Author
danah boyd
1 reading card from 1 book · 2014.
1 card
It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens · 2014
Before taking from the network, open a real place.
boyd spent years with American teenagers and found something uncomfortable: many are online all the time because they are not allowed anywhere else — no more going into town alone, no unsupervised park, no free afternoon. So step one of any screen rule is to open a real place. The phone contract, written and signed, in eight lines. One, the phone belongs to the family and is lent to them; it can be taken back, calmly, without a row. Two, it sleeps in the kitchen from the agreed hour. Three, the parent has the passcode but uses it only for an announced reason, never by surprise. Four, the account is private until sixteen. Five, nothing is sent that you could not bear to see on the school's screen; intimate pictures are not sent at all, and if they already have been, you come to me, no punishment. Six, any request for money, pictures or a meeting from a stranger is shown the same day. Seven, if anyone is being harassed — them or someone else — it gets reported, the evidence is saved and nobody replies. Eight, the rules about meals and about the night apply to everyone in the house. The contract is revised every six months, in writing, with relaxations that were earned.
“Teenagers are not addicted to technology, they are addicted to each other. The network is where they meet because every other place has been taken away from them, one by one.”