American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers [Paperback]

ANew York TimesBestseller

Award-winningVanity Fairwriter Nancy Jo Sales crisscrossed the country talking to more than two hundred girls between the ages of thirteen and nineteen about their experiences online and off. They are 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; a culture in which teenagers are spending so much time on technology and social media that they are not developing basic communication skills.
 
The dominant force in the lives of girls coming of age in America today is social media: Instagram, Whisper, Vine, Youtube, Kik, Ask.fm, Tinder. 

Provocative, explosive, and urgent,American Girlswill ignite much-needed conversation about how we can help our daughters and sons negotiate the new social and sexual norms that govern their lives. American Girls is probably one of the most urgent conversation starters I’ve read in some time.  —Psychology Today

“Sales digs into every aspect of girls’ online lives, revealing myriad disturbing details…If you have a teenage daughter, readAmerican Girls. Have her read it, too.” —Newsday
 
“Adult readers will be shocked… [they] might be on Facebook and Twitter, but they probably haven’t even heard of most of the apps that teens use, let alone how they use them…What Sales makes clear is just how prevalent social media is in the life of an American teenager.” —The New York Post

Based on interviews with hundreds of teens from 13 to 19, this exploration of the hypersexualized, social-media-ruled world girls grow up in today is eye-opening and sobering.  —People

“Social media is life; social media destroys life. For l³Y