YouthNet blog
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Friday Oct 23, 2009
YouthNet launches LifeSupport Appeal
On WednesdayOctober 14, YouthNet launched its biggest ever fundraising and awareness-raising campaign, the LifeSupport Appeal.
The aim of the LifeSupport Appeal is to completely redevelop TheSite.org, allowing it to reach more young people with even better advice. We have big ambitions for the Appeal and want to raise £5mllion over three years to completely revolutionise our online support for young people.
Underpinning the Appeal is a fantastic piece of research commissioned by YouthNet and carried out by Professor Michael Hulme of Lancaster University. The report, Life Support: Young people's needs in a digital age, shows that young people now more than ever, lead hybrid lives and that the need help and advice online will be even greater for tomorrow's young people.
The Appeal got off to a great start at the House of Commons, where Right Hon. Tim Loughton MP, hosted an event for Professor Hulme to share his findings. This was then followed by a panel discussion with Professor Hulme, vlogger Charlie McDonnell and agony uncle Matt Whyman. The report and Charlie's description of how he interacts with the online world, sparked some interesting debate within the panel and the audience.
We then had a less formal event in the evening which was held at London's Living Room, which is above Boris' office in City Hall! As the room filled up, despite a few technical hitches, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. After Prof. Hulme's presentation, Hannah a 17 year-old TheSite.org user spoke incredibly movingly about how TheSite.org had helped her during some very troubled times in her life.
It seemed to sum up the reason why TheSite.org is so special when she said:
"If I hadn't used the internet when I was being bullied and had depression, I'm not sure I would have got through. I was too scared to speak to a parent or teacher because that would have meant repercussions, and I was worried about how they would react. Online nothing else can happen, you're making the first step."
The evening ended on a high note, when one of YouthNet's biggest supporters and founder member of our Development Group, John Donaldson, urged people to get involved.
To round off a fantastic day, the Media and PR team got some fantastic coverage of Professor Hulme's report and the Appeal in a range of media, such as BBC Online and Sky News.
Added to this, one of our key supporters, Yahoo! Answers, have not only given us a month's sponsorship package free of charge to raise the profile of the Appeal but Martin Clark, Community Manager has blogged about us on Yahoo Answers!
Find out more about the appeal.
Posted by Julie Reynolds ( 1:07 PM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Saturday Oct 17, 2009
Providing support out of context
Over the years there's been a progressive trend towards valuing content over context in how we communicate as a society.
Ever since writing took over from our rich oral tradition, contextualised communication has been increasingly sidelined by the content of what we communicate.
The history of Christianity in Western society is a case in point where historically after the Reformation, debate turned on whether the content or the context of scripture was the right path to spiritual understanding.
Today, the focus on content is really a battle over how we communicate as a society. Is it better to keep our communication clear and singular in meaning? Or is it more accurate to accept that what we communicate is always multi-layered, nuanced and requires reading between the lines?
One way to understand the Enlightenment is as a movement that argued passionately for the former, while the fightback with the Romantics a century or so later, was a passionate defence of the latter.
Social web: where content is king
Many have remarked that the social web is simply a step on from broadcast or mass media, which was in turn a step on from the printing press. Each technological advance has added weight to the 'content camp', and detracted from the 'context camp' approach to understanding and successfully communicating together as a society.
With the dominance of content, the lack of context in communication is problematic to say the least. Again, a popular observation about the social web is that a key characteristic is the cross-cutting context in which much of the communication on it takes place. For example, a blog post can be written in a particular time, reacting to a particular stimulus and shaped by the author's particular mood of the moment. However, that blog post can be found by readers later on in very different times, places (thanks to searchability and durability of the web) and replicated within very different contexts. Web content loses it's context even quicker than other forms of modern communication.
Online support and advice where content is king, on the face of it, is even more problematic than just simply communicating a message.
Online support services: out of context
How do we understand content without the context of body language, vocal intonation, personal connection or understanding of the author's past history, personality and behaviour? Albert Mehrabian's much misunderstood observation on content and context is a great example. Mehrabian understood just how context (verbal and non-verbal cues) can be critical to understanding the content of our communication when we're expressing thoughts laden heavy with emotion and feeling. Surely this tendency of the social web to emphasise content over context, poses an enormous challenge to any online advice service seeking to support users emotional, as well as information needs.
For this reason online advice services must play to their strengths. Through our work on askTheSite on TheSite.org responding to questions posted by users in confidence online, it is clear that putting content before context can have its benefits.
Context can act as a barrier or cloud to understanding the content or heart of the matter. The style of delivery and the packaging of the message can distract, mislead or detract from an advisor's understanding of what the author of the content might intend to mean. Presented with just the content of the issues, with the context of the user's personal history, personality and rapport very definitely in the background, an advisor is in a better position to be able to respond to the user's issues and concerns at hand.
Secondly, enabling service users to concentrate on communicating content anonymously, can liberate them from the embarrassment and anxiety of the context they're in, that may have prevented them from talking in the round about the issues they face. Online support can offer the user the safety of anonymity and confidentiality that may help persuade users to speak up about issues affecting them that they may not have been able to share with anyone else. This makes online advice a vital plank in any strategy to improve the early intervention and support we can offer young people.
Interestingly, stripping out the context, removes most incentives for service users to 'test' the support service, posting joke, blank (silent) or hoax questions. The issue of test callers is a non-trivial matter for many telephone support services, where test callers can place a huge burden on scarce resource and capacity.
Contextual communication: making a comeback
Perhaps as the social web matures, so contextually-based communication is just starting to make a comeback. What to many is Twitter's banality, is misunderstood phatic communication putting the context before the content. Foursquare, on the other hand, is a reminder of the power of communication that comes with a built-in geolocational context.
