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Sameer and I are just putting the finishing touches on a paper that examines the social networking behaviors of adolescents who are on MySpace.  For the past five years, we have annually taken random samples of MySpace profiles and analyzed them for content to ascertain any changes in adolescent participation and information sharing on the site.  We have published two papers reporting results from this research, and are poised to submit another to an academic outlet in the next week or so.

Because it takes SOOO long for academic research to make it into print, we have decided to post some preliminary results here.  This most recent paper compares a random sample of over 9200 profiles reviewed in 2006 with a random sample of around the same number reviewed in late 2009 – three years of dramatic changes in the landscape of online social networking.  Most of what this research has uncovered is not altogether surprising; it basically supports what most who follow adolescent use of these interactive platforms already know.

First and foremost, teens (and many others) are simply abandoning MySpace.   In 2006, 6.4% of the profiles sampled had been abandoned or deleted.  In 2009, that number was 35.5%.  In 2006, over 40% of the profiles were ‘active’ – meaning accessed within the previous 7 days.  In 2009, that number dropped to about 18%.  Finally, about 60% of the teen profiles sampled had not been logged onto in over a year.  In our opinion, this trend is unfortunate because MySpace has been an industry leader in promoting safety and responsibility on its site—contrary to the opinion of many parents and most state attorneys general.

When looking at adolescent participation on MySpace in more detail, the initial findings are telling.  Significantly more teens now set their profile to private (39% in 2006; 82% in 2009).  Briefly, significantly fewer teens now have public profiles which: 1) reveal pictures of friends in their swimsuit or underwear; 2) contain swear words; 3) include evidence of participation in adult-oriented behaviors such as tobacco, alcohol, or marijuana use; or, 4) report information about which school they attend.  In general, the results suggest that teens are being increasingly more selective and discrete about what they share and with whom they share it (at least on MySpace).

If you would like more information about this research, feel free to drop us a line and we would be happy to answer any questions you have.  Stay tuned to this blog as we will post the final paper when it is ready for distribution.  The earlier papers from this study, which appear in the Journal of Adolescence and the most recent issue of New Media and Society, are available.  If you have any trouble finding them, just email us and we can send a copy your way.

If you’ve logged into Facebook over the last few hours, you may have noticed an open letter from its founder, Mark Zuckerberg.  The letter discusses forthcoming improvements to better safeguard the experience and participation of users on the site.  We at the Cyberbullying Research Center highly approve of these changes, and believe they will assist in reducing online harassment and youth vulnerability to victimization.

While they will be discussed in greater detail after the rollout, Zuckerberg indicated that regional networks will be eliminated, since many networks have thousands and millions of members and therefore allow more openness and visibility in profiles than may be preferred by some users.  Secondly, they will be consolidating all of the privacy and security settings into a few (or maybe even one?) page.  Currently, they are scattered across numerous screens, and I would say it takes users a solid 15-20 minutes to go through each screen and completely lock down their profile to their preferences. Finally, Facebook will allow us to control who out there sees any and every single individual piece of content (note, picture, video, etc.) you upload or create.  This is fantastic, and has been heavily requested for months now.

Facebook has impressed me with the granular level of control it has historically allowed individuals, and this feature will take social networking security to the next level.  Presumably, their privacy initiatives and mechanisms will also serve as a model for other Web 2.0 sites to emulate.

An interesting controversy has emerged in the last couple of weeks over the word “meep.”  What does meep even mean?  Frankly, it doesn’t really matter.  In fact there are numerous and varied definitions of, and uses for, the word meep.  The most frequent use among adolescents, it seems, is to replace an inappropriate word with meep, as in “What the meep!?!”

