[Air-l] teens and myspace
Nancy Baym
nbaym at ku.edu
Tue Feb 28 07:10:33 PST 2006
I have a question for those of you working with youth culture,
particularly but not just around MySpace.
I have been interested recently by what I perceive as a gap between
the ways in which most of us *use* the internet socially (ie, often
without big issues about it) and the way we *think* about using the
internet socially (ie, a poor substitute for more meaningful
face-to-face interaction). Recently a number of adults have said to
me that this gap between action and perception, which they
acknowledge in themselves, is completely gone with teens, what with
myspace and all.
My question is whether youth really perceive their online
communication to be completely non-problematic compared to
face-to-face communication, or if even amongst teens there is a sense
that it might be a little pathetic or embarrassing to use the
internet socially (even amongst those who do). Is the stigma around
online socializing really completely gone for youth? Of course,
adults always perceive kids as way better and more comfortable with
the net than they are, which makes me wonder if this sense that kids
have no sense of stigma is adult perception vs youth reality.
Thanks for your thoughts,
Nancy
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