For all these advances, it is worth noting how utterly dismal current software is at processing contextual information. Content is still king. You only have to look at how it's possible to build a multi-billion dollar business on keyword search of content to understand that. Given this current landscape, it's important that online advice and support services play to their strengths and understand their weaknesses in this content vs context battle going on around them.
Image courtesy of Weidmaier on Flickr
Wednesday Oct 14, 2009
Partnerships Team Volunteering
Culpeper farm – I thought we'd be feeding some pigs or goats or petting a nice donkey, but there was no way Dave, our chief organiser, was going to let us off that easily. We were in for a bit of a work out!
Just behind the massive Sainsbury's in Islington is a lovely little haven, away from the busy roads of London. Stuffed to the brim with rows of allotments, archways covered in greenery and even a little pond, Culpeper farm is a thriving community garden.
As Culpeper Farm is completely run by volunteers, it was the perfect place for the Partnerships Team to volunteer and do some team building too! We had no idea what to expect. Kate, the Volunteer Coordinator at the gardens instructed us to 'wear something that you wouldn't mind getting dirty' and for some reason I had images of us knee deep in mud! We were given the task of tidying the entrance to the garden which had been neglected for some time. Brambles and ivy had over taken the area, but fear not, we were here to help (after being given various sharp tool and saws!).
Under the guidance of our resident gardening expert Fiona, we filled about 6 bags of dead and over grown bushes - all sent to be recycled of course. Dave even got to show off his strength by ripping out a whole bush and re-locating it. Working as a team we managed to transform the whole front entrance. But the best bit was planting the bulbs in the freshly cleared ground. Hopefully by next spring when the flowers blossom we'll be able to see the results of what we did in just one afternoon.
Everyone loved the chance to be out of doors and it was great to feel like you had accomplished something together in just one afternoon. We want to say a huge thank you to Kate and Culpeper farm for a wonderful afternoon, and the much needed tea and cakes when we finished! If you don't do team volunteering at your work already – you're missing out! Click here to find out more about employee volunteering. Check out the amazing pictures on Flickr.
What's wrong with face-to-face?
So, YouthNet's launched a new report today: a study by Professor Michael Hulme into how young people communicate, interact and seek information online. It's a really interesting read, encompassing the results of quantitative online research undertaken with 994 young people by The Futures Company, quotes from young people, and comments on the implications for website design and development. It's also too much to cover in one blog entry. So I can only encourage you to go and read it yourself, blog about yourself, discuss the findings and debate the conclusions.
75% of the young people surveyed said that 'they couldn't live without the internet'. That's probabaly an exaggeration, but I don't find it surprising. I'd say the same thing. Then again, I spend at least eight hours a week-day in front of a computer, I studied multimedia, and I work for an online charity. I'm going away for a week in the country at the end of the month, and the fact that I've been told that there's no internet or mobile access is already weighing heavily on my mind. Being such an online advocate, I'm often asked 'what's wrong with face-to-face?'
After all, the very nature of online communication is that it's mediated by a machine such as a computer or hand-held device. With the lack of body-language and eye contact, and the possibilities for deception, it's possible to see the internet as cold, impersonal and isolating. However, what that assumption ignores is the way young people live what Professor Hulme calls 'hybrid lives' – their onlines and their offlines are blurred. Their friends on Facebook may or may not be friends from school or work; status updates on Twitter may become conversation starters in the classroom. 80% of young people surveyed said they use social networking sites to talk to friends or family they see a lot; 22% said that they use them to communicate with someone they don't know.
So, while it's impossible to generalise the experience of every young person, it seems that for many these online tools aren't replacing face-to-face communication methods – they're complimenting them. As Professor Hulme says, "The more we can communicate, the more we will, and do, communicate." What's changing is the amount of communication tools available, and people's ability to choose a communication tool which is appropriate for a particular situation: broadcasting their thoughts in blogs or vlogs, updating a selected group of friends on Facebook, texting or calling an individual, or having a face-to-face conversation.
I don't have a problem with face-to-face conversation. In fact, it's often quite useful. I do have more of a problem with the assumption that it's absolutely-always-without-a-doubt the best form of communication. The internet can be a great way to make first contact with communities of interest, for example. After all, it's easy to search online for groups of fellow social media geeks – in my case – than try and spot them during my morning commute. Once contact is made, a mix of face-to-face and online interactions often result. The internet also allows us to reach out beyond the restrictions of geographic proximity. And, as the report goes on to say, the internet can also be a great way to source information about issues young people may feel less comfortable talking about face-to-face, with websites like TheSite.org allowing young people to access trustworthy advice on a range of topics.
While it's important to realise that there are issues or dangers around communicating on the internet – the possibilities of online bullying, the possibilities of abuse and so on – it's also important to realise that, in many cases, these are either reflected or replaced by alternative issues or dangers when communication occurs offline. Moreover, just as I was taught not to give out my name on the phone by my cautious parents, today young people have learned similar lessons about the internet. 77% of the young people surveyed agreed that: 'On the internet you can never know if someone is who they say they are.'
The past century has seen huge developments in the way we communicate: from telephone calls, through radio and television broadcasts, to the development of mobile phones, faxes and the internet. While it's not my place to predict what will come next, it seems obvious that there's a lot more communication to do, and for each new generation, there'll be more and more new communication tools as the years progress.
Today, 86% of the young people surveyed loved how new technology helps them communicate with people. Let's keep creating technology, creating websites and online services, that will help us communicate with people. Face-to-face, hands-to-keyboard, in the twittersphere and in the blog comments below, let's ensure this conversation continues.
Posted by Natasha Judd ( 11:41 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
