Families, Social Networks, and the Media
Important Points Made by the Speakers
- The relationships between parents and their children change between adolescence and young adulthood, but few studies have examined these changes. (Conger)
- Much more information is needed on the “forgotten half”— children with some or no college education. (Conger)
- New media enable practices not possible in the past, but also can generate tensions. (Clark)
- Individual and collective storytelling enabled by online platforms may provide an avenue for enhanced well-being. (Clark)
- Public policies on marketing need to focus on the images being conveyed, restrict misleading ads, and pursue other regulatory efforts such as countermarketing because the same techniques used to advertise products to young adults can be used to deliver health-promoting information. (Halpern-Felsher)
Part III of this report examines some of the major societal institutions in which young adults are making the transitions to adulthood. This chapter looks at families, social networks, and the media. Future chapters consider the health care system, the education system, the military, foster care, the welfare system, and the justice system.
The roles and expectations of young adulthood are being redefined. Young adults no longer go through certain milestones in a set order. They take on new roles depending on their life experiences. Despite these changes, young adults and their parents still need to address certain personal characteristics and social processes during this period, said Katherine Conger, associate professor of human development and family studies at the University of California, Davis. Parents tend to be interested in norm compliance, personal responsibility, and their relationships with their children. Adolescents and young adults, in contrast, are more interested in autonomy from their parents and in financial independence, though they, too, express interest in norm compliance, such as not driving while drunk.
Conger prepared a background paper on parenting for the workshop with three colleagues—Rand Conger, Stephen Russell, and Nicole Hollis— that appears in Appendix E of this report. In her presentation at the workshop, she drew several points from the paper to illustrate how the redefinition of young adulthood is changing parenting.
Despite the variety of paths young adults can take through these years, parents are expected to guide their children through the transitions to adulthood. Young adults count on their parents to provide warmth and support, have clear expectations, establish reasonable consequences for violations of norms, meet physical needs, and help make social connections. Given this continuity, parenting that works well with adolescents applies as well to young adults, Conger observed.
At the same time, the relationships between parents and their children change between adolescence and young adulthood, though few studies have examined these changes. Conger and her coauthors identified five themes that come to prominence during the young adult years:
- Communication
- Social support
- Personal responsibility and independence
- Economics
- Mutual respect
Though built on the relationship between parents and children in adolescence, these elements of the relationship inform the parenting of young adults. For example, parents can communicate with their young adult children about health issues, but young adults also are protected by legal issues related to privacy. Similarly, parents may still offer financial support for their young adult children, but they have to make decisions about whether, for example, to pay for college tuition or save money for retirement. “That
becomes a real issue and something that family members have to discuss,” said Conger.
A major challenge for parents is that they are advising 21st-century children with 20th-century knowledge and experience. Parents often struggle to keep up with new technologies and social media. The economy is also different now than it was for earlier generations, requiring much more flexibility of both parents and children. The incomes of many families have been flat or going down, and social mobility in the United States is less than in many other countries.
Many resources exist that offer guidance to the parents of children who are going to college, but far less exists for children who do not go to college, Conger observed. Also, many parents have to deal with their own issues that can affect their interactions with children, such as a divorce or physical or mental health problems. Some youth are homeless or may not have parents; for these youth, the involvement of adult mentors can have substantial benefits.
Conger mentioned several future directions for research and policy. Much more information is needed on the “forgotten half”—children with some or no college education. Many immigrant youth confront issues that other young adults do not, such as language preferences within a family (see, e.g., Rumbaut and Komaie, 2010). The roles of race, ethnicity, culture, and religion in parenting need further investigation. Furthermore, the effects of the Great Recession on the parenting of young adults remain poorly understood.
Parents cannot succeed entirely on their own, Conger concluded. Public, civic, and religious institutions should work collaboratively with parents and young adults to prepare the next generation of adults.
