Reynol Junco
Iowa State University
Scholars, educators, policy makers, and activists from around the world wondered how we could join forces in order to promote stronger digital literacy skills to improve young people’s quality of life. While there was near-unanimous agreement that improving digital literacy is an important task, there was little agreement on its definition. This is due in part to the fact that there is a wide range of definitions available in the educational literature, but also because digital literacy skills can mean different things in different regions. For instance, a child in a low-resource region might need to learn how to turn on a computer and how to use the mouse and keyboard; while a child in a high-resource region might need to learn how to be a good digital citizen. An exhaustive review of definitions of digital literacy are beyond the scope of this essay; however, it is helpful to identify the broader concepts covered by these definitions. Here, they will be summarized as progressive levels within the framework of digital literacies. At the most basic level, computer literacy refers to the skills necessary to operate hardware and software. These are skills like turning the computer on and off, using the keyboard and mouse, and logging into the operating system (Ferrari, 2012). Web literacies involve knowing how to go online, navigating web pages, and using html to create web pages. Related to web literacies, information literacy skills are the ability “to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information” (American Library Association, 1989). Gasser, Cortesi, Malik, and Lee (2012) expand the definition of information literacy to a framework for information quality that encompasses the process, contexts, and outputs of youth interaction with information. This framework includes the ability for youth to determine their information needs, search skills to obtain that information, the ability to effectively evaluate information found during the search, and the ability to create new information. Additionally, the rise of social media has brought with it a reconceptualization of digital literacies. Social media are applications, services, and systems that allow users to create, remix, and share content and they are very popular among youth globally. When they use these sites, youth are informally learning how to: develop a stable sense of identity (Junco, 2014), build and maintain friendships (Ellison,
Steinfield & Lampe, 2007; 2011; Ellison, Vitak, Gray, & Lampe, 2014), improve their self-esteem (Yu, Tian, Vogel & Kwok, 2010), and feel more integrated into new educational environments (Yu, Tian, Vogel & Kwok, 2010). This work has led some to argue that interactions on social media have led to the emergence of new literacy practices. Greenhow and Gleason (2012), for instance, note that new technologies allow for youth to perform new social acts not previously possible; in a chapter in my upcoming book, I propose that social media allow youth to take risks and “try on” different identities in ways they could never have done before (Junco, 2014). With social technologies, youth must also build skills to understand the technical and psychological aspects of privacy (Junco, 2014). Technical aspects of privacy include such matters as knowing how to engage privacy controls on sites like Facebook, while psychological aspects of privacy involve how youth perceive online privacy (or that information seems more private than it actually is).
Figure 1. Graphic illustrating the core concepts involved in digital literacy skills. Graphic by Arif Khan (@arifkhan7), Digital Marketer, India: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.
In order to summarize previous work on web literacies, information literacy, information quality, and social media literacies, I developed the
framework illustrated in Figure 1 that shows the core concepts involved in digital literacies as progressive levels. At the most basic level, youth consume information—they go online, browse, search, and evaluate information. At the next level, youth participate in online spaces—they interact in online social spaces, share content, comment, and “like” content. At the most advanced level, youth produce their own content—they remix existing videos and music, create mashups, develop memes, and write blog posts. There is a range of skills for the tasks at
each level. For instance, under the information evaluation task, some youth will use basic heuristics to make credibility assessments about websites, while others will use deeper strategies (Gasser et al., 2012). Educators have the responsibility to promote digital literacies, especially as these literacies relate to youth academic and career success. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE, 2014) states that all teachers should “design and develop digital age learning experiences and assessments,” “model digital age work and learning,” and “promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility.” However, teachers often cannot teach more advanced skills because of policy restrictions on the use of social technologies and because of a lack of professional development opportunities. Unfortunately, educators rarely have the necessary skills to teach youth skills beyond consumption.
