It's complicated by Danah BoydThe New York Times 2014 “I often heard parents complain that their children preferred computers to ‘real people,’ ” Boyd writes. In her research, however, she discovered that they would much rather hang out with their friends in person. But they can’t. “Today’s teenagers have less freedom to wander than any previous generation.” Many American teenagers attend schools outside their neighborhoods, live in gated communities and are advised (often by their parents) to fear strangers. Curfew and loitering laws further tack kids to their bedrooms. According to Boyd, the American bourgeoisie is more devoted to buying free-range meat than raising free-range children. In this anodyne, restricted America, social media is the only way teenagers can effectively get a life. |
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