What to Do When the Kids Are Not OK

This is part of the Talks at Twelve series from the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research.

From the early days of online communities, many pundits envisioned a world where people could be more connected around the globe thanks to new technology. And yet, this is not the world that social media brought forth. After years of struggling with misinformation, political polarization, and rampant distrust in institutions, many have begun to wonder if social media might be fundamentally malevolent. This has prompted policymakers to focus on regulating kids’ access to social media. Lost in conversations about algorithms and access is a discussion about what youth are looking for through technology and what they need more generally.  Technology mirrors and magnifies the good, bad, and ugly. To appreciate what is happening in youth culture, we must look at digital practices refractively.

In this talk, Dr. boyd will discuss her current work on how youth mental health intersects with technology - and why many of the necessary interventions don’t start with public policy or even technology. The good news is that there’s a lot that we can do right now.

danah boyd is the Geri Gay Professor of Communication at Cornell University and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Georgetown University. Her research focuses on the intersection of technology and society, with an eye towards how structural inequities shape and are shaped by technologies. She is currently conducting a multi-year ethnographic study of the US census to understand how data are made legitimate. She has also conducted research on media manipulation, privacy practices, social media, and teen culture. Her monograph "It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens" has received widespread praise. She founded the research institute Data & Society, where she currently serves as an advisor. She is also a fellow of AAAS, a trustee of the Computer History Museum, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and on the advisory board of Electronic Privacy Information Center. Previously, she worked at Microsoft Research. She received a bachelor's degree in computer science from Brown University, a master's degree from the MIT Media Lab, and a Ph.D in Information from the University of California, Berkeley.