As supporters of youth development, we must act to improve the avenues by which young people develop digital literacies. Where we can, we must support changes in educational policies and teacher training to improve the teaching of these skills. When resources are not available in the schools, we must develop programs and services to fill these gaps. Given the international, interregional, and inter-individual differences in skills, it is essential to develop assessment programs to provide information about how to best target interventions aimed at promoting digital literacies. However, additional research is needed to evaluate how well skills
learned through informal uses of newer technologies transfer to formal settings like the classroom and work environment. It is my hope that through our Digitally Connected collaborations we can begin to break down the policy barriers holding back the development of digital literacy skills to work towards a more equitable digital future for all young people.
References / Resources / Links
Career Builder.com. (2012). Thirty-seven percent of companies use social networks to research potential job candidates, according to new CareerBuilder Survey. Retrieved from http://
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Chrzan, Q. (2012). Pinterest: A review of social media’s newest sweetheart. Engauge Insight Report. Retrieved from http://www.
engauge.com/assets/pdf/Engauge-Pinterest.pdf
Coward, C., Caicedo, S., Rauch, H., & Rodriguez Vega, N. (2014). Digital opportunities: Innovative ICT solutions for youth employment. International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Telecommunication
en/ITU-D/Digital-Inclusion/Youth-and-Children/Documents/ YouthReport_2014.pdf
Duggan, M., & Brenner, J. (2013). The Demographics of Social Media Users—2012. Pew Internet and American Life Report. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Social-
media-users.aspx
Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook “friends”: exploring the relationship between college students’ use of online social networks and social capital. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 12,1143–1168.
Ellison N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe C. (2011). Connection strategies: Social capital implications of Facebook-enabled communication practices, New Media and Society,13(6), 873–892.
Ellison, N. B., Vitak, J., Gray, R., & Lampe, C. (2007). Cultivating social resources on social network sites: Facebook relationship maintenance behaviors and their role in social capital processes. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, DOI: 10.1111/ jcc4.12078
Ferrari, A. (2012). Digital Competence in practice: An analysis of frameworks.
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Gasser, U., Cortesi, S. C., Malik, M., & Lee, A. (2012). Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality. SSRN Electronic Journal. Retrieved from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/
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Junco, R. (2012a). Too much face and not enough books: The relationship between multiple indices of Facebook use and academic performance. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(1), 187–198.
Junco, R. (2012b). The relationship between frequency of Facebook use, participation in Facebook activities, and student engagement. Computers & Education, 58(1), 162–171.
Junco, R. (2013). Inequalities in Facebook use. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(6), 2328–2336.
Junco, R. (2014). Engaging Students through social media: Evidence based practices for use in student affairs. San Francisco, CA: Wiley/ Jossey-Bass.
Junco, R., Elavsky, C. M., & Heiberger, G. (2012). Putting Twitter to the test: assessing outcomes for student collaboration, engagement, and success. British Journal of Educational Technology, 44(2), 273–287.
Junco, R., Heiberger, G., & Loken, E. (2011). The effect of Twitter on college student engagement and grades. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 27(2), 119–132.
Muscanell, N. L., & Guadagno, R. E. (2011). Make new friends or keep the old: Gender and personality differences in social networking use. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(1), 107–112. Warschauer, M., Knobel, M., & Stone, L. (2004). Technology and equity in schooling: Deconstructing the digital divide. Educational Policy, 18(4), 562–588.
Yu, A. Y., Tian, S. W., Vogel, D., & Kwok, R. C.-W. (2010). Can learning be virtually boosted? An investigation of online social networking impacts. Computers & Education, 55, 1495–1503.
Introduction
Being part of the first Digitally Connected symposium on youth and digital media, co-hosted by the
Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University and UNICEF, was a rare privilege. I had the opportunity to tap into the insights of some of the world’s leading thought leaders and practitioners in the youth and online media space. This has led me to reflect on my own “digital journey” and the influence of digital technologies on knowledge acquisition and skills development. This piece synthesises experiences, opportunities, and challenges of using digital media for learning, and examines their implications for our future. To cover a range of viewpoints, contributions from colleagues sourced through a Google Docs form have been included.