Adults over age 40 grew up without the Internet, instant messaging, Twitter, Snapchat, blogs, cell phones, smartphones, MP3 players, tablets, or digital cameras. At first, the Internet was only for the military, then primarily for businesses and the educated elite. Until 2006, only students at elite colleges could join Facebook.

In contrast, today’s teenagers have been called digital natives, although if that term implies that they know everything about digital communication, it is a misnomer (boyd, 2014). There is no doubt, however, that today’s adolescents have been networking, texting, and clicking for definitions, directions, and data all their lives. Their cell phones are within reach, day and night.

A huge gap between those with and without computers was bemoaned a decade ago; it divided boys from girls and rich from poor (Dijk, 2005; Norris, 2001). Now that digital divide is shrinking.

In developed nations, virtually every school and library is connected to the Internet, as are many in developing nations. This opens up new ideas and allows access to like-minded people, both especially important for teens who feel isolated within their communities, such as those with Down syndrome, or who are gay, or deaf, or simply at odds with their neighbors in beliefs or priorities.

As costs tumble, the device that has been particularly important at creating digital natives among low-SES adolescents of every ethnic group is the smartphone, used primarily to connect with friends (Madden et al., 2013). Connection to peers has always been important to teenagers, and has always been feared by adults—who in earlier generations feared that the automobile, or the shopping mall, or rock and roll, would lead their children astray.

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Although discrepancies in number and quality of devices still follow SES lines, the most notable digital divide is now age: Each older generation is less likely to use the Internet than the next younger one. That may explain why people bemoaning the effects of technology on adolescent minds tend to be over age 50.

In general, educators accept, even welcome, students’ facility with technology. In many high schools, teachers use laptops, smartphones, and so on as tools for learning. In some districts, students are required to take at least one class completely online. There are “virtual” schools, in which students earn all their credits online, never entering a school building, and in Maine all high school students have laptops (Silvernail et al., 2011).

Some programs and games have been designed for high school classes. For example, ten teachers were taught how to use a game (Mission Biotech) to teach genetics and molecular biology. Their students—even in advanced classes but especially in general education—scored higher on tests of the standard biology curriculum than students who did not use the game (Sadler et al., 2013). This suggests that, when carefully used, computer games can enhance learning.

Remember that research before the technology explosion found that instruction, practice, conversation, and experience advance adolescent thought. Social networking via technology may speed up this process, as teens communicate daily with dozens—perhaps even hundreds or thousands—of “friends” via e-mail, texting, and cell phone.

Most secondary students check facts, read explanations, view videos, and thus grasp concepts they would not have understood without technology. For some adolescents, the Internet is their only source of information about health and sex. Almost every high school student in the United States uses the Internet for research, finding it quicker and its range of information more extensive than books on library shelves.

A major concern is that adolescents do not evaluate what they see on the screen as carefully as they should, nor understand the implications of sending a message on impulse. Messages endure, and can be seen by hundreds, sometimes thousands, of unintended recipients, sometimes with unanticipated harm to others or oneself (boyd, 2014).

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Teachers use the Internet not only for research and assignments but also to judge whether or not a student’s paper is plagiarized. Educators claim that the most difficult aspect of technology is teaching students how to evaluate sources, some reputable, some nonsensical. To this end, teachers explain the significance of .com, .org, .edu, and .gov (O’Hanlon, 2013).

In Maine, giving each student a laptop to use in school seems a cost-effective way to advance learning; however, even when students have laptops, some teachers are better at online instruction than others (Silvernail et al., 2011).

Parents worry about sexual abuse via the Internet. Research is reassuring: Although sexual predators lurk online, most teens never encounter them. Sexual abuse is a serious problem, but if sexual abuse is defined as a perverted older stranger taking advantage of an innocent teenager, it is “extremely rare” (Mitchell et al., 2013, p. 1226).

Between 2000 and 2010, percent of teenagers who say that someone online tried to get them to talk about sex declined from 10 percent to 1 percent. Those 1 percent were almost always solicited by another young person whom the teenager knew in person—a Facebook friend, for instance (Mitchell et al., 2013).

Teenagers are actually more suspicious of strangers than they were before the Internet, partly because parents and the police have alerted them to the danger. A Web-based program to teach children how to recognize and avoid sex abuse seems to have had some benefit (Müller et al., 2014). However, such programs may reassure adults more than help teenagers. As one review asserts:

Our data suggest that it would be beneficial for policy-makers and youth-serving professionals, including educators, law enforcement, and mental health personnel, to help youth in general improve healthy sexual and relationship decision-making, improving efforts to communicate with friends, being more assertive, and becoming more skilled at refusing solicitations instead of focusing on specific Internet behaviors.

