Sublime

Portwood-Stacer’s interviews also show that “the personal or political decision not to participate in Facebook may be interpreted [by friends] as a social decision not to interact with them,” or worse, as “holier-than-thou internet asceticism.”

As I talk with girls and boys, something is clear: Adults are struggling. Many of us feel overwhelmed by this relentless new culture.

“They fight as though they are insurgents while they operate as though they are kings,” writes Danah Boyd, a technology scholar. She came of age among hackers and renegades and then grew frustrated with their failure to accept victory. They now owned the tools of modern power. But the group’s self-image as “outsiders,” a hangover from the sector’s

Just imagine being a teen trying to develop a sense of who you are and where you fit, while everyone you meet tells you, indirectly: You’re not as important as the people on my phone.

“Derogatory media coverage is not the verdict but the essence of their resistance,” the sociologist Sarah Thornton wrote in her 1995 book Club Cultures, a history of dance clubs and raves.

Critics have also highlighted the ability for social media to make us feel ostracized or inadequate, as well as to stoke exhausting outrage, inflame our worst tribal instincts, and perhaps even degrade the democratic process itself.