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How Does Social Media Affect Youth Development?
Opportunities for Design & Research
June Ahn
University of Maryland, College Park
iSchool & College of Education
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Why Teens? Why Social Media?
93% of Teenagers are
Online
Some statistics from the
Pew Internet & American Life
Project
73% of wired teens use
social network sites
75% of teens own a cell
phone
62% of teens consume
online news and current
events online
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robhardingii/2787936139/sizes/l/in/photostream/
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Social Network Sites (SNSs)
Controversies & Opportunities
What do youth do in SNSs?
Does it affect their:
• Relationships?
• Psychological Well Being?
• Learning?
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SNSs are Identity Developing
Platforms
Pictures
Relationships
Friends
Interactions
Info
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Relationships: The Good and the
Bad
http://www.itgetsbetter.org/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/winninginformation/2314383724/sizes/m/in/photostream
Online social networks can be used to build social
capital, but also enhance negative behaviors.
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What Do We Know?

Receiving messages in, related to higher
bridging social capital
(Burke, Kraut, Marlow, 2011)

Positive supportive interactions related to
higher bonding social capital
(Ahn, under review)

Design Challenges:
 How do we motivate positive interaction?
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Psychological Well-Being
The early Internet was
isolating
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joelogon/324259281/sizes/l/in/photostream/
For Young People
The Internet is now:
social, connecting,
sharing
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/3088582622/sizes/l/in/photostream
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What Do We Know?

Positive interactions in SNSs related to
More Happiness, Self-Esteem
(Valkenburg & Peter, 2009)

Cyberbullying significantly related to
lower self esteem
(Patchin & Hinduja, 2010)
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Design Challenges:
 How do we design for more social
support?
 How do we design to mitigate bullying?
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A Big Question: Learning?
Using SNSs alone is not likely
related to academic achievement!
Pasek, J., more, e., & Hargittai, E. (2009). Facebook and academic per- formance: Reconciling a media sensation
with data. First Monday, 14(5), http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/
2498/218.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/amboo213/4020
584983/sizes/o/in/photostream/
Big Design Challenge of the Future:
How do we leverage affordances of
social media for collaborative learning?
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Learning from Social Media: The
Challenges
http://fold.it/portal/site_files/theme/science/competi
tion.png
http://www.wired.com/images_blog
s/epicenter/2009/05/wikipedialogo-en-big.png
http://www.pixelpeople.co.za/wpcontent/uploads/2011/04/khan_academy.jpg
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Technology: The Big Design
Challenges

Need to understand ways to motivate
more interaction between users of social
media.

Find new ways to motivate social
support.

Design to mitigate negative behavior
It’s easy to organize to bully someone
 Can we make it easy to organize to
Counter-organize? Report? Support?

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Big Social Design Challenges

Need to make online communities viable
for youth and adults to coexist
 Identity

Management Tools
Need to understand youth who opt out
 Under
represented populations
(Ahn, under review)
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Thank You!
Email: juneahn@umd.edu
Ahn, J. (2011). The effect of social network sites on
adolescents’ social and academic development:
Current theories and controversies.
Journal of the American Society for Information
Science & Technology. DOI: 10.1002/asi.21540.