multiple ties that contain overlapping information [ 14]. This distinction is theoretically grounded but has strong practical applications: when measuring technical capital, is there a difference in effect between having one tech-savvy parent or two? Does it matter if the parents offer a diverse range of skill sets? And how do other alters like siblings, aunts and uncles, or friends’ parents factor into the equation? Volume, heterogeneity, and upward reach among network ties— especially local family ties—are important indexes into technical capital in a teen’s social network [10].

Parents and Local Community

Amidst the media perpetuated images of teen deviance and helicopter parenting, much time has been spent discussing sites where teens and parents can’t coexist, but little time has been spent investigating sites where they can.

There is a curious dualism between teens’ social life and family life online. Offline, they are physically grounded and geographically constrained by their home and family, but they have no such fixed space online. There are few contexts in which parents and teens are encouraged, or even allowed, to interact online. In fact, most popular press perpetuates and exacerbates parent-teen disparities, with headlines like: “The Helicopter Parents Are Hovering on Facebook” (Wall Street Journal, Sep. 8, 2009); “Teens to parents: It’s our Facebook” (USA Today, Oct. 4, 2007); “Facebook teens try to stop parents intruding” (Sydney Morning Herald, Aug. 8, 2009); “Worlds Colliding: My Mom’s on Facebook!” (Business Week, Sep. 4, 2007).

Yet, parents, and other local support systems like siblings, peers, teachers, and community members can have strong positive influences on teens.

Assumptions of normative family relationships are deeply rooted on both local and personal levels. When I asked a group of girls in an Oakland, California program to identify their role models, they responded almost unanimously, “My mom.” One asked me, unceremoniously, “Do you like your momma’s boyfriend?” Yet, broader themes characterize the non-normative family unit. My lab-mate, Betsy DiSalvo, described the same mom-heroism in her work in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with girls from different socioeconomic, ethnic, and family backgrounds than the Oakland-based kids.

We are interested in designing around teens’ local community for several reasons. First, people living in close geographic proximity may be likely to share common characteristics, like age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status [ 2]. This is particularly the case for teens living at home and attending schools in local neighborhoods. Connecting them online can help them form ties, access information and resources, and build a support network [ 6, 11]. Second, connecting people who live in the same neighborhoods, towns, and regions may foster community

 

❝Amidst the media perpetuated images of teen deviance and helicopter parenting, much time has been spent discussing sites where teens and parents can’t coexist, but little time has been spent investigating sites where they can.❞

interest and participation [ 15, 16]. Last, much of Internet research in the past two decades has focused on the potential for connecting people across long distances. We are interested in returning to the local.

Practical Applications:
Designing for Positive Social Change

This research is part of a broader agenda toward designing for social change based on how people are influenced by one another online. Bandura’s social learning theory describes how people learn through observation and imitation of others’ behavior [ 1]. Social learning theory has been used to explain why people join gangs, or become alcoholics or drug addicts. In each of these situations, people are influenced by observing external social forces around them that lead them to do things they otherwise might not have done.

People learn from one another in school hallways, community neighborhoods, and public parks; however, it is difficult, if not impossible, to measure and evaluate learning as a social process in these offline contexts. The social Web offers new opportunities for measuring and designing for positive social learning online.

In one study, we are focusing on the role of parents and parenting in teens’ lives. Parents as Partners 2016 is a social network for parents at a local Atlanta school. The site was designed to inform and engage parents about the kinds of things their children are doing with technology by having them actually participate in their own online social networked community centered around their 6th grade children. Our goals are to learn about parents’ attitudes toward technology and their children’s use of technology, and critically, to identify points where parents can influence and encourage their children to be informed consumers on the Web.

In a second study, with Erika Shehan Poole and Jill Dimond, we examined ways that life disruptions influence help-seeking and technological support. We analyzed posts contributed to an online technology support board to show how life disruptions fundamentally impact technology practices and routines. We found that life disruptions usually thought of as separate from technology—such as birth, death, or divorce—present situations in which families must take on new roles, not only as social support providers, but also as technical support providers. That is, people’s need for help might be better supported online by communities based on social similarity [ 17] and shared life disruptions like death, divorce, or unemployment, rather than around technical topics.

Future of the Social Web

During summer 2009, I worked at Microsoft Research New England, and in 2008, I worked at HP’s Social Computing Lab. Both labs contained a mix of social media researchers, computer scientists, and physicists.

At both of those positions, I had great conversations and debates about how to balance the abstract nature of network models and measurements with the richness and detail of socially-oriented research. I believe these conversations are worthwhile. A theory of social networks and network science has real-world applications that can have meaningful impact in the world around us.

Some immediate and timely examples of real problems include topics like detecting disease outbreaks through social media sites like Twitter, connecting marginalized groups like rural communities, homeless people, or elderly individuals with one another and with