Digital Girlhoods

by Katherine A. Phelps

Tween girls in America today are growing up on social media, posting selfies and sharing “stories.” In Digital Girlhoods, Katherine Phelps emphasizes tween girls’ agency on social media vis-à-vis identity formation, content creation, and community building. When a tween girl posts a video on YouTube asking the world, “Am I pretty or ugly?”, she is also asking, “Who am I?” This content makes visible the pitfalls and potentials of these tweens creating their own digital narratives—and it asks us to take them seriously.



Featuring in-depth interviews with a cross section of tween girls, Phelps allows them to give meanings to their relationships with social media and their peers in their own words. As tween girls embody and negotiate the many contradictions of American girlhoods through social media participation (for example, the “Pretty or Ugly” YouTube trend), Phelps asks, how are tween girls living and experiencing girlhoods in the digital age?



The processes of experiencing and enacting tweenhood and girlhood online are explicitly gendered. Digital Girlhoods thoughtfully considers what tween girlhoods look and feel like in America today.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Womens

235 pages, Hardcover

First published January 31, 2025

Reviews

[Sharon Beck]

This topic is important however the book is written at a college level and reads like a thesis or textbook. The language and tone often make the author's points inaccessible, especially for the casual reader.

[Haley Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible work that critically examines the experiences of American tween girls who navigate the culturally-created liminal space between childhood and adulthood in both the physical and digital realm. The age-old question that reverberates in this liminal space is ”Who Am I?”: an inquiry asked by all young girls who exit childhood and enter a world where their bodies become ”culturally fraught spaces, the sites of so many enduring social anxieties”.

The author brilliantly questions our impulse to regulate young girls digital engagement as a means of protection by arguing such restrictions perpetrate hegemonic gender norms.

She argues that society repeatedly constructs girls as both vulnerable and dangerous, painting them as either passive victims in need of our protection or as provocative figures, responsible for tempting males. The protectionist discourse (”a contemporary moral panic”) is not new, but rather a recycled and reconstituted cycle of gendered control.

I felt this novel shows that our collective fears for young girls in the digital world are symptomatic of the long-lived awareness of gender violence that has caved in on itself, transforming into a self-perpetuating form of misogyny that dismisses girls from public spaces, both physical and now digital.

5. Stars.

[Ellie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Message - 3, the message of the book is great. It was clear—but in my opinion WAY too clear. It repeated itself over and over, not to mention it is not new information that young girls experience body image issues exacerbated by social media.

Insight - 1, I just did not receive information that I either didn't already know or couldn't have figured out myself. I didn't find it particularly profound either, because again it basically just circled back around on itself regurgitating the idea that tween girls have ingrained ideas about gender and performance of self.

Tone - 2, I think it was meant to make the reader feel sadness for the girls but it was honestly hard to tell. As much as the author inserts her personal thoughts, the entire thing felt so impersonal and distanced. It literally felt like reading a textbook, and not even an interesting one.

Style - 1, the writing style made me want to rip my eyes out. It was boring, it was not engaging, and it made me want to skim to the end. There was no personal tone or style and it was just hard to read. The writing made me want to stop many many times.

Utility - 2, I definitely will not be thinking about this book again. It didn't change anything about my life, beliefs, perspective, or actions.

9/25
1.8/5

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was the book equivalent of "this meeting could have been an email"... this could have easily been an article.

Furthermore, the author's opinion that parents are "indoctrinating" their daughters to believe there are predators online when it's "a rarity and children are most often abused by people they know" is a grossly irresponsible take on the subject. I don't disagree that this may be true, but let's not criticize parents who are trying to keep their kids safe online.

I'm actually quite disappointed that Goodreads chose this as an option for their March, women's history month challenge.

[sav ❁]

DNF at 15%. After reading the first chapter I felt like this “book” was going nowhere fast. This was an expanded undergrad senior thesis at best, and if I were reading it in that context I may have been more engaged. The writing was just… so dry and lacked any personality in its academic style.

