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Rosalind's Classroom Conversations, February 2018
For EducatorsWith my team at Cultures of Dignity, I am constantly working to improve our lesson plans for young people. Of course, some issues that young people face are universal like friendship breakups, rejection and jealousy. However, as social media increasingly integrates into young people’s social lives and influences their identity development, we have to regularly revise our tools to help them understand how they are processing these dynamics.
Recently we had an idea: In our Owning Up curriculum, we ask students to do an armor exercise to reflect on what they show to the outside world vs. what they’re privately feeling and thinking. It is a great way for students to realize why there may be a difference between the two and how that difference may show up in their interactions with others. This difference, between the “public” and “private” you, is one of the fundamental issues for young people and their social media use. We have modified the exercise and are sharing it here.
Activity: How do we build our social media armor?
The purpose of the activity is to process and put into words how students “choose” to present themselves in public and online.
Everyone who uses social media develops a social media personality. This personality is both a reflection of how you want others to see you and also how others see you based on your social media activity. And everyone has their own personal armor that they show online through social media. Understanding why you choose the images and information you post is critical to self-awareness.
Here’s how the activity works.
First, have students look through their recent posts on Instagram, Finstas (fake, private Instagram accounts), Snapchat Facebook, Twitter (or any apps they use) with a critical eye. The goal is to get a sense of what they have been showing the world about themselves and why.
Here are questions they can consider as they look through their posts:
What type of “you” are you curating?
Next, have the students think about what they just learned through the self-reflection and write words and/or draw pictures to describe or represent what they share on social media. Have them reflect on this question: What does your social media personality show to the world?
Then, on the other side of the paper, have them identify in words or images what they don’t show people. Have them reflect on these questions: What do you choose to keep to yourself? Who are you behind the screen?
Examples of their responses to both might include:
Next, have students take out a piece a paper and answer the following questions—they should include the numbers that correlate to their responses:
Examples might include: using a photoshop app to edit body shape, whitening teeth or posting a photo from a terrible night and saying you had a great time.
Explain to students that they will be passing around their sheets anonymously and then students will read aloud responses that were written by other students. Be sure to remind the students of the confidentiality agreement you have made before any session like this: what is said in the room stays in the room and do not provide identifying information. If you are concerned that sufficient trust hasn’t been built in the group, you can ask only students who want to share voluntarily. Remind students that they always have a right to pass.
To debrief this activity, use some or all of the following discussion questions and/or writing prompts:
Here are some takeaways and key points to make if the students don’t raise them on their own:
By addressing social media like we are here, we aren’t lecturing young people about all the bad things we think they’re doing online. We aren’t telling them that their posts are superficial. We’re actually saying the opposite and in a way that encourages the development of their critical thinking and self-awareness in an area of their lives that many of them care deeply about.
Providing young people with the skills to stop and think in the moment about what they’re doing on social media that may be demeaning to themselves or others begins by teaching them how to recognize their motivations and enable self-reflection. Remember, what they choose to present on social media is critical to understanding how they are absorbing cultural messages and then processing those messages as they develop their self-identity and beliefs about their role in their community.