The Consequence of Snap Decisions
Oh, the teenage years… for those of us who survived them, we remember our first clunker, pushing the limits as we asserted our independence, our first love and heartbreak, and our other unmentionable firsts. Of course, this vibrant period of our lives was also littered with questionable, and at times terrible, decisions that did not leave any permanent damage (if we were lucky).
But now we live in a different era, where teenage mishaps can have a lasting and global effect. One misjudgment on social media can reach thousands, or maybe even millions, of people and be preserved forever.
The latest victim of teenage social media misjudgment is the Atlee junior league softball team from Mechanicsville, VA, that was disqualified from the Junior League World Series after a photo of some of the players flipping off the rival team circulated widely on social media. League officials cited the “unsportmanlike” nature of the behavior when sanctioning the team.
It’s easy to see the league’s point of view. Bullying and shaming on social media among teenagers must be taken seriously. The consequences are real and can have a permanent impact on the victim’s life. However, it’s also hard not to sympathize with these teens (the players are between 12 and 14). Imagine your seemingly innocuous teenage prank going viral. Impulsivity, testing limits, and learning from failure are part and parcel of the teenage years. With luck, we emerge from this experience as different people: wiser, kinder and more restrained.
For teens today, the digital footprints they make now, can follow them into adulthood. While they might have matured, their adolescent missteps do not and can be revealed through a simple search.
What if there was a way for these social media platforms to give these teens the control they need over their posts? Would these girls have had a second thought, after the thrill of being rebellious and hitting “Post”, if they could have undone the photo immediately after? In a statement that was given to WRIC.com they voiced clear regret:
“We are very sorry for the social media post resulting in the disqualification of our softball team contending for the 2017 world championship. Atlee Little League is an organization made up entirely of volunteers with a proven track record of advancing our standards of sportsmanship in youth sports. We are deeply disappointed this social media post did not reflect the core values of Little League International or Atlee Little League.”
In what other ways can social media platform providers like Snapchat and Twitter, who benefit from advertisers looking to reach a teen audience, provide tools that put their young users in better control of their digital future?
As more of these teen social media dramas meet the national audience, communication providers must urgently empower their users with more control over the messages they send and share.
