The Challenge and Power of Using Symbols about Teen Girls in Social Media

The Challenge and Power of Using Symbols about Teen Girls in Social Media  

And here's the true tragedy. Many young people who inhabit their smart phones will refuse to face any other truth beyond their existence on their smart phones because it becomes the core of their experience. Think about that. Mass media will never apologize for what it is doing because it makes money. Cosmetics and fashion are expensive.

 Sex sells whether you are 14 or 40. (excerpt)

This blog helps to describe the third main reason for writing this timely e-book called A Teen Girl Makes Time in the Sand. The first two blogs outline reasons 1 and 2.

1. How to stop social media from taking advantage of a rash and brash teenage brain still in development personified here as a Giant Clown Face of epic proportions  (blog One)

2. How to start looking at value of Time and power of choice as a super power tool to avoid making bad mistakes that may affect or change  the total Time Line (blog 2)

3. How to use diagrams as symbols as a base for discussion of growing up in a mass media world, of visualizing strong social forces, and structuring the experience of time.

Once more, the challenge was how to represent ideas or concepts with complex meanings in today's situations or outcomes caused by forces that are hard to describe if limited by words and given or implied interpretations. 

How can these forces be considered in abstract terms because they have no physical referents?

It is clear that abstract meanings can be powerful and can exist in imagination but the framework is formulated on more kinds of physical experiences; for example, the word love undergoes many physical transformations through time.

It is clear that we first learn about the world of objects through our senses like seeing, hearing, touching, etc. Then it takes a lot of concrete experiences and often specific words to learn more abstract meanings that, over time, can be integrated to show the value of a lesson or moral.

 So how can a teenager learn about qualities like independence, freedom, trust, loyalty, morals and power of choice if they first don't run through a gamut of experiences to qualify as a higher meaning with the value of purpose?  

For example, they can't pick up a bag filled with responsibility; they must learn its implications or lack of.  I can't pick up a choice like a carrot in my hand and tell them to find their own carrots. But I can draw a sign that represents the full context of "choice" and the difference of a "smart choice" if based on past, future and present factors.   

How can I show moral outrage over cultural disruptions or the extreme social  disadvantages played against young teen girls?  I could write a lecture or I can draw a simple diagram with identified key words and symbols.

I can take many of these changing complex concepts and give them some kind of sense impression; namely, a picture as well as a symbol. These images and associations will be better recalled and utilized.

The purpose of using a symbol is to show several deeper layers of meaning representing more details, actions, and consequences beyond its first appearance or literal meaning.

In fact, there are several symbolic intentions in this story. The complicated situation of a Social Media Circus and is effects are represented by a giant clown face.  

Another main symbol, in contrast, is the element of personal choice as a small circle attached to the spiral circle of a daily routine.

Now social media can be compared to a Giant Clown Face which is facing a small independent circle of a "smart choice" that incorporates past, present and future. How can words express this fully for individual assimilation at different levels?

Other consistent symbols are: a square represents a closed past, no replay allowed;  a spiral circle represents the energy of today; and open-ended lines represent the potential of the future yet unformed but based on yesterday's and today's actions. 

Throughout the story there are numerous examples of pictures or images which try to show the extensions of self identity, media control and social networks:

What is the difference between choice, decision and habit?

How can Time be charted on an Experience Calendar?

How can bad choice disrupt a total life line?

How dropping-out of school affects the normal social rites of passage?

How can a young, rash and brash adolescent brain survive in a Selfie Domain? 

Interestingly, I have always had a strong interest in using visual language to communicate meanings.  I sincerely believe that many of these images have been kept simple enough for others to draw and elaborate on if they wish.

I believe that an image can be worth a thousand words, and in these critical times, society can use all the words of empowerment and characters that it can find.

Check out A Teen Girl Faces Time in the Sand

Note: a separate download with 10 lesson plans for teen girls to apply these ideas.

What are some issues that you feel young teen girls face now? 

Comments are always appreciated. 

Sincerely,

Annemarie

Excerpts

Imagine, you are just 14 years old, yet your brain is wired for positive feedback which gets a dopamine spike with every click, every buzz, to keep the story fresh and wanting more.  How could it be any other way? Your habit of posing and posting becomes like an itch, somebody else's itch, but you got to keep scratching it, painful as it may be at times, because sometimes you get the word LIKE.

 

Now I draw a heavier more rippled line above my lifeline. This, I think, is the internet  social media circus line.  It is powerful and here to stay forever. But I will not allow its size and influence to affect this small section of my life called teen years. I will not fall into a hole created by the Media monster. 
I am deeply trying to find some purposeful longevity in living.