Michael Dickard ’10, ’12 M.A. Sociology studies interaction on social media at Drexel University’s College of Computing & Informatics and is co-author of a article on “The Strength of Awkward Ties: Online Interactions between High School Students and Adults.”
Michael Dickard
He studies the sometimes-awkward but valuable interactions between teens and adults.
“What I love most about my work is coming up with creative ways to learn from others and then applying that knowledge in ways that can improve people’s lives, such as through the design of social media,” he says. “My dissertation work is currently focused on the temporal dimensions of online photo-sharing as people transition to young adulthood.
“I am particularly excited to explore the role of nostalgia during this transitional period and how people manage online content from their past.”
In a news release titled “The benefits of friending a grownup” says the study suggests “that it might be worth it for schools to take a closer look at their social media policies and allow for positive interactions between teachers, administrators and their students.”
“What we find is that in many cases interactions between adults and teens in this context, can be opportunities to model appropriate social media behavior or for teens to build beneficial connections with people who are different from themselves,” said Andrea Forte, PhD, an assistant professor in the College and lead author of the study “The Strength of Awkward Ties: Online Interactions Between High School Students and Adults,” which will be published in the proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery’s Conference on Supporting Group Work (GROUP).
Safely allowing teens to step outside comfort zones is one of the biggest benefits of social media, according to the study.
“When family, friends, teachers, romantic interests, and coworkers mix and mingle, the result is social awkwardness,” Forte and co-authors Denise Agosto, Michael Dickard, and Rachel Magee write in the study. But this uncomfortable mix can give rise to a level of access to information that might not be achievable within the familiar confines of a tight circle of friends.
“Weak ties are often connections to people who are less like you and who can provide access to diverse kinds of information and resources,” they write. “In other words, being connected to others who are very similar to yourself can throttle information flow.
Forte and colleagues’ findings are based on surveys and interviews of students in two public high schools in the United States — one with a policy that strictly limits social media interaction between teachers and students and one that with a policy that is more leniently enforced and social media interaction is publicly embraced.
They found that most teen-adult interactions among the study participants fell into three categories: building community — camaraderie and connection outside the classroom; finding information — questions about assignments or how to solve problems; and supporting the development of online skills — learning to curate and self-sensor social media posts by better understanding who will be seeing them.
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