Emily Reeves presented to the Criminal Justice Institute Safe School Conference about teens' use of social media and apps that adults should be aware of if they are working with teens.

1. TEENS +
SOCIAL MEDIA
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presented by:
Emily Reeves
Director of Digital Innovation & Insight Planning
July 22, 2013

2. @Reeves501
@StoneWard
Key Takeaways For Today
•Embrace the technology
•Accept that the channels change constantly
•Think about privacy differently
•Educate rather than reprimand
•Monitor respectfully

3. A Look At The Digital World
@Reeves501
@StoneWard

4. Where Teens Fit Into All Of This
@Reeves501
@StoneWard

9. @Reeves501
@StoneWard
Currently Favored By Teens
Facebook
• Facebook has a minimum age restriction of 13 years old to create
an account. But last year 78% of parents helped create their
children’s Facebook pages and 7.5 million users are under the age
of 13 and lied about the age associated with the account.
• 94% of American teens still have a Facebook account, but they’re
using it less, and using it more carefully.
• More than half have tightened down their privacy settings and
regularly delete or edit previous posts.
• But even with tightened privacy settings, teens have realized that
Facebook is more like a family picnic than the private party they
want it to be.They still share photos and use Facebook messaging,
but they are increasingly turning to newer social networks to fill
the function of traditional status updates. Source and Source

10. @Reeves501
@StoneWard
Currently Favored By Teens
Micro Blogging
• While teens do seem to understand privacy much better now than
in the early days of social media, they still have a desire to put
themselves out there in a public way.
• That’s where microblogs like Tumblr and Pheed come in.The
culture that has evolved on these sites is more slanted to creative
self-expression than Facebook’s life-casting (telling all the mundane
details of your day).
• Both are deeply skewed towards mobile use, and there are tons of
clever and thematic blogs, think Texts from Hillary or Reasons My
Son is Crying. Neither are particularly teen-oriented, but there are
clear differences in style and content between a Tumblr and a
Facebook feed.
Source

13. @Reeves501
@StoneWard
Currently Favored By Teens
Twitter
• Twitter saw a doubling of teen users last year.
• And young people use it more publicly than they do Facebook;
while teens with Facebook accounts typically keep their postings
private, visible only to their friends, only 24% report keeping their
tweets private.
• Since Twitter feels more instant than Facebook, it’s a good one to
consider if your musings are topical and timely.
• Increasingly, the hot sites among the younger set create private
networks, ones that automatically restrict who can see your
updates, like Path, which limits your friend list to 150
people.This built-in privacy makes everything feel more personal.
Source

15. @Reeves501
@StoneWard
Currently Favored By Teens
Image Sharing
• Instagram is pretty good for photo sharing, especially if you like
using their funky filters.Teens thought that it great, until mom and
dad showed up there, too.
• So then came Snapchat, a way to send pics that self-destruct
after being viewed. Except that assuming what you send will really
disappear is fraught with peril, since the recipient can grab a
permanent screen shot of a picture before its deleted. Still,
Snapchat is hot – to the tune of 150 million snaps a day – for good
reason: it is a fun way to share casual, goofy pics that aren’t meant
to signify deep meaning in your life. Just remember that, as with
anything you post digitally,“deleting” may not really mean it can’t
come back to haunt you.
Source

16. @Reeves501
@StoneWard
Currently Favored By Teens
Messaging/Chatting Services
• To save money on texting fees, teens these alternatives: Kik and
WhatsApp have bitten into Facebook messaging, especially
here in the US.Teens send an average of 60 texts per day.
• Kik: It is rated 17+ in the App Store.You need to know
someone’s username to start an online chat. However, many
teens are using Instagram to share their Kik username. If you
look at some of the comments on some pictures in Instagram,
you will see some that say “Kik me at” or “my Kik name is”. So,
what is going on here is that these people are using Kik
Messenger to have online chats. Comments on Instagram are
public, the chats on Kik are not.This is where the danger lies.
Make sure Instagram accounts are set to private to avoid
strangers starting conversations with kids on Kik.
Source, Source and Source

