Yust, K. (2014). Digital power: exploring the effects of social media on childrens spirituality. International Journal of Childrens Spirituality, 19(2)

From Digital Culture & Society

The article "Digital power: exploring the effects of social media on children's spirituality", was written by Karen-Marie Yust. She focused on how social media can as a spiritual enriching force in children's lives, paying particular attention to the potential value of social media for children's well-being and the way in which the internet positive aspect may cover the bad aspect. She strongly suggested that social media and digital culture, has helped shaped the identity of young kids in our society today. Today, young kids spend a significant amount of time on social media. Two recent studies done in the USA showed that 90-95% of American teens use social media on a regular basis (Yust, 2014). This article was divided into three sub heading. The first, was "the internet as a third place". The author talked about how children see the internet as a place apart from home and school where idiomatic, colourful and freewheeling conversations stake place. Children now see the internet as their new coffee shop, martial art studio, summer camps, community centers and overall a place where they gather outside their primary resident and school. The internet is now considered home for young people. The author suggested that the idea of young people making the internet their third home, has affected their conception of communal life. In other words, they no longer have shared experiences among members of their community. The second heading is teen self-assessment. Research have showed that between 74 and 83% of teenagers in the US said that social media have no effect general well-being. Instead, it encourages them to be more outgoing, less shy, more confident, more empathetic, less depressed and happier (Yust, 2014). Despite the fact that they are excited about social media, 49% of teens still prefer face-to-face conversation. They believe it is more fun and provide a clear conversation. The third sub-heading is "spirituality nurturing aspect of digital culture". This subheading focuses on how social media helps reinforce relationship building effort. With the help of cues such as retweet, likes, friending and friends of a friend give individual cues about their social world in a kind of digital social feedback loop that helps children and teens interpret and reshape their social identities (Yust, 2014). The fourth subheading is identity formations and concern related to digital culture. Although social media may create a community, this community is filled with lonely individuals sitting in front of their phones and laptops. The author also talked about how social media have helped identity theft. She also described social media networks as an endless, paradoxically self-interested, reaching out into other people's business, a kid of publicity for one's personal sake, conjoining high profile events with a kind life event put out for the for the consumption of people that are mostly strangers. Lastly, the author stresses on how privacy issue have increased with the consumption of social media. She said social media sites may appear as user control, but each site regulates certain activity (Yust, 2014). She also touches on how Facebook now sell our information to the highest buyer for advertising purposes. This article was considered strong because it had a lot of research to back up each point. The author did a good job with references as well. She back up each point she made with reference to author's research, this gave the article a stronger voice. Another pro of this article was the sub heading. It made each point easy and simple to understand. The sub heading gave a different point of view as of how social media can affect a child's identity. The only con I noticed from this article was a lot of repetitiveness. She could have gone straight to the point. At some instance the paper started to feel like t had no direction. They were too many similar statistics mentioned in the article overall, which can eventually confuse the reader. Except that the author did a good job overall.