Search results for: “anonymity”

  • Tech Tuesday Question – Social media, perceived anonymity, and future employment

    Tech Tuesday Question – Social media, perceived anonymity, and future employment

    GREAT content on social media and the issue of whether or not anonymous apps really are anonymous! I am giving a presentation to 1,000 college students with an emphasis on what future employers will look for when looking at social media posts. I’m also looking for info on how to prove to them that what they believe they’re posting as anonymous really isn’t.

    I found one of your posts to be especially helpful (Is that message private?)

    If you have other posts or sites that would be helpful about this, I would love to see them. Thanks again, Adam. Great content!

    — Kristin

    This is one of those pressing questions, right? Adults feel the need to provide some fair warning that college life is not real life and what’s cool in college might actually be detrimental to the reason they are at college. Meanwhile, college students stare blankly at an adult who they think speaks another language about their social life. I really think this is more about extended adolescence than specifically social media, but I digress. 

    With the popularity of so-called “anonymous” or “ephemeral” apps, it’s good to remind everyone from time to time that the only one who thinks these apps are private or anonymous are the users themselves. Snapchat isn’t anonymous. Nor is YikYak or Tinder or whatever.

    A few ways they are not anonymous:

    1. Your account is linked to your device ID, your phone number, your email address, or something that you use to sign-on. That points back to you.
    2. The app recognizes your device beyond your username and login info, often times recognizing unique identifiers.
    3. Most apps use geolocation, logging your general location based on your ISP info OR using the GPS function in your phone to pinpoint your exact location every time you access the app.
    4. Your phones carrier is logging your usage. (Text, data, messaging, voice calls, etc.)
    5. You can mask your identity but your language is a unique identifier. The things you talk about, how you talk about them, your phraseology, the way you spell/misspell words, etc. All of these things point directly back to you.
    6. Images you share often have metadata in them that point directly back to your device, geolocation, etc. Save an image to your computer, open in  basic image viewing software, and voila.
    7. As soon as you take a photo/video with your phone, you’ve already lost control of that file. Many phones backup your images directly to the cloud automatically. Even if that’s later deleted, it’s more likely just not shown to you but still in your account for a period of time in case you want to “un-delete it.“
    8. As soon as you send an image/message/video to another person, you’ve completely lost control of what happens to it. They can do whatever they want with it, their device may or may not store it automatically, on and on.

    What does this have to do with employment?

    This is a complicated question because every employer and every hiring process is somewhat different. Likewise, boundaries between what’s acceptable, what’s normal business practice, and what’s legal in the hiring process are somewhat blurred lines.

    A couple of articles on the topic:

    Common sense tells you that there’s a difference between what companies are allowed to do in screening candidates for a position and what they actually do. Someone hiring a person is putting their own reputation and their future with the company on the line, so they are wise to do whatever they can to make sure their candidates are right for the company.

    A few things that an employer might want to know that aren’t on the resume:

    • Character qualities
    • Approximate age
    • Relationship status
    • Background
    • Hobbies, passions, attitude, and stuff like that

    Different employers are going to use different techniques to figure that stuff out. Some will figure that out in an interview or pre-screening phone call. But it’s easy enough to look at public profiles of a candidate on social media.

    Are most employers going to do a full-on investigation that might include seeing if they can find out what you did for Spring Break 2013? Probably not. But don’t be surprised that employers sniff around on your various profiles to see what kind of person you are.

    Expect it. 

    If you don’t have anything to hide than none of this matters.

    But this might mean you have some cleaning up to do, as well.

    Have a Tech Tuesday question for Adam? Submit your question on the sidebar of his blog.

     

  • anonymity

    Now that’s I’ve surpassed the initial stages of “to blog or not to blog” I often wonder two things about my blog. (I’ve got over 1000 hits, all of them can’t be mine!)

