Growing Up Female & Social - Part II: What Teens Wish We Understood

Our parents had it so easy…a letter was theirs to be sneakily read, a phone call, to be eavesdropped.  But we live in a world of pinging secret text messages. Codes, acronyms and apps never to be translated – or even known.  It’s another shift.  A new vocabulary with apps that are missing vowels (tumblr), and acronyms that are meant to leave us out of the story (PIR: Parent in Room).

Where is Benedict Cumberbatch (a.k.a. Sherlock, Alan Turing) when you need him?

Welcome to the new reality.  But what feels like a tidal shift to us, is just a new software update for our teens.

When I bring up teens and social media with my friends, we share the eye roll; the heavy sign; the shaking of the head.  And, inevitably, one of us gives voice to the old lament – the refrain of generations past, “What’s to become of kids today?”

In this, “Growing Up Female and Social - Part II,” I reveal my Digital Daughter Ambassadors answers to what they think we don’t get about social media and what they would like us to know.  

The “100 Club” – More “Likes” Equals More Popularity Points

Your daughter comes home from school declaring that she wants to be part of the “100 Club.”  You are thrilled as you think she is talking about her academic aspirations, but after further discussion you discover that she is instead anxious about her popularity on Facebook/Instagram, and desperate to ALWAYS get at least 100 “likes” on her posts.  You...

a) Admire her goal at achieving popularity on social networks.

b) Decide that you too would like to be part of the “100 club” and ask if there are adult members?

c) Sit her down and talk to her about the fleeting, meaninglessness of popularity in general, and on Facebook/Instagram in particular.

d) Get rid of her Facebook/Instagram accounts.

Another conundrum faced by our digital daughters.  

As girls enter their tweens and teens, friends become the end-all, be-all of social life.  And, when you put smartphones - and the social networking channels that ride on their backs – in the mix, you enable a powerful, sometimes insidious, level of social phenomena.  Yes, social networks are great when they facilitate new connections, a sense of community and empowerment, but the angst that can ensue when it comes to a post with a mortifying lack of “likes” and that awful feeling of being left out, can turn a girl inside out.