"The "Secret" Online Lives of Teenage Girls Aren't Very Secret At All"

"Even if you’ve managed to avoid other journalistic stakeouts on the subjects of sexting, sexualized cyberbullying, and Instagram fame, these stories are shocking, then enlightening, then boring. The element that’s often sorely missing from scaremongering teen trend stories—actual teenage girls, talking about their actual lives—becomes tedious when told 200 times...

it also testifies to one of the backward assumptions of the “secret” social media narrative. The things kids do on Snapchat and Instagram and Facebook aren’t secret. Kids and teachers and parents see that stuff on the kids’ own phones, and the worst examples are elevated to the nightly news. What’s often missing from these stories is a real commitment to understanding teenagers as full, complicated people. Social media helps adults track teenagers’ movements but sometimes inflames misunderstandings about the thoughts and feelings and meanings behind the display...

One optimistic dispatch features a teenage girl in Tucson, Arizona, who has escaped the cycle of butt shots and dick pics because she doesn’t own a smartphone, because she doesn’t own anything, because she is homeless. She begs for her dinner, but at least she’s free from the urge to Instagram her plate...

In her book, Sales laments that boys get off so easy in social media scuffles. They demand nude pictures from girls, harass them with unsolicited dick pics, blackmail girls who don’t comply, and spread the evidence of those who do; all of it helps boys gain social capital. But their lives don’t strike Sales as a fascinating secret to unpack, and so her book lets boys off the hook, too. It’s telling that Sales’ cover displays three girls in low-cut tops and short shorts, manicured nails wrapped around shiny smartphones, photo cut off at the chin so they can stand in for any daughter or sister or fantasy girl."

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2016/02/nancy_jo_sales_american_girls_reviewed.single.html

I'm also so bored of these narratives. They have always happened, and they haven't seemed relevant to the increasing success and economic freedom experienced by each new generation of women.