    1. Should I go public? Should I ever let people who I know in on my blog? Should I include the link on my e-mail signature? It’s not that I hide the blog from anyone it’s just that I don’t publicize it too much. (YS Forums is the only place I’ve ever linked to.)
    2. Should I rename the blog something less conspicuous? Right now the URL is just my name. I’m not 100% sure that I’m cool with being that up front. When all is well it’s no big deal but I often wonder if there is some way someone will come back to use my words against me.

    All for this starts with the YS boards. I do enjoy the anonymity of going by drew. It provides a certain amount of security that I think I like.

  • Parents, Look Out for Curious Cat

    Parents, Look Out for Curious Cat

    Here we go again. Another app lying to users. 

    There is yet another anonymous question asking/confession social media app floating around the internet claiming they’ve solved the bullying (and suicides) that plague older confessional apps like Ask.fm, this one borrows it’s name from the ever-popular cat movement online: Curious Cat.

    (more…)

  • A Snapchat Interview with an 8th Grade Student

    A Snapchat Interview with an 8th Grade Student

    Back in November I heard from an 8th grade student who wanted to interview me about Snapchat for a research project she was writing for school. Her questions were probing, interesting, and excellent!

    With her permission, and the permission of her parents, I am sharing that interview today.

    J: Why was snapchat created?

    Adam: In my post, Why You Should Delete Snapchat, I wrote this: The fact is that Snapchat was created as a sexting app. Like a do it yourself version of Girls Gone Wild. You might not use it that way, but that’s what it was created for.

    J: Has anyone’s pictures ever been leaked on Snapchat? If so, how?

    Adam: This has happened LOTS. While Snapchat is more secure and better engineered now, they suffered many leaks of account info in their early years. See this post, 200,000 more reasons to Delete Snapchat

    J: Would you consider Snapchat safe? Why or Why not?

    Adam: Safe is a relative term, right? So I’d wonder what you mean by “safe”? Is your data secure? Yes, it is more secure now than 3-4 years ago. Is it safe for a teenager to use? I suppose that’d be determined by what you were doing with the app, what you were posting, what was being sent to you, etc. I would argue that the vast majority of Snapchat usage at this time is normal social media usage for teenagers. But you also can’t lose sight of 2 facts.

    1. Snapchat’s early, explosive growth was fueled by it’s early sexting app history. Why did it take off? Because of sexting. How is it used now? In both safe and unsafe ways.
    2. While many of the concerns I’ve written about have been addressed by Snapchat, it’s important to remember that they didn’t do that by choice. The app is safer today for users because the United States government forced them to comply with laws. Read more about that here: http://adammclane.com/2015/07/29/can-i-use-snapchat-in-a-responsible-way/

    J: What age group do you think was intended to use?

    Adam: The original intent was college-aged people. (See Why You Should Delete Snapchat post) Currently, 70% of Snapchat’s user base is female. My original argument, based on the founders own words, was that Snapchat was created to sexually exploit college girls. While I’ve softened that argument it is clear that the primary users and target audience of Snapchat remain female. Just look at their marketing, it’s geared towards younger females.

    J: Do you think Snapchat exposes kids to online predators?

    Adam: I have engaged with law enforcement officers in many places in the United States across many agencies investigating cases of adults targeting underaged women with Snapchat. Up until the FTC ruling, Snapchat has [sic] no way for law enforcement to force Snapchat to share information that’d be useful for prosecuting sexual predators. They had a reputation for not responding, ignoring court orders, etc. However, after the 2014 FTC ruling, Snapchat is in compliance and provides a way for law enforcement to get the data they need to prosecute sexual predators using their app.

    J: In your opinion is Snapchat much worse than other social media sites such as Twitter and Instagram

    Adam: The ephemeral nature of Snapchat (that the images “disappear” or that things are temporary) does encourage less thoughtful, more whimsical usage. That’s not always bad. In fact, researcher Dana Boyd basically predicted something like Snapchat two years before it was created precisely because teenagers had no where online they could just be goofy without leaving a searchable history. (Like Twitter, Instagram, etc) My reminder to teenagers is that just because the image disappears doesn’t mean that the memory of what you’ve seen does. That’s not the way our brains work! Likewise, I’ve worked with many teenagers who have sent things with Snapchat they regretted. So while the image may only last for a few seconds, the impact of what you’ve sent lives on.

