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American girls social media and the secret lives of teenagers

With extraordinary intimacy and precision, Sales captures what it feels like to be a girl in America today. From Montclair to Manhattan and Los Angeles, from Florida and Arizona to Texas and Kentucky, Sales crisscrossed the country, speaking to more than two hundred girls, ages thirteen to nineteen,...

Full description

Main Author: Sales, Nancy Jo (Author)
Format: Books Print Book
Language: English
Published: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2016.
Edition: First edition.
Subjects:
Social media.
Internet and teenagers.
Mass media and teenage girls.
Teenage girls > United States.
Teenage girls > United States. > Conduct of life.
Teenage girls > United States. > Social life and customs.
Summary: With extraordinary intimacy and precision, Sales captures what it feels like to be a girl in America today. From Montclair to Manhattan and Los Angeles, from Florida and Arizona to Texas and Kentucky, Sales crisscrossed the country, speaking to more than two hundred girls, ages thirteen to nineteen, and documenting a massive change in the way girls are growing up, a phenomenon that transcends race, geography, and household income. American Girls provides a disturbing portrait of the end of childhood as we know it and of the inexorable and ubiquitous experience of a new kind of adolescence--one dominated by new social and sexual norms, where a girl's first crushes and experiences of longing and romance occur in an accelerated electronic environment; where issues of identity and self-esteem are magnified and transformed by social platforms that provide instantaneous judgment. What does it mean to be a girl in America in 2016? It means coming of age online in a hypersexualized culture that has normalized extreme behavior, from pornography to the casual exchange of nude photographs; a culture rife with a virulent new strain of sexism and a sometimes self-undermining notion of feminist empowerment; a culture in which teenagers are spending so much time on technology and social media that they are not developing basic communication skills. From beauty gurus to slut-shaming to a disconcerting trend of exhibitionism, Nancy Jo Sales provides a shocking window into the troubling world of today's teenage girls.
Physical Description: 404 pages ; 25 cm
Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references (pages 379-388) and index.
ISBN: 9780385353922 (hardcover)
0385353928 (hardcover)
Author Notes: Nancy Jo Sales graduated summa cum laude from Yale University in 1986. She has written for several publications including Vanity Fair, New York, and Harper's Bazaar. She is known for her reporting on youth culture and crime and for her profiles of pop-culture icons. She won a 2011 Front Page Award for Best Magazine Feature and a 2010 Mirror Award for Best Profile, Digital Media. She is the author of The Bling Ring: How a Gang of Fame-Obsessed Teens Ripped off Hollywood and Shocked the World and American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers. The Sofia Coppola film The Bling Ring was based on Sales's 2010 Vanity Fair piece The Suspects Wore Louboutins.

(Bowker Author Biography)

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