I have discussed some information and insights about social media and related platforms in my previous two blogs. In my first blog, Social Media Is Good, But Here Is My Concerns…, I discussed that as social media rising and evolving nowadays, we have to care about their negative influences on children, vulnerable users, and those who suffer digital divide, by sharing some data from Common Sense Media.
After we have conscious about using social media positively, the next step is to know what skills we need to possess. In my second blog, Social Media and Participatory Culture, I combined some knowledge from Henry Jenkins, a well-known pioneer, and shared ten possible prerequisite skills, which can help us be more confident to deal with mass information on the Internet or some online communities.
We have had the awareness of the problems or negative impacts and the skills to deal with them. Now, it is time to know where do they lead us: digital citizenship.
What is Digital Citizenship?
The definition of digital citizenship is adapted as social media is evolving.
Moor (1985) defined it was an
analysis of the nature and social impact of computer technology and the corresponding formulation and justification of policies for the ethical use of such technology.
Ribble et al (2004) defined that it was the principles of behavior concerning technology use. Greenhow and Ribble (2009) enhanced that digital citizenship was:
the capability to practice and advocate online behavior that demonstrates legal, ethical, safe, and responsible uses of information and communication technologies (Greenhow & Ribble, 2009, p. 125).
Seven years later, Jones and Mitechell (2016) stressed that digital literacy was the basis of digital citizenship, which focused on respectful online behaviors and online civic engagement.
The most interesting and structured definition of digital citizenship was attributed by Ribble and Miller in 2013. They triaged digital citizenship into three big general categories: Respect Yourself/Respect Others, Educate Yourself/Connect with Others, and Protect Yourself/Protect Others.
In short, digital citizenship encompasses mutual Respectfulness, education, and Protection.
Each of them had three subsets. The “Respect” category includes digital access, digital etiquette, and digital law; the “Education” category includes digital literacy, digital communication, and digital commerce; the “Protection” category encompasses digital rights and responsibilities, digital security, and digital health and wellness (You can see these definitions at the end of the article).
Having digital citizenship is an immediate issue for Generation Alpha. These children are born on the Internet and are influenced by it. According to Greenword et al. (2016), social media become the primary source of information. Without digital citizenship, they may not able to have Jenkins’ ten skills such as transmedia navigation and Networking, rather may develop some negative behaviors such as cyberbullying, fraudulent activity, and internet-based addiction.
One English teacher said in his vlog that some freshmen in China do not have the digital skills, addressed by Laar et al.(2017), encompassing critical thinking, problem-solving, and technical skills. The teacher also stressed that some freshman and sophomores may suffer digital divide that they even did not know how to do presentations. He presumed that students may not have their “own” time, the time that allows them to think deeply and independently.
This postulation might be a universal issue for all students. We absorb knowledge from schools and lectures and surf around on the Internet after school, absorbing greedily and unconsciously others’ ideas or statements without assessment. Therefore, Gen Alpha might not have their unique perspectives on the world they living in.
Therefore, the education of social media competency and digital citizenship is the central promising pinpoints in future education.
How Can We Possess Digital Citizenship?
If skills and nine subsets are what we need to have, then how we can develop them becomes the next question needed to be solved.
First, digital citizenship is constructed on social media, which indicates that it will not exist if we do not talk about social media. Hence, we have to re-introduce or remind you of the basic definition of social media.
Carr and Hayes (2015) believed social media were:
Internet-based channels that allow users to opportunistically interact and selectively self-present, either in real-time or asynchronously, with both broad and narrow audiences who derive value from user-generated content and the perception of interaction with others.
We can infer that social media is a place for you to present or disclose yourself, provide UGC for audiences, and interact with others.
Based on these things, Alber et al. (2015) added that these behaviors have to be appropriate, which coincided with Appropriation, one of Jenkins’ ten skills, that the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content.
Alber et al. (2015) also identify six dimensions that may have relationships with digital citizenships. They are social media self-efficacy, social media experience, effort expectancy, performance expectancy, facilitating conditions, and social influence.
