For those of you who do not have children under the age of 21 in the United States, let me fill you in on a secret. The only way to reach them is through the internet and of course, social media. When my 15 year old has friends over or goes to their house, all they do is sit at the computer. When DD had her boyfriend, he came over and they watched You Tube videos. I don't even know how they hear about certain ones, but it's all they do. They listen to songs on You Tube. They check Facebook. And Instagram. About half of them use Twitter. About a third of them use Tumblr. They now use the new app Snapchat, and send snapshots of themselves making stupid faces, and they erase after 10-15 seconds. (Yes, this is the app you may have heard about that the kids can send inappropriate photos because they do, in fact, erase.) They do not watch television. May I repeat, THEY DO NOT WATCH TELEVISION. They don't even talk on the phone, they text. Rarely, if ever, do they have an actual conversation. And if they do, they Skype, so they can see each other make stupid faces. (Although they usually only Skype if they are dating, but I'm noticing the younger kids in junior high are Skyping more than high schoolers here.)
When they do their homework, it revolves around the computer and of course, Google. And as the Christmas holidays come to a close this evening, I can tell you that they all stayed in touch through social media as they travelled to relatives. They screen shot pretty much everything they see, and either message it to their friends or put it up on social media. And it becomes a competitive thing. As it happens, her ex-boyfriend that dumped her for a girl he had been talking inappropriately to (trust me, it was) is now "dating" the girl he cheated with, and she has now posted on Facebook, 23 (yes, twenty three) photos of herself and DD's ex... She also posted a picture of the nice gift he gave her, and is trying to rub it in my daughter's face as she shows him off. Then, in their generation, it also becomes a race to see how many "likes" one of their photos or posts get on social media and of course how many "friends" they have. When I've told my daughter that she should just delete her Facebook account since it depresses her so much, she says it would be social suicide. And that she would still be talked about but not be able to see.
There are regular Joe's who have become "famous" to their generation like "Fred" who has now become so popular with his annoying voice, that he has actually been on some kid shows. I hear them talking about "Jenna Marbles" who seems really stupid, but they think it's great. DD has an entire list of these regular people that do really dumb videos, and get tons and tons of views.
I will add, that the one other thing that her public high school has, is a (real) television channel that they call Channel One, and it is news from CBS that they have created just for high schoolers to start the liberal indoctrination as early as they can with the "Save the Planet" info for example. It lasts for 15 minutes, and her school carves out that much time for the whole school to watch it in second period.
Sigh.
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