I found out about YouthNoise through the Denver Public Library's Teen Activism page. DPL's Teen site is fantastic, and I encourage future teen librarians (and future web designers) to check it out. DPL describes YouthNoise as "A social networking site created to motivate young people ages 13-26, to improve their lives and the lives of children and youth, worldwide, through volunteering, fundraising and speaking out." YouthNoise describes themself as "YouthNoise empowers young leaders to act for the causes they care about locally, nationally and globally."
YouthNoise is a rich site, with tons of activities for teens to explore. The "About YouthNoise" page recommends teens do these five things: join Play City (a community of athlete-activists), click for the Just 1 Click campaign, join a discussion board, blog about important issues, and "hook up with YN" using Facebook and Twitter. I decided to create a YN account so I could further investigate what seems to be an active site for teens.
One amusing thing about signing up for YN: right after you complete the sign-up process, you are directed to a page of things you might like to do on the site. One of them is, "Search for hot YN members. It's like eHarmony for, like, smart people."
YN members are also called NOISEmakers. I really like this term. I am a firm believer that a lot of the angry energy teenagers contain can be channeled into social activism in a positive way. (That's what I did!) YN is not just for liberal teens, either. There are dozens of causes that teens can add to their profiles, then discuss in various forums (I know the plural is really "fora," but it sounds weird) around the site. Some causes include, "Consumer rights," "Save conservative talk radio," "End abortion," and "Born again radicals." Although YN might lean a touch more to the left, there are certainly conservative youth who are active on the site.
Teens have lots to do on this site, and all of it is based on causes they are interested in. Most teenagers have something they feel passionate about, and most of them have passion because it's something that affects them personally. (I would also say this is true for adults.) Again, channeling teen energy into something productive can make great things happen.
The good things about YN outweigh the bad; however, there are some negative things about the site.
1) There might be too much going on. Not only are there discussion boards, blogs, and cause pages, but there are also debates, where teens can have a meatier discussion about specific topics. One recent conversation on the debate page is "Honoring veterans: are we doing enough?" Maybe this is just my old, feeble brain talking, but I am kind of overwhelmed by the number of ways I can participate on YN. This why I like Twitter.
2) The site is not designed with user ease in mind. There are very few pages with links on them that direct the user to the page they were just on. The plethora of activities contributes to this confusing layout.
3) There is very little moderation of the boards and forums. I don't think teens taking an issue too far is the problem: it's them not taking it far enough. I think with just a little bit of prodding, these boards could be much busier and more active.
I think YouthNoise could be a great part of a Links page for a public library (as Denver has shown), and I think librarians could talk it up to their teen patrons who have a political or social activism bent. However, there's just too much stuff crammed into this one platform for it to be highly popular.
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