Watkins Critique

Critique on The Very Well Connected by Watkins

“The Very Well Connected” is a chapter out of S. Craig Watkins’ third book titled The Young and the Digital: What the Migration to Social Network Sites, Games, and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for Our Future. Watkins is currently apart of two research projects, one that is exploring how young people use social networks to build relations that are remaking our thinking about the knowledge economy and one is creating a social studio that connects young people’s engagement with social and civil technologies to design challenges that encourage real world problem-solving. As you can see, youth and social media are a big part of Watkins’ life and interests. In this chapter of his book, Watkins is analyzing how the growth of technology and the increase of use of technology is affecting our generations.

One of the questions Watkins addresses is if young people are more comfortable with technology than they are with humans. Critics argue that the increasing use of technology is making younger generations anti-social and impairing relationships. He calls this technologically dependent generation “the young and the digital” and defines them as the most connected generation yet. Watkins disagrees with the critics and says this generation is remarkably social, just in a different way.  He describes this generation as having “presence-in-absence” where they are with friends while not physically being there. Teens use social media to be constantly in contact and as a “third place.” A “third place” is a public place where people can regularly, voluntarily, informally, and happily gather outside of their homes and work. With limited access to these places due to their age, the youth have made the internet their third place.

While it seems that the young and the digital use the internet to “hang out” with their friends, it doesn’t seem to be the case for all ages. Watkins interviewed college age students and found their social media habits to be very different. Now having access to actual third places, such as bars and restaurants, they more so use the internet to stay informed about what is happening off-line. Watkins states that “young adults’ rejection of the social Web as a third place illuminates the social and behavioral social changes that accompanies that transition from teen to young adulthood.”

I feel that the claims Watkins made throughout his article disprove the theory that children are becoming more anti-social because of increasing usage of technology. I think his research repetitively pointed out that the younger generations are so obsessively using their phones and computers because the internet gives them a place of their own. His research illustrates that the older generations use social media to stay in contact with offline friends, not to meet new people. I would like to see the evidence behind the claims that social media sites and increased media usage is weakening ties because I know for a fact I would not keep in as good of contact with my friends and family from home while at college without Facebook and email.