    J: What do you think appeals to teens about Snapchat?

    Adam: This is a really important question, one which I do my best to get parents to understand at my workshops! In her book, It’s Complicated, Dana Boyd says that teenagers need places to hang out with their peers. However, increased busyness, over-involvement, and over-regulating the freedoms of teenagers (See chapter 1 of Robert Epstein’s book Teen 2.0 for more on that… his research shows that adult prisoners have more personal freedoms than American teenagers!) creates the need among teenagers for adult-free spaces. This is what she calls “Networked Publics” which is a fancy way of saying “Online places to hang out.

    J: What age do you think people must be to use Snapchat?

    Adam: Actually, this isn’t about an opinion. In the United States the age is 13. A federal law called COPPA (Child Online Privacy Protection Act of 1993) prevents any online company from collecting personally identifiable information about anyone under the age of 13. I wrote about this here – http://adammclane.com/2014/06/12/allow-children-get-social-media-account/

    J: Do you believe that Snapchat collects information about its users?

    Again, this isn’t a belief, this is a statement of fact. Snapchat collects lots of information about their users. They make this clear in their privacy policy. If you’ll read the privacy policy you’ll see two things I’ve taught people about social media since the early 2000s…

    • There’s no such thing as anonymity or privacy online, just the perception that your activity is private and/or anonymous.
    • You aren’t the customer of a social media company, you are their product. You are freely giving them information which they turn around and sell to advertisers, marketers, and other agencies.

    They make this perfectly clear in their privacy policy. But marketing is powerful… it is, as Seth Godin says, a lie.

    J: Can you think of any positive things about Snapchat?

    Most users use Snapchat in a safe way. And certainly most users seem to enjoy using Snapchat. As I mentioned before, I think that Snapchat addresses a real need among teenagers… a place to just be a teenager without the prying eyes of adults. That’s a very good thing. I just wish that Snapchat were a better digital citizen. I think they are getting there, but it’s taking people willing to do the work to force them to be more responsible.

  • What’s the deal with Burnbook?

    What’s the deal with Burnbook?

    Last week, San Diego county schools went coo coo for cocoa puffs about the social media app Burnbook.

    Megan, our 8th grader, missed school on Monday. When she came home on Tuesday she said the joke on campus was an assembly she missed on Monday. “No one had the app or had even heard of Burnbook. What is it?”

    Yeah, this is what I mean when I say… “Don’t educate 99% of students about something 1% or less are doing.”

    Face meet palm. Seriously. 

    I see schools do this all the time. And it’s why my social media talks are based in principles instead of a single app… let’s educate the 99% about good, healthy habits, and deal with the 1% of problematic students in the counseling office.

    So what’s Burnbook?

    burnbook-homepage

    Basically, Burnbook is Yik Yak for middle and high school students with a couple plot twists.

    Plot Twist #1

    You opt into a community whereas Yik Yak merely implies a community based on your geolocation.

    So when you open the app, you create an account and you pick your community. (Most users would pick their school)

    burnbook-nearby-communities

    The plot twist is that you can pick a different school…

    Just go to the menu, click on Communities, and you can move from one high school to another, or a college or whatever.

    I think this is a problem. Particularly for high schools. You don’t even have to be part of the school to talk about it or be in that community? Moreover, you can just hop from rival school to rival school and post whatever you want?

    Meh, not a fan of that. I’d rather you picked a community and the app made it hard to switch to another one. Maybe only allow you to do that weekly? Seems like the current model allows for and encourages trolling.

    burnbook-menu

    Plot Twist #2

    App administrators are unashamed about monitoring communities.

