Warning: This post deals with eating disorder and self-harm content and is potentially triggering. Following up on Tarleton's terrific post on moderating Facebook comes Tumblr's announcement that it will no longer allow pro-eating disorder (pro-ED) or pro-self-harm blogs on the site. Active Promotion of Self-Harm. Don’t post content that actively promotes or glorifies self-injury or …
Continue reading Is blocking pro-ED content the right way to solve eating disorders?
Over the last couple of years, I've laid awake at night asking myself uncomfortable questions about bullying and teen suicide. I don't have answers to most of the questions that I have, but I'm choosing to voice my questions, fears, and doubts because I'm not confident that our war on bullying is taking us down …
Continue reading Four Difficult Questions Regarding Bullying and Youth Suicide
We all know that teen bullying - both online and offline - has devastating consequences. Jamey Rodemeyer's suicide is a tragedy. He was tormented for being gay. He knew he was being bullied and he regularly talked about the fact that he was being bullied. Online, he even wrote: "I always say how bullied I …
Continue reading The Unintended Consequences of Cyberbullying Rhetoric
Developmental psychologists love to remind us that the frontal lobe isn't fully developed until humans are in their mid-20s. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for our ability to assess the consequences of our decisions, our ability to understand how what we do will play out into the future. This is often used to explain why …
In a cultural context where Congressman Anthony Weiner foolishly published salacious content on Twitter, it's hard to ignore sexting as a cultural phenomenon. Countless adults send sexually explicit content to one another, either as acts of flirtation or more explicit sex acts. And yet, when teenagers do so, new issues emerge. Teen sexting gets complicated, …
In the fall, danah boyd and Alice Marwick went into the field to understand teens' privacy attitudes and practices. We've blogged some of our thinking since then but we're currently working on turning our thinking into a full-length article. We are lucky enough to be able to workshop our ideas at an upcoming scholarly meeting …
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