Week 4-- Perspectives on Privacy

This week we read chapter 4 of Boyd (2014) It’s Complicated. An aspect that I found particularly interesting was the exploration of what privacy is and how individuals can have a different definition of privacy and strategies to maintain their desired level. We live in an age that information is more public by default than private by default. (Boyd, 62). I found this chapter particularly interesting because it offered perspectives different than my own. It shed some light onto some ideas that some of my students share. The issue of privacy is especially important when working with students who are extremely vulnerable both on and offline. It feels impossible to fully and properly equip students to face all the possible dangers of the internet and other personal technology (yes, that sentence was the dark side talking).

I think the first thing to note is that it is important to be informed and be able to look at concepts like privacy with different perspectives. While adults often would say that teens share too much irrelevant information online, Boyd says that teens think it is easier for them to overshare details that do not matter to the general population and that their audience will just filter out anything that does not pertain to them. Boyd talks to a 17 year old girl named Alicia who believes privacy is “choosing what you want to keep to yourself” rather than Merriam Webster’s definition, which says that it is the “quality or state of being apart from company or observation.” Alicia does not see herself as giving up privacy when she posts to a broad audience. She maintains privacy by choosing what to share.

Another point that I found interesting was the idea that teens found it intrusive if their parents were looking at what they post publicly (not snooping, as that is an entirely different situation in my opinion). Drexler (2013) reports that, “nearly half of all parents using Facebook joined the social network with the primary purpose of spying on their kids (and their kids' friends). All but 7 percent of those parents check their child's profile every single day, monitoring status updates, location check-ins and photos their kids post and are tagged in.” It goes to show how perspectives vary and the importance of being able to try to look from different perspectives and have productive conversations about technology. Simply following your child on their various social media is not an effective way to keep them safe, rather, being able to have open and honest dialogue about some of the big concepts like citizenship and safety which inevitably cover a wide range of concerns.






When we are back in school, I am going to try to gain a deeper understanding of where my students are coming from on an individual level (specifically my higher needs kids on my caseload that I see the most often). I am curious about their need to publicize seemingly private aspects of their lives. I think a lot could be learned from figuring out what their why is for doing some of these things rather than just acknowledging that they have some concerning habits/routines and teaching against those without delving into the underlying motives, or the function of the behaviour. Again, I think these issues can be explored through conversations and activities, but my goal is to go deeper and do work that is not a band aid solution.

References

Boyd, D. (2014). It's Complicated: the social lives of networked teens. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press


Drexler, P. (2013, December 06). Why Teens Need Privacy Online The case against monitoring teens online. Psychology Today. Retrieved July 27, 2018, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/our-gender-ourselves/201312/why-teens-need-privacy-online