[Air-l] teens and myspace

[Andrea Kavanaugh]

I think kids are comfortable because they are generally more likely 
to be writing to people they know from face-to-face relationships 
than are adults.

At 10:10 AM 2/28/2006, you wrote:
>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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