[Mitchell et al., 2013, p. 1233]

As the next chapter explains, teenagers have much to learn about sex and self-protection.

These myth-busting facts do not mean that unwanted harassment is no problem. Ten years after high school, former bullies and victims—online or offline, sexual or otherwise—are less likely to have graduated from college and less likely to have good jobs or any job at all (Sigurdson et al., 2014). Parents and teachers need to worry less about protecting teenagers against older online predators and worry more about the teenagers who victimize each other.

Even when no social harm occurs, technology may present some dangers, however. It encourages rapid shifts of attention, multitasking without reflection, and visual learning instead of invisible analysis (Greenfield, 2009). Video games with violent content promote aggression (Gentile, 2011).

For some adolescents, chat rooms, video games, and Internet gambling are considered addictive, taking time from active play, schoolwork, and friendship. For teenagers with a troubled family life, Internet addiction is considered a problem worldwide, particularly in China (Tang et al., 2014).

This is not mere speculation. A study of almost two thousand older children and adolescents in the United States found that the average person played video games two hours a day. Some played much more, and only 3 percent of the boys and 21 percent of the girls never played (Gentile, 2011) (see Figure 15.5). Another survey found that almost one-third of all high school students use technology more than three hours a day (this does not include using computers at school), with use higher among boys and non-whites (MMWR, June 8, 2012). The rate has been increasing steadily since 1990.

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At what point and for whom does this become truly addictive instead of normal teen behavior? Many adolescents in the first survey admit that video-game playing takes time away from household chores and homework. Worse, one-fourth used video games to escape from problems, and one-fifth had “done poorly on a school assignment or test” because of spending too much time on video games. The heaviest users got lower school grades and had more physical fights than did the average users (Gentile, 2011).

Using criteria for addiction developed by psychiatrists for other addictions (gambling, drugs, and so on), one study found that 12 percent of the boys and 3 percent of the girls were addicted to playing video games. However, correlation is not causation: Perhaps low school achievement led to video game playing rather than vice versa. Some scholars worry that adults tend to pathologize normal teen behavior, once again particularly in China, where rehabilitation centers are strict—some would say abusive—in keeping teenagers from Internet use (Bax, 2014).

Studies in many nations judge a sizable minority of high school students (e.g., 15 percent in Turkey, 12 percent in India) as “addicted” to computer use (S¸as¸maz et al., 2014; Yadav et al., 2013). Reviewing research from many nations, one team of researchers report addiction rates from 0 to 26 percent. The variation was caused more by differing definitions and procedures among researchers than by differences among students in any particular place (Y. Lee et al., 2014).

The fear that the Internet may undercut school achievement seems justified, however. A study began with younger boys whose parents intended to buy them a video game system. (Such a study could not have been done with adolescents, because almost all adolescents who want to play games online already have the equipment to do so.) Randomly, half of them were given the system, and the other half had to wait four months. Those who immediately received the video game system had lower reading and writing achievement after four months than did their peers who waited (Weis & Cerankosky, 2010).

Most screen time occurs in the child’s own bedroom. About half of all parents place no restrictions on technology use, as long as their adolescent is safe at home. Other parents place many restrictions on their children—not only regarding technology, but on contact with peers, either at home or in a public place (such as a movie theater or store). To socialize, some teens have no choice but to text or log in when their parents are not watching (boyd, 2014).

Some suggest that technology should be banned from schools and bedrooms, but, as one critic writes, “we don’t ban pencils and paper because students pass notes” (Shuler, 2009, p. 35). Some teachers confiscate computers and cell phones used in class, others ignore them, and still others include them in the curriculum.

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Whether extensive use of the Internet qualifies as an addiction is controversial. The psychiatrists who wrote the new DSM-5, after careful consideration of the evidence, did not include it as an addiction. They decided that further study was needed.

Now let us focus on the danger from Internet use that seems most valid. When a person is bullied via electronic devices, usually via social media, text messages, or cell phone videos, that is cyberbullying (Tokunaga, 2010). The adolescents most involved in cyberbullying are usually already bullies or victims or both, with bully-victims especially likely to engage in, and suffer from, cyberbullying. (Developmental Link: Bullying is discussed in Chapter 13.) Technology does not create bullies; it gives them another means to act and a larger audience, which multiplies the harm (Kowalski et al., 2014).