18. @Reeves501
@StoneWard
Currently Favored By Teens
Messaging/Chatting Services
• WhatsApp: Yet WhatsApp already has more users than
Twitter and in June crossed the 250 million active-user plateau.
On its biggest day, 27 billion messages were sent with the
service. Part of the popularity is that it works on whatever
device you have — iOS,Android, et al. — but another significant
part is the company’s anti-advertising stance.
Source, Source and Source

19. @Reeves501
@StoneWard
The Good
• Teens who use social media are more sympathetic to other
people: 55% of teens from the ages of 13 to 17 said that Facebook
and Twitter opened their eyes to what others are experiencing.
• Engaging with kids on social media sites helps strengthen the bond
between parent and child.A study found that teens who were the
most connected to their parents on Facebook,Twitter and other
forms of social media felt closer to them in real life.Those teens
were also less likely to be depressed, delinquent or behave
aggressively.
• Building networks and connections at a young age can help with
college admissions and job searches later in life. If they are careful
with content.
Source and Source

20. @Reeves501
@StoneWard
Zach Sobiech
• Last December, cancer patient Zach Sobiech posted a song he
wrote for his friends and family ontoYouTube as a way to say
goodbye.
• The song, "Clouds," ended up inspiring thousands of people
across the country, and his family started the Zach Sobiech
Osteosarcoma Fund to support research into the rare form of
cancer Zach suffered from.
• “'Clouds' was originally written for just my family and others who
I love, but it’s meant to raise awareness for childhood cancer
because I often think it gets forgotten about," Zach said.
• Zach passed away May 20, 2013 and the song had 3 million views
at the time.
Source

21. @Reeves501
@StoneWard
Minddrive
• In May, a group of high school students from Missouri who are
involved in an after-school program called Minddrive -- a non-
profit that inspires at-risk teens by focusing on electric car design
-- built a car fueled entirely by social media.
• The teens restored an older car and programmed it to be
powered by social media interactions like hashtagging #MindDrive
on Twitter and Instagram, liking their Facebook page and watching
theirYouTube video.
• The students then used all of the social fuel they accumulated to
drive from Missouri to Washington D.C. in order to meet with
elected officials to raise awareness about the benefits of this
innovative kind of education.
Source

22. @Reeves501
@StoneWard
The Bad
• Young girls feel they have to be on display with social media.
• Professionals say social media has a more powerful influence on
teenage girls than traditional media because it is so pervasive and
interactive.
• Comments from peers are of the utmost importance.A lot of the
commentary is very appearance focused.
Source

23. @Reeves501
@StoneWard
The Ugly
• Sexting
Source

24. Embrace Technology
@Reeves501
@StoneWard

25. @Reeves501
@StoneWard
Why You Should Embrace It
• There are positive aspects to social media: it gives introverts an
outlet to express themselves, it teaches kids how to talk to each
other, and education can be infused into the channels.
• If you don’t use it and understand it yourself, you cannot talk to
the kids about how to use social media properly and the dangers
of using it improperly.
• It can be fun.

26. @Reeves501
@StoneWard
How You Should Embrace It
• Every couple of months, Google “what apps are teens using” and
do a little bit of research. Download those apps and use them
yourself.
• Develop a network of adult “testers” and all agree to download
these apps and use them among that group to understand how
users interact with each other on that app.
• Invite a guest speaker every six months to come in and educate
your faculty on the latest apps.