All the dimensions except for the effort expectancy are positively related to the degree of digital citizenship (Xu et al., 2018). Effort expectancy was negatively correlated with social media competency. Since effort expectancy refers to the perceived ease of using social media, Xu et al. thought that it had to be improved in the future.
However, I disagree with them. The negative relationship between effort expectancy and the degree of digital citizenship indicates that the more difficult it is to use social media, the more degree of digital citizenship possesses.
I think the author has to identify the “perceived of difficulty” with “perceived of ease to use social media”. However, they did not identify the difficulties. The perceived difficulty might be caused by the level of content. Some people might resist using social media if they need to think about the content. Imagine what will happen if videos on TikTok are lectures or something needed us to use secondary process thinking?
As aforementioned, digital citizenships are critical for Gen Alpha. It is significant to include some curricula in K-12 education. For instance, edWeb.net (2018) said that some lessons help “students learn to navigate their way around trustworthy vs. untrustworthy sources and learn more about being media creators and consumers.” Some lessons teach them to “reflect and evaluate how they spend their time and make them realize how media affects how they feel, the impact media has on their lives, and the impact media has on those around them.”
Also, we can integrate social media tools such as WeChat to enhance students’ interaction skills such as collaboration with peers and self-directed behaviors. Employing Good Behavior Game might be useful in the education becuase it have been proved for correcting inappropriate behaviors and have long-time influences (Barrish et al, 1969; Donaldson et al., 2013).
Recommendation Reading (Reference)
Alber JM, Bernhardt JM, Stellefson M, et al. (2015) Designing and testing an inventory for measuring social media competency of certified health education specialists. Journal of Medical Internet Research 17(9): 221–221.
Donaldson, J. M., Vollmer, T. R., Krous, T., Downs, S., & Berard, K. P. (2013). An evaluation of the good behavior game in Kindergarten classrooms. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 44(3), 605–609. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.2011.44-605
Greenhow C and Robelia B (2009) Informal learning and identity formation in online social networks. Learning, Media and Technology 34(2): 119–140.
Jones, L.M. and Mitchell, K.J. (2016) Defining and measuring youth digital citizenship. New Media & Society 18(9): 2063–2079.
Moor J.H. (1985) What is computer ethics? Metaphilosophy 16(4): 266–275.
Ribble M, Bailey G, and Ross TW (2004) Digital citizenship: Addressing appropriate technology behavior. Learning and Leading with Technology 32: 6–11.
Xu, S., Yang, H., MacLeod, J., & Zhu, S. (2018). Social media competence and digital citizenship among college students. Convergence: The International Journal Of Research Into New Media Technologies, 25(4), 735–752. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856517751390
Zeng, F., Deng, G., Wang, Z., & Liu, L. (2016). WebChat: a new clinical teaching tool for problem-based learning. International Journal Of Medical Education, 7, 119–121. https://doi.org/10.5116/ijme.5708.e5c4
Terms
Digital access: Full electronic participation in society
Digital Etiquette:
- The standards of conduct expected by other digital technology users
Digital Law:
- The legal rights and restrictions governing technology use
Digital Literacy:
- The capability to use digital technology and knowing when and how to use it
Digital Communication
- The electronic exchange of information
Digital Commerce
- The buying and selling of goods online
Digital Rights and Responsibilities:
- The privileges and freedoms extended to all digital technology users, and the behavioral expectations that come with them
Digital Security:
- The precautions that all technology users must take to guarantee their personal safety and the security for their network
Digital Health and Wellness:
- The elements of physical and psychological well-being related to digital technology use.
Social media self-efficacy
- a person’s beliefs about his or her capabilities to perform desired functions specifically in the social media environment.
Social media experience
- a person’s previous usage of social media and other related tools
Effort expectancy
- a person’s perception of difficulty required for using social media
Performance expectancy
- a person’s perception of the value that social media can provide
Facilitating conditions
- a person’s perception of the support available for using social media
Social influence
- one’s perception of other people’s opinions-particularly those people who are important to them.