    Don’t get me wrong, every app does this to some extent. But the Burnbook crew is intentional about trying to moderate things by being visible, correcting bad behavior, highlighting the behavior they want to see on their other social channels, etc.

    For an anonymous and ephemeral app… this is unique. I like that idea. It’s a little old school but in a good way.

    Don’t be fooled. All of the other anonymous apps do this one way or the other. For instance, Yik Yak has paid community people on college campuses which make sure the “Yik Yak game is on point”. But Burnbook seems to have a rather old school mindset of community management from the forum days. They are around and real people. It’ll be interesting to see if this can scale up as the app takes off. But I’m sure that’s something Team Burnbook would see as a good problem to solve.

    Plot Twist #3

    They aren’t interested in geofencing off schools. 

    Last year, Yik Yak very clearly made the decision to target their app at college students by geofencing off every high school and middle school campus in the United States.

    I had a brief chat with Burnbook’s creator Jonathan Lucas about his app last week. Flat out, his philosophy is that school campuses are in need of a way for people to say what’s on their mind. He feels like they can help moderate and sell the idea that this is possible… that teenagers won’t just melt down into being a community that bullies or harasses people online… but that anonymity can and will lead to something positive.

    So when I asked him if he had plans to geofence schools based on pressure from school administrators… he didn’t have any interest in doing that. Instead, he said that they are doing anything they can do to work with schools/law enforcement to rat out the bad stuff in an effort to highlight the good stuff.

    “The majority of people are good,” said Lucas, but you have to “design the app with the most sinister person in mind.”

    To that end, Lucas has implemented several key tools for Burnbook. The first, and most effictive, is a simple down vote system wherein five down votes (perhaps 3 soon!) automatically removes a post. 2-4% of posts are destroyed this way.

    He also has a “blur” option for every photo to protect people’s identities.

    Source

    How big is it?

    This launched in September 2014. It’s really small. That’s part of why it was so odd that San Diego county schools freaked out about it. I mean, compared to Snapchat it’s tiny. (And Snapchat is tiny compared to Facebook… even among teenagers who say they don’t use it.)

    As of right now they are reporting 400,000 users. (.9% of teenagers in America) Snapchat is about 5.4 million teenage users according to Pew. (13% of teenagers in America) Facebook is well over 50%.

    What do I need to know?

    There’s a few little side stories which I think are interesting.

    First, I got clued into Jonathan Lucas’s faith before I spoke to him… he has an Oswald Chambers quote on the homepage of his app. (see screenshot above) He grew up in a Christian home, in many ways he’s a typical student from any of our youth groups. All of that helps me view what he’s trying to do with Burnbook through a certain lens. He’s a newbie to the development world, he taught himself to code, he’s built a small but very interesting little company. All of these are endearing qualities to me. Maybe it shouldn’t– but it makes me a little less judgmental about the whole thing.

    Second, Burnbook is a sapling in a forest of ephemeral, anonymous apps. I’m not saying it won’t make it but I’m not sure it should really be on anyone’s radar at this point, while gaining steam it’s also tiny. What I see in the app and the organization is still beta. But who knows? It could be the next big thing and Jonathan might be on next years Forbes list like Snapchat’s co-founder, Evan Speigel?

    Acquisition seems far more likely than it becoming a big thing. (Whisper, Secret, After School, on and on) That’s a fine exit plan for a first time developer.

    Third, I’m not sure the idea itself is realistic or helpful or developmentally possible. I’m on the fence about it.

    The name Burn Book is a Mean Girls reference. It strikes me as weird that the app has an idea that good can come from anonymously sharing things on a school campus when the app is named after something that happened in Mean Girls.

    It’s kind of an obvious clash of narratives. According to Wikipedia (the collector of all truth… ha!) the Burn Book is “a notebook filled with rumors, secrets, and gossip about the other girls and some teachers.”

    Geez, I wonder why this would make administrators nervous?

    What do I do?

    This is the easy part. 

    Keep reminding the teenagers in your life that there is no such thing as anonymity, only perceived anonymity.

