Journal # 6 - Working List of Articles on Youth and Social Networking

Greenhow, C. (2009). Social scholarship: Applying social networking technologies to research practices. Knowledge Quest, 37(4), 42-47. ~Peer Reviewed~

• At first glance - talks about how social networking sites can be used to promote scholarly research in education.  One way is by having links, and notes from the professor posted so that students can link to their page and use it as a springboard to answer their own questions or better develop questions brought to the professor's attention.  Cites examples of how this is already being used in libraries. 
• Key words found in the article: Web 2.0 - Social Networking - Social Bibliography Sites - CiteULike - Diigo - Research Building

Lamb, A. (2007). Intellectual Freedom for Youth: Social Technology and Social Networks. Knowledge Quest, 36(2), 38-45. Retrieved from Library Lit & Inf Full Text database

• At first glance - talks about school librarian's role in helping youth develop necessary skills when accessing social technology. Gives popular issues, lists the librarians role in those issues, and the first steps you can take to overcoming or battling those issues.
• Issues discussed:
• controversy about age appropriateness
• laws such as Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) and  The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPRA)
• using social networks as a tool to collaborate and communicate in teaching and learning
• content sharing

 Lenhart, A., Purcell, K., Smith, A., & Zickuhr, K. (2010, February). Social media & mobile internet use among teens and young adults. Retrieved from the Pew Internet & American Life Project website: http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Social-Media-and-Young-Adults.aspx (Not Peer Reviewed).

• Talks about social networking trends among teens and young adults
• shows a move from individual blogging towards using social networks such as Facebook and Twitter
• Looks at some of the activities teens and young adults participate in on social networks
• using multiple profiles
• current events and political updates
• online shopping
• health information

Rideout, V., Foehr, U., & Roberts, D. (2010, January). Generation M2: Media in the lives of 8- to 18-year-olds. Retrieved from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation website: http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/8010.pdf

• reports on technology trends and usage among youth 8 to 18
• study has been done over a period of years from 1999, 2004, and 2009.
• tv, computers, internet, social networks, cell phones, music, are some of the topics discussed
• surveys of 2,002 youth
• 702 seven day diary respondents

Journal Entry #5 - Youth and Technology: Keyword Searching

I found that I prefer keyword searching whenever possible.  I also tended to go into one article and follow the "other works that cited this" list links to other promising pages until it was hard to remember where exactly I started searching.  It got difficult to back track but I did find some good articles this way. 

I also liked scanning the reference list of the articles I found were well done to see what references they used.  Before checking if I had access to those other articles though I would check the date to help determine how relevant they may be to my research.  Since technology changes so rapidly, the more recent the article the more likely I was to consider looking further into it. 

Search words/combinations used:

• first search was "youth" and "technology"
• then started searching "youth" and
• "social networking"
• "mobile technology"
• "grieving"
• "started using "teens" and "teenagers" instead of "youth" with various other keywords such as
• technology
• cell phones
• texting
• social networks
• started searching "social networks" paired with other keywords such as
• social skills
• communication
• politics
• grieving
• found that when searching social networks, the majority of research tended to focus on teens rather then adults as opposed to when I was searching for "technology" or "Internet" I needed to specify "youth" or "teens"

Journal Entry #4 - Research Ethics in Human Testing

Last week, I completed the NIH's Protecting Human Research Participants workshop as part of our class requirements.  The workshop not only taught us what types of guidelines we should use when conducting research with humans but also the why behind why those guidelines were put into place.  It's really some nasty stuff.  In a yahoo article, Stobbe (2/27/10) discusses and gives an overview of some of the past medical testing experiments that's been done.  I really don't want to envision what those researchers were thinking or not thinking when they were experimenting on people like that.  I don't like the thought that they were probably doing those experiments with the best intentions of finding a cure or saving humanity.  After reading this article and the information in the workshop, I am really glad that there are guidelines out there for researchers to follow. 

This has me reflecting on how ethics plays a part in my own research.  Am I protecting those involved in my research as well as possible?  Am I watching out for those who can't protect themselves such as children in my research?  Luckily this isn't a new area of thought for me.  When working towards my child development degree I was taught the importance of protecting children during research or observations.  But most of my observations were on a small scale, in a single classroom or of a single child.  Only lately have I been thinking in terms of research at the larger level - such as a whole community or a library filled with patrons.  

My past research has been heavy in observational notes.  It seems normal to me to not use a person's real name when writing about situations and to let them know what I am doing in terms of why I am researching.  Confidentiality, anonymity, and trust are all conducive to my natural way of researching.  It isn't in me to take advantage of someone intentionally.  I definitely think we need to be aware of all aspects of what we are doing when we research.  We need to look at it from different viewpoints and angles in order to assure ourselves and those we are researching that we are truly minimizing the amount of risk and harm they may come in contact with.