To top it off, I didn’t necessarily agree with a lot of the conclusions being drawn and found many of them contradictory. Admittedly the book and author acknowledge the rapidly changing landscape of social media and her own limited perspective on tween engagement with it as an outsider looking in, but somehow fail to account for those limitations in the conclusive statements made. For example, the author repeatedly states how socially powerless tween girls are, yet goes on to say how much power they have through consumption habits, trend setting, and their social media knowledge - which is a clear type of social power, no?

Emphasis on the author -repeatedly- making statements. After reading the first chapter, I felt like there was nothing more to gain because of how circular many of the conclusions were. In general, there wasn’t a lot of substance but there was a whole lot of verbiage.

To be fair, as a girl who spent her tweenage years with social media present, maybe I’m not the audience since a lot of this seemed like no brainer information to me. Either way, I couldn’t imagine gaining too much insight from this book other than a compilation of sources on the subject.

⭐️1.5 stars

[Casey Giffin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read only to achieve my bookmark lol interesting yet not interesting

[Sarah]

*DNF*

So badly written i couldnt bring myself to waste my time reading all 200 pages

[Noni Vaidyanuvatti · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought it very well cited commentary on tweens, social media, and digital girlhood overall but I was often unengaged because many points were repetitive. I think this book is great for someone who is newly exploring this idea and wanting to go deeper because they unfamiliar with these ideas and concepts.

[Brenna Buckner · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn’t get past the first few pages. The writing was too much and really didn’t have a point other than to say there’s good and bad to having the internet and social media for young girls.

[Sarah McMullan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am forever glad I am not growing up now, and especially glad to be not growing up in America. Add in my joy at having been able to choose to not to be a parent and my trifecta of happiness is complete!
Flippancy aside, being a woman has never been easy and it seems to start younger & younger. This book reminds us of the role we play in looking out for those that follow us no matter who they are.

This is (obviously) a very American text, and being neither an academic in this field or a parent, I am curious as to how closely teens in NZ mirror their American counterparts. My suspicion is. based solely on limited date from related studies in my fields of interest (classification & harmful digital media & young people ) & friends with kids, is that the same potential issues ate out there for our girls, they are just a little slower to become glued to their phones and the developmental identity aspects that Phelps outlines in the book.

I was (pleasantky) surprised but the need to create & curate their own image online, and that it largely seemed to be for them about them at this young age. The cynic in me hopes this this is about a healthy belief in their right to take up space and not an inherent desire to become an influencer but that's for another study!
From a parental point of view, I can see allowing that freedom could be challenging - especially when legally under 13s arent supposed to have accounts. (And we all know Australia has addressed that!).

A fascinating read. If you find it tough at first persevere: you'll get into the swing of the academic lite format pretty quick, and Phelps provides some very insightful, reasoned, sensitive information that i think is helpful to anyone who deals with tween girls and young women - or will be, be they parents, teachers, medical providers, social workers, advertisers, coaches, religious advisors or just people like me. interested in what growing up is like these days.

[Emma-Louise Clements · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Tween girls are half adult half child eating a lunchable while at a fancy hair appointment”
In some ways social media is great for young girls, it allows them to follow trends, communicate with friends, boost self confidence and learn from others. However, on the other hand it can be detrimental to self-esteem, reduce body confidence because of celebrity influences and negative comments from strangers and opens them up to predators posing as friends or young boys.
I grew up in a generation that has used various social media apps such as MySpace, Bebo, MSN, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok. I have known friends to have issues but I think sometimes it comes down to how conscious you are as a person.
Some parts of this book were interesting but most of it was repetitive, boring and full of annoying references that took up too much space.

[Lope Orire · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beautiful idea and a subject I actually love… young people, social media, digital culture. I really wanted to enjoy it. But the writing felt too complex and dense, and it made the reading experience harder than it needed to be. Sadly, I just didn’t enjoy it.

[Carla Viteri · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was this a thesis? 👀

[Aղցela W. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review Coming

[Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was very interesting even if it felt like a textbook