The use of digital technologies by adolescents is not without its potential problems, and these need to be explored before seeking to engage them. However, the potential harm of digital technologies is linked not to adolescents in particular, but rather to the growth of digital media in society in general. Digital technologies are characterised here as the hardware or physical tools used to record text, images, sounds or both in the case of video clips. Computers, smartphones, cameraphones, digital cameras, camcorders and webcams are all examples of such technologies.
Digital media tend to be intangible tools which allow users to connect with others and share created content. Social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook, Bebo, Twitter, MySpace, Instant Messenger (IM), platforms such as MSN Chat, Skype, Facebook chat and Blackberry Messenger (BBM) as well as video and sharing websites/communities such as YouTube, Dailymotion and Blip.TV are all examples of digital media. Digital technologies and digital media are in many ways inextricably linked, as too are their potential benefits and risks. The most noticeable risks for those working with looked after children and young people include privacy, disclosure and cyberbullying.
Cyberbullying is a term used to describe a: …child, preteen or teen being tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another child, preteen or teen using the internet, digital technologies or mobile phones.This type of bullying can occur through a range of digital media including emails, in online chatrooms, instant messengers, text/picture/video messages sent to the victim’s phone or posted on websites. When promoting the use of digital technologies and media, one needs to be aware of how to assist the young person in creating or using strategies to minimise the associated risks.
For professionals working with looked after young people, the potential risks of digital technologies and media are of paramount importance, whether this involves looked after adolescents maintaining or getting in contact with those deemed inappropriate via social networking websites, or making deliberate/ accidental disclosures in online domains due to an inability or a desire not to control privacy settings. Despite research in the US suggesting that public concerns regarding sexual predators using digital media may be exaggerated, the existence of paedophiles and the possibilities of online grooming reinforce the need to manage risk, particularly as real world vulnerabilities tend to be replicated online.
It is worth noting, however, that research appears to emphasise how social networking websites are mainly used as an economic way to maintain pre-existing offline friendships; Lenhart and Madden report that the vast majority of their US adolescent sample used social networking websites to connect or reconnect with previously known friends. Such potential benefits may be particularly important to looked after populations as adolescents in care have consistently reported feelings of social and geographical isolation, a point stressed by Professor Andrew Kendrick in his contribution to Facing Forward: Residential child care in the 21st century. We need to be aware that although looked after young people may be locally isolated, digital technologies enable them to be remotely connected. These advantages need to be viewed in relation to the young person in question and what such contact may mean to them.
The internet and digital technologies are like cars, in that they are not dangerous in themselves, but in how they can be used. How technology is used by young people and those who wish to take advantage of vulnerable populations is where dangers and risks should be located. We need to help young people to learn to drive safely on their own, and negotiate an increasingly complex online and digital world. By engaging with digital life story work, young people can receive a wide array of benefits, as the workers or carers undertaking the work can use this opportunity to engage with the young people in a communicatively sensitive fashion, allowing for conversations regarding the wider uses and risks of such technologies, promoting technological responsibility and safety.
What is life story work and why is it important?