SOCIAL NETWORKS AND SOCIAL MEDIA
New media enable practices that have not been possible in the past, observed Lynn Schofield Clark, associate professor in the Department of Media, Film, and Journalism Studies at the University of Denver, who has been working in a high school that serves at-risk young people and studying how social media help them make connections with parents, peer groups, and other sources of support. For example, Nick Couldry (2012) has identified six capabilities that new media enable:
- Searching and search enabling
- Showing and being shown
- Presencing1
- Archiving
- Commentary
- Continuous connectivity
New media also can generate tensions, said Clark. A digital trail follows the users of new media, which can be a source of tension between parents and young people (Clark, 2012). Also, a digital tether can exist that binds parents tightly to their children. “I have had students walk out of class and receive a text from their parents right after the class asking how they did on their test.” New rules may need to be learned, such as teaching parents to text a child or grandchild before they call if they want that person to answer the phone. Social media can raise issues for vulnerable populations such as undocumented immigrants or families in which abuse has occurred.
Little formal research has been done on young adults in the field of media studies, just as in other fields discussed at the workshop. The research that has been done tends to take either a protectionist or emancipatory perspective on young adulthood. For example, in the former category, Rezvani (2013) has looked at how the use of social media can exacerbate mental health problems among young adults, and Turkle (2011) has uncovered evidence that social network sites and other forms of digital media may be making relationships less intimate. In the latter category, Chan-Olmsted et al. (2013) have shown that social media play a role in political socialization and that most young adults get news from social media; Hargittai and Hsieh (2012) have demonstrated that social media do not detract from or improve grade-point averages; and Madianou and Miller (2012) have investigated how immigrant young adults use digital technologies to keep in touch with family in their countries of origin.
Clark also pointed to several areas of research that are conspicuously absent. Research on social media use in young adults who are not in college or college-bound is missing. Studies of social media in the lives of young parents employed full- or part-time also are lacking, as is research on unmarried working mothers or unmarried working men with limited education and varied workforce experiences. “We need to be able to explore the ways in which young people are experiencing their lives,” she said.
An area Clark emphasized is the link between social media storytelling
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1 Presencing is defined as “media-enhanced ways in which individuals, groups, and institutions put into circulation information about, and representations of, themselves for the wider purpose of sustaining a public presence.” Social media sites are examples of public spaces that provide opportunities for creating and displaying oneself “beyond one’s bodily presence” (Couldry, 2012, p. 50).
and the role of narrative in enhancing well-being, as in the case of identity formation among communities. Young people use social media to tell stories about themselves, and positive comments from others on those narratives can enhance the legitimacy of these stories. Can young adults use these media to construct anchoring narratives about themselves and others that bolster their resilience in tough times? “When you are able to encourage young people to produce their own narrative, they can use that as a way to educate and inspire others in their community. Their own story of difficulty becomes a story that … is encouraging for other people.”
Clark concluded by expressing the hope that future research could look at the role of storytelling in creating self-identity and enhancing well-being. Storytelling is an “underexplored resource,” she said, especially among those who do not go on to college. “Exploring connections between individual and collective storytelling afforded in online platforms may provide an avenue for enhanced well-being.”
Young adult Jackie Malasky also highlighted the role of technology in the systems that serve young adults. Though new media can harm young people if they do not think carefully about what they are posting, young people also are developing their identities using two-way media. Social networks, text messaging, and other electronic forms of communication have created capabilities that previous generations did not have, she said. For example, edutainment—the combination of education and entertainment— can take new forms with electronic technologies. The combination can be “a really good way to get messages across.” But what the media say has to make sense and be correct.
Marketing can take place through old media, such as television or print media, or through new media, including the Internet. However, the new media have a much greater reach and relevance among young adults, said Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, professor in the Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, at the University of California, San Francisco. In particular, marketing through new media is instant and almost always available. It is also interactive, in that young adults can share it and change it in real time. “You will see something happen in the news, and suddenly somebody will be sending it off by Twitter,” she said.
