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A nuanced, intimate picture of how young people live with and on social media.
Today's young people find themselves at the center of widespread debates about their online safety, and they are often told that social media platforms affect their mental health and body image by exposing them to cyberbullying and distressing images. Foregrounding their voices and experiences, The Kids Are Online explores how they navigate their identities across platforms and how they really feel about their young digital lives.
Ysabel Gerrard talked to more than a hundred teens to unpack the myths and realities of their social media use. Instead of framing today's big platforms as either good or bad, she identifies moments when young people encounter social apps in paradoxical ways—both good and bad at the same time. Using the concepts of stigma, secrecy, safety, and social comparison, she helps readers understand young people's experiences. The Kids Are Online proposes a series of recommendations for parents, families, schools, technology companies, and policymakers to imagine how we might build safer social media systems.
Today's young people find themselves at the center of widespread debates about their online safety, and they are often told that social media platforms affect their mental health and body image by exposing them to cyberbullying and distressing images. Foregrounding their voices and experiences, The Kids Are Online explores how they navigate their identities across platforms and how they really feel about their young digital lives.
Ysabel Gerrard talked to more than a hundred teens to unpack the myths and realities of their social media use. Instead of framing today's big platforms as either good or bad, she identifies moments when young people encounter social apps in paradoxical ways—both good and bad at the same time. Using the concepts of stigma, secrecy, safety, and social comparison, she helps readers understand young people's experiences. The Kids Are Online proposes a series of recommendations for parents, families, schools, technology companies, and policymakers to imagine how we might build safer social media systems.
Price: $95.00
Pages: 312
Publisher: University of California Press
Imprint: University of California Press
Publication Date:
11 March 2025
Trim Size: 8.50 X 5.50 in
ISBN: 9780520388079
Format: Hardcover
“Gerrard shifts the scholarly perspective from that of a concerned parent to that of the young people actually using this technology. Through more than a hundred interviews with teens, she examines their conflicting emotions and encounters with digital technology. The book promises to include recommendations for building safer social media ecosystems and is sure to spark agreement and debate among college students.”
— Choice Reviews
“The Kids Are Online is the result of conversations with more than 100 teenagers whose experiences reveal what Gerrard calls ‘the platform paradox’: different experiences from platform to platform and simultaneously good and bad experiences on the same platform. Exploring the paradoxical circumstances of engaging with mental health content, using pseudonyms and anonymous apps, and digitally editing photos, The Kids Are Online shows how the young people interviewed accept potential risks online to find community, pleasure, excitement, and self-confidence.”
— CHOICE
— The British Journal of Sociology
— The AAG Review of Books
— Choice Reviews
“The Kids Are Online is the result of conversations with more than 100 teenagers whose experiences reveal what Gerrard calls ‘the platform paradox’: different experiences from platform to platform and simultaneously good and bad experiences on the same platform. Exploring the paradoxical circumstances of engaging with mental health content, using pseudonyms and anonymous apps, and digitally editing photos, The Kids Are Online shows how the young people interviewed accept potential risks online to find community, pleasure, excitement, and self-confidence.”
— CHOICE
“The Kids Are Online is a model of engaged reflexive digital sociology: conceptually distinctive, empirically careful, and publicly intelligible. I strongly recommend it to scholars, practitioners, and families seeking to move beyond zero‐sum narratives of youth online safety towards nuanced, context‐sensitive understandings of young digital life.”
— The British Journal of Sociology
“The Kids Are Online presents a unique addition to the discussion on safety and teenagers by directly asking the teenagers themselves. . . . There is humor in the quotes Gerrard chooses to highlight from her interviews and it provides a sense of humanity that is often lost in text.”
— The AAG Review of Books
Ysabel Gerrard is Senior Lecturer in Digital Communication at the University of Sheffield. Alongside her academic writing, she has published in The Guardian, WIRED, and VICE.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Social Media in Young Lives
1. From Moral and Media Panics to Platform Paradoxes
2. Moderating the Mental Health Crisis
3. Amuse Me or Abuse Me on Anonymous Apps
4. Personal and Social Safety in Anonymous Communication
5. At-Home Photoshopping and the New War on Body Image
6. Platform Paradoxes: Recommendations and Reflections
Appendix A. Interview Participant Demographic Information (British Academy Small Grant Research)
Appendix B. Workshop and Interview Participant Information(Strategic Research Support Fund Pilot Study)
Appendix C. Research Methods and Ethical Considerations Underpinning Chapters 3 and 4
Appendix D. Research Methods and Ethical Considerations Underpinning Chapter 5
Notes
References
Index
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Social Media in Young Lives
1. From Moral and Media Panics to Platform Paradoxes
2. Moderating the Mental Health Crisis
3. Amuse Me or Abuse Me on Anonymous Apps
4. Personal and Social Safety in Anonymous Communication
5. At-Home Photoshopping and the New War on Body Image
6. Platform Paradoxes: Recommendations and Reflections
Appendix A. Interview Participant Demographic Information (British Academy Small Grant Research)
Appendix B. Workshop and Interview Participant Information(Strategic Research Support Fund Pilot Study)
Appendix C. Research Methods and Ethical Considerations Underpinning Chapters 3 and 4
Appendix D. Research Methods and Ethical Considerations Underpinning Chapter 5
Notes
References
Index