There’s few things scarier, as a kid, than not belonging. It’s something we’ve all experienced to a degree, but for marginalized youth–be it by race, nationality, gender identity, sexuality, or experience–it can be hard to find a local community. 

The internet has often been pitched as a solution to these issues, and has played a huge hand in fostering the development of, by now, a few generations of kids, especially marginalized kids who use the internet as a safe haven. It’s the reason that, when we discuss regulations on internet spaces for minors, concerned groups feel like we’re trying to regulate the one place that marginalized youth can go and connect with others who share their identity and experiences.

I’ve heard this come up time and time again due to the nature of my work in schools, discussing digital citizenship and the pros and cons of tech use in schools and at home. Due to the stories kids tell me about the content they’re exposed to–violent, inappropriate, or downright illegal–I’m an advocate for restrictions on social media platforms and tech use, but I want to investigate what that means for our marginalized kids, and why I still think pushing them online is not the answer. 

I’ve long been an advocate for something called ‘third spaces’--maybe you’ve heard of it. The term, coined in 1989 by sociologist Ray Oldenburg, defines a social community that is not the home, or school/work, but a ‘third’ space where individuals can go to connect with their community and forge bonds with their peers, neutral and distanced from the pressure of institutional dynamics. 

Some of my favorite third spaces growing up were: the library, the roller rink, community clubs, and the cinema. If anything strikes you as particularly nostalgic about those, it’s because our public spaces since then have become increasingly underfunded, winnowing away the options for kids to connect outside of school or home. Further, depending on location and legislation, they can be hostile or downright inaccessible to diverse marginalized groups of teens coming to terms with being seen as “different.” 

Enter the internet: a (mostly) universally accessible tool–a virtual third space which can be accessed at any time, from anywhere, regardless of hostility in the real world. What could be bad about that? Well, when our in-person third spaces become less accessible for any reason–but especially when they become hostile to the diverse identities of those trying to access it, we create a divide between the youth deemed worthy of in-person third spaces, and those we imply are too different to be catered to. 

Teens ask hard questions. Marginalized teens ask even more. We need to make sure they feel comfortable asking them to us, in person, and in our community spaces.

I’m an advocate of harm reduction. I want teens to find spaces they’re comfortable in, and they can’t always wait for long term solutions. But I want to make sure we’re not cutting ourselves too much slack when we decide not to take on the messy, difficult job of protecting all kids in both virtual and in-person third spaces. 

When we advocate for kids to come offline, we must be clear about what work we’re trying to do. This process often creates more questions than answers, but our kids need us to take them on, not to abandon them and outsource their needs to the internet. Marginalized kids need, arguably, more support with dealing with a world that can be truly hostile for no good reason. When we say that the internet can’t be regulated because, well, “where would marginalized kids find community?” We’re saying: we want you to have community, but not here–not in the real world.

Here are some of the tough questions I’m asking myself, as a social worker, that I urge you as educators and parents to ask yourselves: 

Can we ask kids to leave the perceived safety net they’ve woven online for a hostile or dangerous offline space? 

• When we meet calls for age-restrictions on the internet, what safety net do we have in place for kids who have created a welcoming community there? 

• What would it mean to create safe third spaces for all? 

• What could the process of community building across social and cultural divides mean for teaching our next generation of changemakers? 

We know teens want to feel seen. But they also want to feel heard. Part of the success of online communities for marginalized teens (despite their lack of regulation, guidance, and safety), is that teens feel like they’re able to participate in building something. We need to make sure that creating an offline oasis means everyone is invited to participate. 

Online communities for marginalized youth are a quick fix, like most things on the internet. We can apply the egalitarianism, openness, and possibility that teens have grown to love in digital communities to our real world third spaces. It all comes down to making sure teens of any background feel safe and accepted.

A great activity is to have a brainstorming session in class or in after school groups. Here are some questions to get your student community started: 

• What makes me feel safe? What are the characteristics of a ‘safe space?’

• What are some third spaces that already exist in our community?

• Are there ways we can improve these spaces to be more accessible?

• What parts of my own identity make me feel different from others?

• Are there shared, dominant characteristics of our community that cause certain groups to feel marginalized? 

• What common experiences do marginalized community members share? How can we make room for these experiences to inform how we create third spaces?

• What common experiences do we all share? Are these possibly experiences around which we could build a community group or third space?

Remember, a sustainable third space is community-built, in concert with the unique answers to the above questions, and constantly evolving. We can imagine each individual member of our community as a circle in a Venn diagram. At the center overlap are our shared values, and it is around these values that welcoming third spaces are built. In bringing our values into discussion with each other, demonstrating and expanding the definitions of tolerance and inclusivity and making them locally specific,  we can organize healthy and interdependent spaces which evolve and expand to include the vibrant diversity of our communities.

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–Allison Ochs, social pedagogue/worker, author, mother of three, wife

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