Whoa. So over the past few days I’ve had a bit of a revelation. It occurred due to three disparate events; a Google+ Hangout from the COETAIL crew, a podcast from This American Life, and a conversation with family about a younger sibling. Let me explain.
The Hangout. I listened to this first. Jeff, Kim and others discussed for an hour all sorts of ed-tech related issues. During one of their conversations, someone (working on finding it back) mentioned that kids aren’t on Facebook anymore, that they’ve moved on to other forms of social media. It wasn’t a particularly mind boggling insight, but I filed it away in the back of my mind nonetheless.
The podcast. This American Life sent a few reporters to a Chicago public school that had 29(!) shootings last year to conduct interviews and get a sense of what it’s like to be in the midst of all that tragedy. During one of the interviews the AP said that kids aren’t on Facebook anymore, that everything is on Twitter. Again, it wasn’t earth-shattering news (nor was it even the point of the interview) but this was twice in the last few days I had heard someone say this.
The family convo. I was talking with my wife and sister-in-law about their other sister, a high school sophomore, and we were perplexed at how often she puts information on Twitter and is then surprised when other people see it. We realized she hadn’t updated her Facebook in 10 days but had posted to Instagram and Twitter about 10 times in the last 24 hours. Then it clicked. Kids (10-18?) really aren’t on Facebook anymore.
Whoa part 2. This phrase is overused, but this blew my mind. Facebook, what we all aspired to emulate and harness the power of as educators, has already come and gone in the pre-college generation. They’re already on to other forms of social media. How do we hope to keep up with this? Should we even try?
Final Thought. There is much to-do about “meeting the kids where they are” and allowing them to more or less direct their own education and I can’t help but feel a.) slighted at the fact that I’ve spent countless hours in college and beyond trying to figure out how kids learn, only to be told that we need to leave it up to them and b.) intimidated by the prospect of even attempting to keep up with what’s new out there. Good thing I have COETAIL and a kickin’ PLN to help me out.
In my mind there are a few reasons to explain this drift away from Facebook.
With one billion users Facebook (in the eyes of teens) is too mainstream. Part of the novelty in using social media for teens is connecting with peers in a way that is hidden, therefore once your parents, teachers, siblings, aunt, uncle, grandparents are on it then its not so great.
Facebook is comparatively boring. It’s a fancy photo book. It’s a bragging board. It’s not interest based. It’s just not fresh anymore and the level of advertising on it is growing daily. Like others, the more I use Twitter or Instagram the less I use Facebook. Twitter accounts are simple to setup and can provide a level anonymity if desired.
So if Facebook is out… then what’s in? What’s two steps ahead of Twitter? I want to stay ahead of the curve.
I’d add on to your first point that Facebook connects people and High School students don’t need to connect (or re-connect!) with most people because those they care about they see on a daily basis. When you move on to university and beyond you lose daily contact with those people and Facebook helps facilitate that re-connection.
What’s bouncing around in my head is this; we understand the power of social media and attempt to harvest it but at what point does the effort necessary to keep up with the kids outweigh the benefits of using it in a classroom? School changed very little in the mid 20th century and we still have problems producing good teachers. What does that say about how fast times change today and our ability to adapt as quickly?
Great post Jeff-
I Think your point from the previous comment reflects the real need for teachers to understand the NEED and IMPORTANCE of keeping a highly skilled, collaborative PLN. Your post helps those of us who already understand this need communicate it to those have haven’t yet grasped it.
Well done.
Jeff–I’m interested in this migration, too. (Wrote about here: http://www.coetail.com/benfeigert/2013/02/26/c1w1-living-and-learning-and-migrating/)
Especially compelling or problematic is this question you pose: “at what point does the effort necessary to keep up with the kids outweigh the benefits of using [social media] in a classroom?”
For me, I’m not so interested in facebook with students, or even twitter, except maybe as a way to push out little notices, or publish the work they’re doing for broader consumption. But I am very much in favor of finding *a* classroom system that allows us the benefits of social networking and (sorry, this is kind of prosaic) document management. For some teachers, it’s edmodo. It doesn’t compete with Facebook, as it’s an entirely school-oriented space.
I’ve been pretty happy with google docs set up for collaboration on a micro-level, where kids can work together. But it’s clear they need to push outside my classroom and connect with people doing similar work. I don’t know–should I ask kids to twitter-follow a collection of Google Sketchup experts, for our 3D Modeling class? That’s what I do, and it’s helped me develop curriculum and ideas.
So: not so much into “keeping up with the kids” in their space, but instead trying to use alternate spaces for our academic goals.
Thanks for your thoughtful approach to this!
I’ve used Twitter in my classes to give students reminders (homework, etc) and to connect my class with other classes…but I’ve never thought to encourage my students to follow experts in a topic that we’re studying. That’s genius Ben! Thanks for the ah-ha moment
I saw this article about why teens are leaving Facebook and thought it might be an interesting read for those of you who commented on this post