Mobile devices have become ubiquitous across every aspect of American society; they are so prevalent that the now-cliché commercial vision of a family sitting down for dinner with at least one teen texting on their phone is not uncommon. The Federal Communications Commission has announced this week their plans to hold a forum at a Washington, D.C. high school to address concerns arising from the use of Internet technology among teens.

The New York Times has some discussion of this event on their Bits blog,

The commission noted research showing that mobile phone ownership among children has increased 68 percent in the last five years, and that a typical teen texts every 10 minutes during waking hours.

“It’s the beginning of a process to help inform parents and spark a discussion about a range of issues that parents are concerned about,” Julius Genachowski, the commission’s chairman, said in an interview. He said those issues include how to balance the time young people are spending online and with digital devices, the type of content they’re seeing, and social issues, like cyberbullying and inappropriate texting.

Mr. Genachowski said he continued to be a strong advocate for the spread of broadband and computer use in general, including in the schools, as a key tool for economic growth. And he said the forum was “not about considering regulation.”

It’s probably good that they’re not considering regulation. New technology and social paradigms are the source of numerous moral panics that lead to stultifying lawmaking (see: the Communications Decency Act, a disastrous Internet legislative mandate with more chilling effects than useful effects.) The Internet is just another formation of the public square and our connectivity to it happens to be also our connectivity to one another. The regulation of teens still rests largely in the laps of parents and—as I’m pretty sure everyone should be quite aware of right now—education isn’t just about educating children; it’s about educating their parents as well.

It looks like the panel will be covering a great deal of the sociology of Internet and mobile technology use by teens by actually examining the pathology of teenagehood, or at least our current semi-academic popular conception thereof. I say this because Rosalind Wiseman, the author of Queen Bees and Wannabees will be part of the first panel. The addition of mobile technology to the fray of teenage social drama isn’t altogether that special, it simply provides another outlet for them to extend their feelers and influence and will largely end in a attitude of “more of the same.”

What caught my attention about the coverage by the New York Times was the possibility of a panel discussing “inappropriate texting.” Perhaps this is a strange sort of reference to things like “sexting” which is the practice by teenagers to send steamy texts to each other and sometimes accompany them with nude photographs taken from their cell phones. This has been the center of a lot of upsetting attention for many; because, unlike a physical photo used to be, an image sent via a cell phone can be readily and easily infinitely distributed.

We’ve seen others work on releasing education about safety and the Internet for digestion for teenagers, like Microsoft’s attempt at a free e-book, Your Own Space: Keep Yourself Safe Online. It didn’t look that bad when I read it, but really it needs a companion piece for educators and parents so that they can open a dialogue with their teens.

Again, we’re looking at educating the next generation of educators and parents as much as we must educate the next “Generation Mobile.” Teenagers learn to the rules of their own social interaction faster than their guardians because they’re actually steeped in it and must adapt to its rules and right now those rules involve mobile devices, the Internet, and texting.

This FCC conference looks like a good thing to me. It isn’t focusing on the fear and panic aspect, ascends to a level where educating the educators and parents is important, and involves individuals who already access natural trends in teenage interaction that doesn’t even necessitate a cell phone.

[Image credit the Associated Press]