"Geeking Out"

What are kids doing online? Contrary to media reports of young people interacting with online predators, the findings presented by Ito et al. suggest otherwise. Mizuko Ito, a professor at the University of California at Irvine, and her colleagues found that today's youth are involved in activities that are similar to those their parents were engaged in when they were kids. Today's young people spend time online hanging out with their friends and socializing. Sound familiar? Much time and effort was invested in this research. In fact, this three-year study, led by Ito, involved hundreds of interviews and thousands of hours of online observation. It is the most extensive U.S. study of youth media use.

Other than their children encountering predators online, what do parents worry about? Ito et al. suggest that there are concerns about social isolation. However, these researchers argue that most of the online activities that young people engage in are very social, even though the interactions are not with others who are co-present. Instead of worrying, Ito et al. contend that parents need to recognize what motivates their youngster and cultivate those interests.

Socializing is not the only reason young people use technology. According to this study, today's youth are using technology to extend existing friendships. Sites such as Facebook and MySpace (among others) allow them to remain in constant contact with friends. Also, they are spending time online to explore their interests in topics that often extend beyond their school work. Moreover, these youth are able to connect with others who share those interests, as well as distribute their work and receive recognition for it in a public forum. The feedback these youth receive in this arena is typically from their more experienced peers rather than from adults and teachers (think Vygotsky and Piaget). Through this form of self-directed learning, which provides the youth a sense of freedom and autonomy that is often not found in the physical classroom, they learn technology and media literacy skills. It is this diving into a topic or a talent in a very social manner - one where adults are not the experts - that the researchers refer to as "geeking out."

I would have to say that geeking out (and is not an activity exclusive to young people. In fact, I don't think it's a generational trait at all. I would suspect that research could be conducted on older individuals who use technology, and similar characteristics would be present. It is worthwhile to investigate what today's youth are actually doing when they go online. However, researchers should be careful not to frame their findings in ways that would suggest that these young people are a homogeneous group, or that they are unique in comparison to other age groups. (For research that counters the notion of a universal, tech-savvy youth, see Hargittai (2008) and Herring (2008).)

While I didn't count the number of males and females highlighted in the Ito et al. report, it felt somewhat male-centric. The females were noted in the section describing ways they selected their Facebook page designed based on the color of their bedrooms. In contrast, however, the examples of the males (and there were many) included a type of tinkering that involved taking apart an X-box and rebuilding it. Changing the background of a social networking site (SNS) is not comparable to rebuilding a computer. Thus, how does technology use by young people differ by gender? What do these differences mean when integrating technology into a classroom setting? Would it possibly be a bridge that connects young males to academia while alienating females who typically perform well in the physical classroom? That information is not outlined in this report.

(On p. 36, the researchers do mention that the "work indicates a predictable participation gap" and "girls tend to be stigmatized more if they identify with geeked out practices." If this is true, then why do recent Pew Internet & American Life reports, for example, indicate that girls are active technology users, including in the realm of gaming?)

Also, recent reports have suggested that while young people are avid technology users in their personal lives, they prefer moderate technology use in the classroom (e.g., 2008 ECAR study). If a teacher were to integrate a self-directed component using technology into the curriculum, would the students buy into it? Or, would the students simply treat it as another assignment they submit for a grade? In other words, would the students do what was required to get a grade and nothing more? Creating an online, self-directed, unguided learning process that occurs informally may be difficult to simulate in a "traditional" classroom environment. As Kirschner et al. (2006) argue, students, especially those unfamiliar with a particular topic, may need some guidance before exploring independently.