Okay, second rant...They offer up the idea that social workers [I'll go ahead and take it a step up the ladder and think about their ideas in terms of family therapists] should blog as a tool to build relationships with teens on their caseloads. They also encourage texting your clients to offer 'support' between sessions [Keep in mind, this study included a social worker as an author]. One of the golden rules of good, healthy therapy is to have boundaries. This is why office phone lines were invented-privacy! Giving your client a cell phone number to reach you at breaks those boundaries, and while some clients could respect that it's a 'for emergencies only' thing-most can't. That sense of immediate response only encourages the client to text the therapist for every little thing, mountains out of molehills and whatnot. Blogging feels like a decent idea, but the risk of confidentiality being violated seems too great. Solution? If you really want to embrace technology, go with a happy medium-create a work email. Set guidelines-maybe it'll take up to 24 hours to respond, or you won't answer on the weekends, etc., but it does allow for an easier flow of information between sessions. Important*for your legal safety, make sure you add a statement at the end that let's them know that email is NOT a secure form of communication and you can't guarantee confidentiality. I'd try to refrain from using last names too.
So kudos, OSU, you did blog research-personally, I think it's lacking, but I'm guessing there was a dearth of research. There, I blogged. And if you made it all the way to the end, then you deserve to be entertained. My family is super conservative, loves Jesus, and takes Easter very seriously. The second two were true. Anywho, family games are a big deal and this year was no exception. The initial games are really just warm-ups to the Big Show, the SuperBowl of games if you will-the Balloon Pop Game. Yes, we line up youngest to oldest and throw darts at a board of 61 balloons. Why 61? Well, there's 10 of us, that's 6 turns each~and the extra balloon? It says you get an extra turn. Booya. Each balloon is filled with a rhyme. You do what the rhyme says and you collect your prize. Four balloons contain [and yes I got this one] "A tisket a tasket, you won a basket." If this were a normal Easter, it'd be filled with Jelly Beans and Catholic Guilt~however, ours are filled with toys and lottery tickets. I won 15 dollars. Take that. Other balloons contain mini-games, including Deal or No Deal, Blind Man's Jar, Dip Your Hand in Gel, Yuck, and of course, everyone's favorite, Bobbing in Jello for Plastic Creatures Worth Selected Dollar Amounts. There is only one tub of Jello that three kids get to stick their faces in. The backwash gets a little much by the third person. The video is my lovely sister. Note my aunt saying, "always with your mouth" and the three foot long snake that she scores [it was worth 2$]. It took Jesus three days to rise. It took my Gram four days to make the Jello needed for this game.
Hello Daria and all,
ReplyDeleteWow, a lot to unpack in Daria's post. First, let me say that the Anderson-Butcher study is idiotic on soooo many levels. It gets back to a comment that Maggie made, we always seem to have to have something to count - especially something about the individual. But it is also really weird that the researchers think that adolescents are in some way out of control ids who are going to be blogging risky behavior. The thing about risky behavior is that we call it risky behavior because for most individuals it is supposed to be in the shadows. Would we have somehow expected Tiger Woods to blog about his sexual escapades. "Hey guys I just banged two waitresses at the nineteenth hole bar and grill in Poughkeepsie." Oh give me a break. So why expect or even think that adolescents might do that, and then think it's some kind of finding when they don't - especially on these very public web sites? Whew.
It also seems to show a basic misunderstanding of how blogs have evolved. When they were first developed they were web logs, web diaries, but they have developed into something more. They are information sources - both a way for individuals to give and to get information, develop in-power and out-power if you remember from my paper. And this means blog are perhaps better looked at less in terms of what individuals - including adolescents write - and more in terms of the capabilities that they offer individuals - including adolescents. Meaning blogs are about increasing the level of informatoin that individuals within a given network have.
So the question becomes why visit a blog. You visit a blog because you are hoping that it will offer you information - maybe not necessarily direct information, as a matter of fact certainly not direct information, but also through links. Not to crash on Daria (thanks for the post balloon lady) but the most important part of her long post was the link she offered me (notice that the Anderson-Butcher post did not have any further links - meaning I will probably not return to that blog, although I would almost certainly return to Daria's blog posts). My favorite blog on the internet is a guy name Atrios. He is one of the most popular bloggers. Here is the link
http://www.eschatonblog.com/
And yet Atrios usually write less than one sentence with each post. Why is he so popular. Because almost every post has an interesting hyperlink that will take your thinking further. This really opens up the world for instance for somebody like Mitch who really doesn't like to write so much. Writing becomes less important, or just another in a basket of forms of communication, and links and ability to get people to click on those links becomes paramount.
So let's get back to adolescents. What do blogs offer adolescents? The ability to share information at a much higher level than is usually available to this age group. Now this is definitely scarey for us adults because we do think adolescents walking ids. But that is how adolescents can get information, but information that they pursue and find on their own, which is always more likely to be used.
There is of course an argument back. And this is always an argument back when dealing with issues of freedom of information. And that is that people can't really handle information, that is must be controlled and doled out as people need it or they will somehow misuse it. This has always been the argument for lack of transparency and for the elite control of information. And this argument is especially intense when made about adolescents. I don't know why we feel it is so important to keep information from adolescents, why we think we must control their knowledge of different things, but we definitely do. I think there is something from Foucault we could definitely talk about here.
Okay, I have much more to write but want to hear from you guys.