27. Accept That Channels Change Constantly
@Reeves501
@StoneWard

28. @Reeves501
@StoneWard
You Will Never Know Everything
• Something new comes out every day. By the time you hear about
an app, your kids may have been using it for six months and have
now moved on to something else.
DON’T GET OVERWHELMED.
But, go learn about these now:
Instagram
SnapChat
Kik
WhatsApp
Tumblr
Pheed

29. Think About Privacy Differently
@Reeves501
@StoneWard

30. @Reeves501
@StoneWard
What Is Privacy?
• Teens are using more social media and sharing more on those
platforms. Key findings indicate social media-using teens are not
very concerned about third-party access to their data on the
sites, are more likely to use a range of social media sites if they
have a large Facebook network, and are participating in social
media differently depending on race.
• More generally, teens are more focused on their social privacy
and managing the boundaries of their information sharing from
their peers and from other adults in their lives — their parents,
their teachers.To the extent to which the advertisers are
accessing the information that’s shared on social media sites,
that’s not something that’s top-level concern.There are different
experiences and different levels of awareness among teens.
Source

31. @Reeves501
@StoneWard
What Is Privacy?
• Teens care a lot about privacy, but they’re not thinking about
government agencies or corporate marketing.They’re thinking about
people who hold immediate power over them — parents, teachers,
college admissions officers, military recruiters, etc.These are the
“third parties” that they care about and that they work to manage
their privacy in light of. But typically journalists and adults focus on
how teens’ data can be used by marketers. In this sense, teens and
adults are equally clueless and ambivalent.
• Increasingly the newer platforms are appealing to teens, because
they’re new and they’re providing a way for them to
compartmentalize their interactions with smaller groups of people,
more interest-focused.There are some interesting differences
around platforms that seek to be a fundamental part of daily life and
logistics and communications and those that are maybe more
focused on creativity and self-expression.
Source

32. Educate Rather Than Reprimand
@Reeves501
@StoneWard

33. @Reeves501
@StoneWard
You Already Know This
• Teens are losing out on the ability to learn about and read social
cues.They cannot learn to read non-verbal behavior properly if
most of their interacting goes on in the virtual world.
• Your teens need to learn how to deal with free time without
staring at a screen.With less screen time,they will have more
opportunity to learn how to relax and use leisure time.
• Social media creates excessive drama.This is because positive
messages are read as more neutral than they are intended to be;
neutral messages are read as more negative as they are intended
to be and one can only imagine what happens with messages that
are intended to be negative.
• Teens need to learn to be present in the moment.They lose the
ability to interact mindfully in the moment.
• Teens are more aggressive and sexual when they feel anonymous
and are communicating electronically.Things can get out of hand
very quickly with both cyber-bullying and sexuality, as we are
painfully aware.
Source

34. @Reeves501
@StoneWard
You Already Know This
Source
But Your
TEENAGERS
Do Not

35. Monitor Respectfully
@Reeves501
@StoneWard

36. @Reeves501
@StoneWard
How To Monitor
• Learn about these technologies first hand.There is simply no
better way than to have a profile yourself. It will also enable you
to "friend" your kids and monitor them on line.
• Let them know that their use of technology is something you
want and need to know about. Share a bit about your daily social
media use as a way to facilitate daily conversation about your
kids’ online habits.
• Talk with parents about what their kids of similar ages are using
for social media.
• Suggest that parents check chat logs, emails, files and social
networking profiles for inappropriate content, friends, messages,
and images periodically. And recommend that they be
transparent and let your kids know what you are doing.
Source

37. Summary
@Reeves501
@StoneWard

38. @Reeves501
@StoneWard
Summary
• With the influx of individuals in their 30s, 40s, 50s and older
joining and becoming more active on Facebook, teenagers are
becoming less active or less willing to share as much on the
platform.They feel it’s “less cool” and also don’t want their parents
to see everything they share.
• Photos, Photos, and more Photos: Teens love to take and
share photos, especially on apps like Instagram where you can play
around with the filters and make them look unique and fun.Teens
feel they can have just as good of a conversation on Instagram as
they had on Facebook through the comments under pictures.
• Privacy? - Teens although caring about not having their parents
see their content, are sometimes more carefree with what they
share. Some pictures show more than they should; they share
contact information; and connect with as many friends and
celebrities as possible – because they can.
Source

39. Questions?
@Reeves501
@StoneWard

40. THANK
YOU.
Emily Reeves
Director of Digital Innovation & Insight Planning
ereeves@stoneward.com
@Reeves501
@StoneWard
www.stoneward.com
www.waitingfortheelevator.com