[Air-l] teens and myspace

[joshua raclaw]

I'm also wary of lumping a mess of users into a "kids today" group that
doesn't consider at least a few social variables.  From what I've seen, I
think shared ideologies about a medium is something to add to this list - you
can find users on livejournal who think that sitting on myspace is completely
lame or embrassing (or, to quote a few users, "totally gay"), but reading and
commenting on their friend's LJ diaries is a perfectly fine way to spend an
afternoon.  And like Wainer mentioned, some media just seem less acceptable
overall - I'd say chats and MUDs fall in there with most American youth.

Unless we're just talking about very general attitudes towards social
interaction over the internet.  Is that what we're talking about?

Joshua



Joshua Raclaw
Dept of Linguistics
University of Colorado

Quoting Nancy Baym <nbaym at ku.edu>:

* My sense if that if it is dependent on all these things, then the
* notion that "kids today" view online interaction as completely
* nonstigmatic is a problematic notion.
*
* I'm not suggesting that youth don't USE all this stuff -- it's
* evident that they do and that they are into it. My 9 year old son
* lives on Runescape whenever he can (playing, for the most part, with
* the playground crowd from his school).
*
* What I am talking about is more like this -- when I interviewed
* college students a few years ago (before they were all "addicted" --
* their own term -- to facebook), the people who rarely used the net
* socially were very happy to say that those who did things like IM
* with roomates were "pathetic." The ones who did IM roomates said they
* did it, but viewed themselves (or at least said they did) as "geeky,"
* "pathetic," and other derogatory terms for doing so. Whether they
* were really stigmatizing their own internet use, or were responding
* to a sense that they *should* stigmatize it I don't know.
*
* Were these college kids the last generation to think there was
* anything wrong with what they did (and enjoyed doing) online?
*
*
*
*
*
* >Don't want to play the killjoy here, but aren't our answers related to
* >[and dependent on]:
* >
* >- age [teen is broad]
* >- technological proximity [demand] and design [offer]
* >- gender [relatively self-explanatory]
* >- size and nature of existing social networks [directly related to
* >Andrea's point]
* >- topic and nature of discussion [soap talk vs. sport talk vs. me talk]
* >- class [oh, yes, kids form different classes use and think of the
* >Internet, and other ICTs, in different ways]
* >
* >La differance?
* >
* >Cheers
* >
* >Wainer
* >
* >PS My bongo-bongo students seem pretty uncomfortable with online chats,
* >but well into other electronic mediations [but hey, this is CH1 Britain]
* >
* >>  -----Original Message-----
* >>  From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
* >>  [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Andrea Kavanaugh
* >>  Sent: 28 February 2006 15:24
* >>  To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
* >>  Subject: Re: [Air-l] teens and myspace
* >>
* >>
* >>  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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