Social Media vs. Lit

I just read ch. 12 of Reading Their World: The Young Adult Novel in the Classroom and the main topic of this chapter was TV and YA lit, how prominent TV is within everyday life, integrating it within the curriculum, and how to teach students how to be conscious TV viewers.

I loved this chapter, but my only flaw about it was the lack of mention of social media. This book was published in 2000 and TV was the biggest distraction to adolescents. This was before AIM, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram took over the world and because of that the conversation has completely changed.

Social media has quite genuinely changed the way our students learn and store information and this is a topic I would love to study more about. Due to the internet and the speed it delivers information to adolescents, students want information fast, quick, and in an organized and appealing manor.

Something I want to focus on as a teacher is 'internet literacy'. This idea is quite similar to ideas discussed in chapter 12 of Reading Their World in terms of how they discuss TV but relating to social media. Helping students become aware of their internet interactions, the amount of time they spend on the internet, and who they are on the internet is something that should be done when teaching 'internet literacy'.