In addition, marketing can be direct, in which case it is obvious that a particular product is being advertised, or it can be indirect, in which case a product may be displayed in a movie or on television, for example, in an effort to change behavior. Marketing also can occur through promotions such as free samples, low prices, sales, or the distribution of hats, t-shirts, and other product-related materials.
Adolescents’ and young adults’ exposure to the media has changed dramatically in recent years, Halpern-Felsher noted. Among Americans ages 12-24, 74 percent listened to the radio in 2000, compared with just 41 percent in 2010 (Edison Research, 2010). Television watching increased slightly—from 38 to 42 percent—but newspaper reading plummeted from 29 to 8 percent. Internet use, meanwhile, increased from 16 to 42 percent (Edison Research, 2010).
Halpern-Felsher explained that the money spent on marketing in 2009 included approximately $13 billion on tobacco ads and promotional materials, $5 billion on alcohol ads, and $4 billion on prescription drugs. Further, market research is conducted and utilized by industries to develop marketing strategies that are most relevant to young adults. According to Fischer et al. (2011), this marketing shapes young adults’ perceptions of the benefits of a product, increases their belief in the acceptability of the product, and increases their likelihood of initiation and continued engagement. In addition, some groups are more likely to be the targets of marketing, such as African American or Latino populations for tobacco products.
Young adults themselves engage in reciprocal peer-to-peer marketing. For example, about 85 percent of young adults put images of substances or sexual behavior on their publicly visible social networking sites (Halpern-Felsher, 2013). It may be an ad, or it might be a picture of themselves or of friends using a product, but either provides a marketing tool for companies. At the same time, such images can increase the risk of cyber bullying, harm a person’s reputation, or influence career or educational opportunities, as companies and universities often review personal social networking sites before making acceptance decisions, said Halpern-Felsher.
Industries do their own marketing research and in certain respects are well ahead of the social sciences in looking at behavior change. They examine young adults’ attitudes, social groups, values, aspirations, and role models, which they then use to develop marketing strategies that are relevant to young adults. For example, Halpern-Felsher cited a 1985 Philip Morris presentation in which key tobacco marketing messages were listed as: “Tell me it is all right for a person like me to smoke” and “Tell me I am not different from everyone else just because I smoke.” She cited another ad, for e-cigarettes, that states, “We’re all adults here. It’s time to take our freedom back.” Halpern-Felsher added, “This absolutely parallels what we know about young adult development, identity development, and what they are going through.”
The alcohol industry has volunteered to refrain from marketing when more than 30 percent of the audience for an ad is expected to be less than 18 years old, but nothing restricts advertisement to those over 18, even though young adults are still highly susceptible to marketing, said Halpern-Felsher. Similarly, the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with the tobacco
industry prohibits tobacco marketing targeted to youth below age 18, and the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act2 restricts marketing and dictates aspects of packaging such as warning labels, but, again, no restrictions apply specifically to young adults.
On the positive side, 42 percent of young adults ages 18-29 look up health information on their mobile phones (Fox and Duggan, 2012). Exercise, diet, and weight apps are particularly popular on mobile phones, and smoking cessation, first aid, and many other apps are available, said Halpern-Felsher. However, few young adults receive text updates regarding health or medical issues (Fox and Duggan, 2012).
Research specifically on marketing to young adults is needed, said Halpern-Felsher, including subgroups such as underrepresented racial and ethnic groups and rural young adults. In the policy arena, future steps need to focus on the images being conveyed, restrict misleading ads, and pursue other regulatory efforts such as countermarketing. “How can we take the same research that the tobacco industry is using … and instead be able to use it in another way to counter some of those ads?” Halpern-Felsher noted that it is difficult to restrict ads to young adults because of the First Amendment and they are over age 18.
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2 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, Public Law 111-31, 21 U.S.C. § 387.
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