So the recent controversy emerged when students at Danvers High School in Massachusetts threatened to disrupt the school environment by muttering, yelling, and collectively spewing the word meep during class time.  Danvers Principal Thomas Murray was tipped off about the planned disruption and preemptively threatened to suspend students who spoke the word or showed up to school with the word printed on clothing.  This, of course, incited folks from around the country to contact Mr. Murray to express their dissatisfaction with this seemingly ludicrous policy.  To be sure, the courts have ruled that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”  That said, school officials do have the right to restrict speech and/or discipline students for speech or behavior that results in (or has a high likelihood of resulting in) a substantial and material disruption of the learning environment.  In this case, I think it is clear that the students involved were in fact planning a substantial disruption.  So, it doesn’t matter that the speech involved wasn’t really even a real word.

When I was in middle school, my classmates and I started humming in English class.  The teacher was getting pretty upset by this and was walking around the classroom trying to identify the offending party.  When he went to one side of the classroom, students in the other side would start humming.  When he moved to the other side, the other students stepped up and continued the humming.  Clearly, the act of humming is not obscene or otherwise generally subject to discipline in any environment outside of the school.  But at school, if it causes or threatens to cause a substantial disruption, it can (and should be) stopped.  In our case, the teacher refused to administer our planned quiz until the humming stopped.  It didn’t, so we all failed the quiz.  To this day I have a hard time identifying prepositions!

This is an important case because as much as I agree with everyone that restricting the use of a nonsensical word is in itself nonsensical, it is necessary that school administrators have the ability to maintain an appropriate, civil, and safe learning environment at school.  Educators need the support of parents and other community members when they take actions to ensure an appropriate school climate.  This is especially true since many forms of relational aggression, including cyberbullying, are often more subtle and therefore may not be automatically identifiable as something warranting intervention.   At the same time, they also need to be held accountable when their policies or practices cross the line of being overly restrictive.  In the case of meep, from what I have seen, I think they were being reasonable in their efforts to prevent a disruption from occurring.  What do you think?  Is Principal Murray going too far with this?

Following up from my last blog post, and after talking to a number of individuals working in various school districts, this is what we know:

1) FERPA allows schools who learn the identity of a cyberbully upon investigation of an incident that affects the climate or environment or values of the school to protect that identity and refuse to share it with a cyberbully victim (or their family).

2) Some states require schools to report behaviors in violation of state law just as they are required to report other criminal acts (e.g., drug use, weapons possession, sexual assault).  For example, here in Florida the scenario depicted in my last post could be classified as a violation of the following criminal law: “Any person who willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly follows, harasses, or cyberstalks a minor under 16 years of age commits the offense of aggravated stalking, a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.”  As such, the school would be obligated to report that to the police.

3) A cyberbullying victim (or their family) may therefore be able to learn the identity of a cyberbully by contacting law enforcement, who would not be bound by FERPA.

I hope this helps us a little.  If you have further insight into this issue, please let us know.

In April, Justin briefly blogged about this article from the Washington post entitled My Students. My Cellphone. My Ordeal. I’d like to follow up by saying that more educators are contacting us with questions on what to do in cases where students have cell phones with sexually-explicit pictures of other youth on them.  While the administrator in the aforementioned article probably could have done a few things differently to prevent the nightmare he experienced, I still want to encourage school personnel to hand it over to law enforcement immediately after they confiscate the incriminating cell phone and before they unwisely decide to search its contents.  While school administrators need a lesser standard of proof than law enforcement to perform searches at school, I believe that they should err on the side of caution and let sworn representatives of the law identify and work with sexually-explicit pictures or videos of youth.  Thankfully, the administrator was not convicted on any count, and the entire case was thrown out on the basis of a misapplication of the charges brought by the prosecutor.  The entire situation, however, was premised on a lack of information, understanding, and rationality on the part of the prosecuting team – which makes me concerned about future cases across our country.  If we are going to possibly implement more regulation and respond with greater formal sanctions in new technology cases, we must make sure that those in the criminal justice system with the power to drastically alter the lives of others need to intelligently interpret the Constitution, case law, and *all* the facts of a situation without allowing zeal, emotion, and sensationalism color their actions.