Texted and posted rumors and insults can “go viral,” reaching thousands, transmitted day and night. The imaginary audience magnifies the shame. Not only words but also photos and videos can be easily sent: Some adolescents take video of others drunk, naked, or crying and send that to dozens of others, who may send it to yet others, who may post it on YouTube or Vine. Since young adolescents are impulsive and low on judgment, cyberbullying is particularly prevalent and sometimes thoughtlessly cruel between ages 11 and 14.

While the causes of all forms of bullying are similar, each form has its own sting: Cyberbullying may be worst when the victim believes in the imaginary audience, when the identity is forming, when sexual impulses are new, and when impulsive thoughts precede analytic ones—all of which are characteristic of many young adolescents.

Adolescent victims are likely to suffer from depression, because cyberbullying adds to the typical rise in depression that occurs at puberty. In extreme cases, cyberbullying may be the final straw that triggers suicide (Bonanno & Hymel, 2013).

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The school climate affects all forms of bullying. When students consider school a good place to be—with supportive teachers, friendly students, opportunities for growth (clubs, sports, theater, music), and the like—those with high self-esteem are less likely to engage in cyberbullying and more likely to disapprove of it. That reduces incidence. However, when the school climate is negative, those with high self-esteem are often bullies (Gendron et al., 2011).

Some people believe that cyberbullying is unstoppable. Nonetheless, teens themselves use successful strategies, such as deleting messages from bullies (Parris et al., 2012). As with other forms of bullying, cyberbullies and victims are influenced by the context, which can make it more or less harmful (Kowalski et al., 2014).

One complication is that most adolescents trust technology while many adults ignore it. Parents often are unaware of cyberbullying, and few laws and policies successfully prevent it. Some school administrators insist they cannot stop cyberbullying because it does not emanate from school computers. However, cyberbullying usually occurs among classmates and can poison the school climate, and thus educators must be concerned. Adolescents are vulnerable; they need more protection than most adults realize (boyd, 2014).

The vulnerability of adolescence was tragically evident in the suicide of a California 15-year-old, Audrie Pott (Sulek, 2013). At a sleepover, Audrie and her friends found alcohol. She got so drunk that she blacked out, or passed out. When she came to, she realized she had been raped. On the next school day, three boys in her school were bragging that they had had sex with her, showing pictures to classmates. The next weekend, Audrie hanged herself. Only then did her parents learn what had happened.

One aspect of this tragedy will come as no surprise to adolescents: “sexting,” as sending sexual photographs is called. As many as 30 percent of adolescents report having received sexting photos, with marked variation by school, gender, and ethnicity and often in attitude: Many teens send their own sexy “selfies” and are happy to receive sext messages (Temple et al., 2014). As with Internet addiction, researchers have yet to agree on how to measure sexting or how harmful it is.

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There are evidently two dangers: (1) pictures may be forwarded without the naked person’s knowledge, and (2) senders who deliberately send erotic self-images risk serious depression if the reaction is not what they wished (Temple et al., 2014). Remember that body image formation is crucial during early adolescence, and that many teens have distorted self-concepts—no wonder sexting is fraught with trouble.

Internet connections allow troubled adolescents to connect with others who share their prejudices and self-destructive obsessions, such as anorexia or cutting. The people they connect with are those who confirm and inform their twisted cognition. This is another reason parents and teachers need to continue their close relationships with their adolescents. Note the absence of parents at Audrie’s alcoholic sleepover, rape, cyberbullying, and suicide. (Parent–child relationships are a central theme of the next chapter.)

The danger of all forms of technology lies not in the equipment but in the cognition of the user. As is true of many aspects of adolescence (puberty, brain development, egocentric thought, use of contraception, and so on), context, adults, peers, and the adolescent’s own personality and temperament “shape, mediate, and/or modify effects” of technology (Oakes, 2009, p. 1142).

One careful observer claims that instead of being native users of technology, many teenager are naïve users. They believe they have privacy settings that they do not have, trust sites that are markedly biased, misunderstand how to search for and verify information (boyd, 2014).

Educators can help with all this—but only if they themselves understand technology and teens. Teens are intuitive, impulsive, and egocentric, often unaware of the impact of what they send or overestimating the validity of what they read. Adults should know better, but everyone is sometimes illogical and emotional: We all need time and experience to use technology wisely.

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