to discussions in blogging spaces or on discussion lists - reflecting in the process on the different impacts of each technology choice.

I’ve watched a recent process with interest where a discussion has moved from an open Ning network into a Facebook group. The velocity of discussion has increased in the Facebook group - but different voices are coming out stronger.
‘Going beyond’ in digital youth work isn’t just about moving from ‘consumer’ to ‘creator’ of digital content, but also from ‘consumer’ to ‘creator’ of digital spaces.
Whilst it is hard to establish any sort of online network that will ‘compete’ with Facebook, the process of setting up and running online discussion spaces (or even just exploring how to create pages and other spaces within Facerbook) can help young people gain critical skills for thinking about the online environment. And even if we don’t create Facebook replacement spaces, we need to raise awareness of the wider potential of the open Internet - beyond centralising and dominant media platforms.

I realise some of this is pretty demanding stuff. How many practitioners would feel they have the digital skills right now to set up and manage their own online spaces - working with open source software and servers to make space. Yet, if I go back to youth work values, and a vision of informal education as helping young people to be empowered in a digital world - it’s exactly some of these skills that workers and young people may need to be exploring together.

What do you think? Do we focus too much on Facebook?

0 members like this

Comment by Katie Bacon on March 30, 2011 at 14:50: Interesting blog and yes I agree with we can focus too much on Facebook, but that is because the majority of young people 'hangout' on this online space. It is critical that youth practitioners and teachers understand the basic functionality of Facebook and how to modify/edit the privacy & account settings and how to create friends lists.

In my experience, many youth centers offer internet access to young people. Often the young people are online checking out their facebook account and the youth worker(s) are 'hovering' checking no one is viewing inappropriate content. Youth workers need to get online, check out and learn how to use and apply the security settings. Then go and 'play' with other online social media tools then discuss and get creative with young people to capture content to share online.

Micro blogging -http://www.tumblr.com/

Create short film clips with photos - http://animoto.com

Create an strip carton - http://stripgenerator.com/ (some content on this site is not appropriate for young people to view. Log in a create an account to minimise age inappropriate content, there is a short tutorial http://stripgenerator.com/video/show/1/)

I would like to echo Stephen Carrick-Davies and Tim's view to encourage youth practitioners and teachers to support, encourage and share digital media skills with young people. To enhance and diversify their social media experience from consumer to creators these new skills and experiences are transferable to future training or employment opportunities.

Comment by Azzam Sheikh on April 4, 2011 at 20:15: Young teenagers have embraced Facebook and this is the reality. There are Facebook teenagers who log on and will have upto 500 friends available on the live chat feed!

Facebook however is lagging behind in accommodating this demographic who at times will lie about their age to get a profile and the prospective of looking older.

Further observation shows that their is a growing 'boredom' to Facebook since in essence it is difficult to sustain the energy level of teenagers since they are wired to be active physically, so there is a real struggle in finding ways to balance real life and social media. Most want to maintain that presence online but at the same time be nurtured with 'real' social meaning.

Comment by Sian Ponting on April 20, 2011 at 14:35: You raise some really interesting points here. I agree that facebook is where young people are, is a great tool and space for engaging with young people, but is not the be all and end all of online engagement.

I'm very new to all this stuff, and am just getting my head around a new social media project I'm developing. The biggest part of this has been to understand what's out there and what's possible, and not get freaked out by the possibilities. Facebook offers me an easy route into this online world - but I'm quickly finding I want to move beyond it (as are the young people I'm working with).

Facebook limits me, both in what I can do with young people on line, and what I can do with other professionals. The local statutory youth service doesn't enagage on social networking sites, so partnership work is off the cards in this arena. I feel that local partnerships are even more important than ever, and going online can offer a positive space for local professionals to share practice and develop work together. Facebook isn't the right space for this.

What I haven't yet found is practical examples of how youth workers can move beyond facebook, integrating a variety of different methods (perhaps I haven't been looking in the right place?). It's overwhelming what can be done - and sometimes trying to find out how to do stuff feels like wading through mud.