Social Media & The Adolescent Digital Tribe: Navigating the Teen World State

This book examines the Adolescent Digital Tribe (ADT) – that digital bubble created by today’s social media algorithms that feed the eyes and ears of this first digital generation. Never before have children been raised in an era with 7 x 24 access to the world through so many devices and digital content platforms. Music, movies, streaming services, smartphones, ubiquitous Wi-Fi, and social media have placed this generation is perhaps the most significant human experiment in history. Although the ADT began to surface with the swift adoption of the smartphone - it has been slowly seeping into the Western culture for decades.Since 2009, A Wired Family has spoken to over 500,000 students, teachers, parents, businesses, law enforcement organizations, and mental health professionals. We have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of such pervasive technology in the hands of kids. We have seen a mercurial change in how kids handle stress. Anxiety, depression, and suicide are on the rise among young people. The questions on the lips of mental health professionals, teachers, counselors, school resources officers, parents, and principals are: Is the increase of teen depression, suicide ideation, and suicide due in part to social media and video games? Is the growth of sexting due to technology, or is it a symptom of a growing cultural shift to highly sexualized media found in movies, streaming videos, and music? Are video games making my child more aggressive?This book attempts to answer some of these questions while cultivating further discussion with all stakeholders on the Adolescent Digital Tribe and the Teen World State.