Disconnected Adolescents in a Connected World

I have been working with an adolescent student who is experiencing some depression. We have been exploring a couple of strategies to improve her emotional wellbeing, including writing, engaging in at least one activity outside of school and expanding her social network. And this is where we met with some elements that require problem solving. The student lives on a property outside of town and the people who live one the nearby properties do not have children or their children are in their twenties. Another issue for her is that her friends all use Telstra for their mobile service and she uses Voda Phone. In her own words: “I’m too expensive”, her friends won’t message her because it costs too much and they don’t get free text messages to her.

So I suggested to this student that she look at some social networking sites. She tells me she had set up a Myspace account but rarely uses it and finds it difficult to access the internet for two reasons: one her family has a dial up connection which drops out regularly and two her mother doesn’t like her spending time on the internet so limits her time to school work only. We discussed her combining her journal writing with a blog and connecting with people on line. But she was pessimistic about these possibilities because her mother believes that the internet is a time waster. (I think part of this might be her mother trying to protect her and monitor/manage her activity on the internet. And it is important to keep tabs on adolescents internet activities. However I think there is also potential for social and emotional benefits for this student given her circumstances).

One of the issues contributing to this student’s feelings of depression is that she is not connected in a connected world. She isn’t in the text message loop her friends are in and she has limited access to IM because of the dial up connection and having her time on the computer restricted. Consequently she misses out on a whole world of communication that occurs between leaving school one day and starting class the next morning.

I believe for this child, who is geographically isolated, the internet could connect her to a network of support that she currently doesn’t have. I have asked the student to talk to her mum about her feelings of depression and disconnection from her peers and discuss the possibilities of using the internet to develop connections with her peers outside of school, as well as school work. I would also like to publish something in the newsletter about social networking sites and their benefits for adolescents in developing connections. I would like to put something in the newsletter which she can encourage her mother to read that discusses appropriate use of scoial networking sites to improve the social and emotional wellbeing of isolated students, which can also provide pratical information for keeping her daughter safe on the interent as well as supporting her daughter to create connections (which will hopefully alleviate any concerns and provide practical strategies fore her mother to employ in monitoring her internet use). If anybody out there in the bloggersphere has any useful information, links, articles, ideas for information to incorporate in a newsletter for parents I would greatly appreciate some help and direction in gathering some information together.