    In the end, Burnbook is no different than all of the other ephemeral and/or anonymous apps out there. I like to tell teenagers, “The only one that thinks it’s anonymous is the users.”

    Burnbook does a better-than-average job at telling students that their posting are linked back to them via their phone number and that they will absolutely cooperate with law enforcment if you do something dumb, like post a bomb threat. [You click OK to several acknowledgements when you create an account with your phone number, there are reminders… maybe too often.]

    But, in the heat of the moment, it’s easy for anyone to forget that that tiny bit of gossip or bragging about an indiscretion ultimately points directly back to you.

    There’s no such thing as privacy online.

    There’s not such thing as anonymity online.

    There’s only the perception of anonymity or privacy.

    Repeat that. Often.

  • Why Ephemeral Matters

    Why Ephemeral Matters

    Ephemeral – lasting for a very short time. “fashions are ephemeral” synonyms: transitory, transient, fleeting, passing, short-lived, momentary, brief, short

    In the social media world, most of what took off and gained traction among teenagers and young adults in 2014 fall into the category of Ephemeral Apps. Things like Snapchat, Tinder, Yik Yak, and others are built on the temporal nature of the messages.
    • A Snap lasts for just a few seconds. (Though Stories last a little longer, they also aren’t as popular as sending a Snap.)
    • On Tinder, you swipe to the right if you want to know more about a person, swipe to the left and they are gone.
    • Yik Yak is all about capturing the unfiltered thoughts of the moment. (I consider it to be the bathroom wall of the internet.) If you live somewhere where the app is active, your Yaks might only be on the site an hour before they go away.

    For most adults, you roll your eyes at things like Yik Yak, Tinder, and Snapchat.

    Understand this– That’s entirely the point!

    RULE #1 – Teenagers and college students want to hang out where adults don’t. The less popular something is for adults, the better.

    RULE #2 – Perceived anonymity and privacy is enough for what they want to do. We’re talking about a generation of app users who have grown up with their lives documented on mommy blogs, Facebook, and Instagram. They ultimately know that there is no such thing as privacy or anonymity online… that things get tracked back to them… but that’s not the point. The point is creating private space from the prying eyes of adults and/or people they don’t want to connect with. The perception of anonymity or privacy is just fine with them.

    Why Ephemeral Matters

    When I’m talking to parents or youth workers or school administrators they are dealing with very practical problems.

    But I don’t think you can problem solve ephemeral apps without first taking the time to understand why it’s important for teenagers and what it’s in response to within our society.

    1. Ephemeral matters because it’s seems safer than other options. “Safer” can mean a lot of things. Safer from mom and dad, safer from creepers, safer from getting tracked back to you, on and on. Posting on Twitter or Facebook, where adults persist, is dangerous. Posting on Snapchat? Totally safer.
    2. Ephemeral matters because it’s just chatting. As Danah Boyd so aptly drove home in her book, It’s Complicated, American society has systematically eliminated the places teenagers used to hang out free from the prying eyes and ears of adults. (Malls, streets, casual sports, etc.) These apps matter because these become the places where they can hang out. They may have very little “free time” that you or I grew up with, these apps provide the space to just chat. (This is why taking them away is so traumatic.)
    3. Ephemeral matters because it’s outside of adult control. Beyond the prying eyes, beyond the deep signs, beyond the misunderstanding, beyond the control-freak-parenting-methodology… ephemeral apps are a response to all of this. It doesn’t matter because of them, it matters because of  us. 
    4. Ephemeral exists because of general isolation everyone is experiencing. Here’s a challenge. Go sit at Starbucks with a pad of paper. Sit in a corner by yourself so you can see the whole store. In a 15 minute period, make a tick for every person who is in the store, comes or goes. Next, make a tick for every time someone looks at a screen. (Phone, computer, tablet.) What you’ll likely observe is that people are generally isolated from the life in front of them because they are absorbed by the life on the small screen in their pocket. This isolation creates the need for places you can speak flippantly, without worry that what you say is going to get back to your parents or boss or whomever. We all need places where we aren’t making “official statements” or having an “official position” but just have a place to say whatever comes to mind or feels good in the moment.
    5. Ephemeral persists because of the neurological high. Lastly, and perhaps an area where the least is known, is this idea that apps trigger your brain to check notifications, likes, and send responses at the neurological level which can mean that you don’t know why you’re checking it or using it so much… you just are. (More on that here)

    My advice? As an adult, it’s easy to just deal with the frustrations caused by things you haven’t taken the time to understand. Don’t waste your time trying to talk people out of using apps. (You’re actually increasing their desire to use them!)

    Instead, take the time to understand why these apps matter to the young adults in your life. Just because you don’t get it doesn’t mean something is bad. It might mean that you need to be the learner and not the teacher. 

  • Yik Yak Threats Are a Bad Idea

    Yik Yak Threats Are a Bad Idea

    CBS News 8 – San Diego, CA News Station – KFMB Channel 8

    [Link to the above video – I appear in a phone interview talking about the situation at Torrey Pines High School and Yik Yak, in general.]

    Yik Yak has a problem.

    The harder they try to market themselves as an app for college students the more high schoolers they attract.

    In fairness, they really have been a good digital citizen. 

    They make it easy for law enforcement to contact them, they provide information to aid investigations when they receive a court order, and they went to great expense and effort to geofence off every middle and high school over the summer. They’ve even made it possible for school administrators to request geofencing or correct it.

    And yet problems persist. The perception of anonymity gives some teenagers license to wreak havoc. Just like there were idiots who pulled the fire alarm every day at Hanau American High School when I was a junior in high school, the (child of) that same idiot will make threats on Yik Yak.

    “You Are So Dumb”

    You-are-dumb-you-are-really-dumb-fo-realIn the words of a great American, Antoine Dodson, I say this: If you think you can post an anonymous threat on Yik Yak and get away with it… You are so dumb.

    Here’s What You Need to Know

    All of the so-called anonymous and ephemeral apps point directly back to you. (Yik Yak, Snapchat, Whisper, Secret, etc) The only people that thinks things disappear or are anonymous are the users.

    So if you are using these apps and thinking it’s all private or secure or anonymous, recognize that this is merely a perception.

    There is no such thing as privacy or anonymity online, only the perception of privacy or anonymity. 

    Here’s Some Reasons Yik Yak Threats Are a Bad Idea

    • To create an account you need a valid email address. Oops. 
    • Even if you use a fake or “anonymous” email address to create an account, the IP address associated with your account points back to you. (Learn about IPv6 — “Every device on the Internet is assigned an IP address for identification and location definition.”) Oops. 
    • Most people are too lazy for that so they login with their Facebook account. Oops. 
    • With Yik Yak specifically, the app simply won’t work if you don’t have the GPS on your phone activated for the app. (Location Services for Apple Users) So while a Yak posted my only show you a general area it’s posted from, the app recorded your exact location when you posted. Oops. 
    • When you post an image to something like Whisper or Snapchat… the image itself has TONS of metadata that points directly to your device and location. Oops. 
    • The data network on your phone is constantly pinging your location back to your service provider. Actually, the GPS on most phones actually works even if you have data turned off. In other words, if that phone is on, it’s logging your location within about 10 feet. Oops.
    • The cellular network on your phone connects to nearby towers each time you make or receive a call or send a text. While not as accurate as the GPS, it establishes that you are within a general area. Oops. 
    • Let’s say you think you are slick and use a VPN. Wanna know what? Your phone logs that you used that VPN. So if a threat came through a VPN and your phone used the same VPN? Oops. 

    And do you know how hard it is to get all of that information? Not that hard if you are law enforcement. A court order, subpoena, or search warrant is all that’s needed. A little paperwork and the signature of a judge.

    So, let’s say you make a threat about a school on an “anonymous” app. Within about two weeks you’ll discover that what you thought was anonymous was anything but that.

    Far from putting on winter gloves and pulling the fire alarm in 1993, an online threat posted to Yik Yak or another so-called anonymous app leaves a digital footprint that easily establishes your guilt. All of this data is admissible in court. And all of this data will prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that you did it.

     

    Yes! I agree that it’s weird that I have to write this. It feels kind of obvious. But then again… every day a new story emerges of someone doing it. So, I guess this post really is needed.

  • 4 Emerging Apps for High School Students

    4 Emerging Apps for High School Students

    I’m often asked: “What’s the big social media thing with teenagers right now?”

    That’s a really hard question right now because of a fractured landscape. Unlike in 2010, when Facebook dominated, it’s hard to point to a single application and say it’s the big thing.

    The only thing I’d describe as dominant right now is texting. According to Amanda Lenhart of Pew Internet Research 95% of teenagers use the internet regularly, 78% have a cell phone, and 75% of all teens text.

    Three Overarching Behavioral Trends

    Instead of dominant applications I’d like to point to dominant behavioral trends among teenagers which help us old people understand the behavior more than just get excited about what’s cool.

    Here’s three:

    1. Teenagers/young adults go where their parents aren’t – In some sense this is a no brainer yet needs to be called out. For the most part teenagers isn’t going to make a social media app their go-to if it’s the same application their (overbearing, over-involved) parents use. Now that Facebook is the #1 network for 35-49 year olds, many teenagers don’t use it as often. Likewise if their parents are on Instagram, they become less interested, if mom is on Twitter, they tend to shy away or have multiple accounts.
    2. Teenagers Hide in Plain Sight with Coded language – Dana Boyd’s book, It’s Complicated, does a great job documented how teenagers code language and behavior so that their friends know what they are talking about while adults are kept clueless. I find this especially true on popular social media apps like Twitter & Instagram. Often times an adult will skip right over a post because it doesn’t make sense (or is overly emotive) when in fact it’s a coded message their friends totally understand. (For example: An image with a quote from a song or a meme can communicate meaning beyond the lyrics. Sometimes you’ll see emoji responses from friend or a bunch of likes on a post from friends to show support.)
    3. Perceived anonymity is enough – When I talk to teenagers about the reality that there’s no such thing as anonymity online, only perceived anonymity… they really do care and understand that what they do online can be traced back to them. So they fully realize if they post a threat that police or an investigator could find out that they did it. But they also know that perceived anonymity is good enough for most of what they want to do because 99.99% adults in their lives don’t truly care what they do online, as a result perceived anonymity is just as good as real anonymity for what they are doing.

    4 Emerging Apps for Teenagers

    Preamble: I’m pointing these apps out, specifically, not because I think they are dangerous or adults need to freak out about them. I am mentioning them because I’m seeing/hearing/observing a high amount of teenage activity on them. (Mostly anecdotally, the research tends to trail behind a bit.)

    Tinder

    Tinder is pretty simple. The app displays images, you swipe to the right if you like the person’s picture and left if you don’t. If the corresponding person also swipe’s right on your picture… the app connects you as a match. It’s basically a slightly more grown up version of Hot or Not.

    Tinder is targeted at young adults. But, like is so perfectly demonstrated in the promotional video above, Tinder is attractive to teenagers because it’s promoting the idea that this is how young adults are meeting new people right now. Watch the video with the eyes of a 15 year old… young adults know that this isn’t how life really works, but if you’re 15… that looks/feels grown up and that’s the life I want. (Who doesn’t want to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge with a friend, snapping selfies, then play in Central Park flirtatiously?

    Yik Yak

    yik-yak-logo

    The Yak burst onto the teenage seen in the worst way possible, negative publicity in the mainstream media. Early 2014 saw tons of news articles about bullying and bad behavior on high school campuses. These stories have persisted with more and more high school and college campuses banning the app, which of course just makes it more popular with high school students!

    But, as Lora Kolodny reported in the Wall Street Journal, Yik Yak pivoted their approach over the summer. They geofenced their app from every middle and high school in the United States [meaning that you can’t post or view the app while at school] and refocused their efforts on college campuses.

    I live very close to San Diego State University, where the “Yik Yak game” is pretty active. I’ve been keeping tabs on campus usage for about a month now and I have to be honest in saying that I see Yik Yak as mostly harmless. It’s college students whining about early classes, talking up their fraternity, and bragging about their drug/sexual exploits.

    I’m mentioning this as an emerging app for teenagers because, like Tinder, teenagers have a natural tendency to look up to college students and replicate their behavior. If Yik Yak establishes a foothold on campus it’ll trickle back down to high school students. The big challenge I see for Yik Yak, behaviorally, is “Will it establish it’s own vernacular?” [Like Twitter has done] Right now, that hasn’t happened. I think it can overcome basically being pointless… but only if it establishes a reason why it’s pointless via a vernacular.

    Twitch

    twitch-logo

    I should be clear, Twitch isn’t an emerging application for teenagers, it emerged a year ago. But it’s about time it’s recognized as such. What is Twitch? Twitch is a video game streaming service used by gamers.

    The premise is simple… login to Twitch and watch your favorite gamer play your favorite game live. (Usually with commentary by the gamer along the way.) In our house, it’s pretty normal for our kids to watch streaming gameplay while they are playing. It’s one of the reasons they don’t watch TV… ever.

    Unlike Tinder and Yik Yak I think Twitch is going to move up to high school as younger, more game-addicted, teenagers move up from middle school.

    WhatsApp

    whatsapp-logo

    WhatsApp is one that hasn’t exactly emerged for American teenagers yet, but I’d put it on the watch list because of a couple specific reasons.

    1. It’s where parents aren’t. Lots of teenagers use non-text-messaging services because their parents monitor their texts. Whatsapp is like Kik, but better.
    2. It’s owned by Facebook. Just this week, Facebook officially closed on a $19 billion deal on Whatsapp. Facebook currently owns a giant repository of more than 1 billion people’s social data. When the largest holder of social data makes their biggest investment in a messaging app, you know messaging is about to become the biggest pivot in Facebook’s history since they dropped “The” from their name nearly 10 years ago.

    So while Whatsapp might not be a thing among American teenagers right now, I think we’ll see it emerge as a player in the next 6 months. (Full disclosure: I have a Whatsapp account with exactly zero connections! I’m struggling to get started.)

    Wrap-Up

    Over the next few months I’ll be presenting to a number of students and parent groups. Between the feedback I get there, the observations I make among teenagers as I travel, and forthcoming research it’ll be interesting to see which of these, if any, can become dominant.

    My prediction is that the age of pseudo-anonymity is fading and teenagers will once again flock to a new place, en masse, where everyone somehow has a verified identity. (ala Facebook) And I wouldn’t be surprised to see it be… a reinvented Facebook.

  • Cyberbully Action Plan

    Cyberbully Action Plan

    Last week, a fellow volunteer in our high school ministry asked me for some advice about a student in her small group who is being bullied online. Specifically, the attacks are coming from anonymous accounts on Instagram, Facebook, and Ask.fm.  My friend told me that the student had already talked to the school counselor about it, but the attacks hadn’t stopped and were now affecting her school work, sleep, etc.

    I wanted to share the advice I gave as a starting point for other youth workers, educators, parents, and individuals faced with the same issue. (Obviously, I’ve edited this a little bit to make it general.)

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  • Adam’s Guide to Trolls

    Adam’s Guide to Trolls

    The other day I heard future Hall of Fame basketball coach Tom Izzo talk about the impact of internet trolls on his players while doing an interview with ESPN Radio.

    Yeah, trolls are such a big deal that he has to teach 18 year old basketball players how to deal with foul mouthed fans.

    (more…)

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