[Air-l] teens and myspace

[joshua raclaw]

Since we are bringing up specific mediums, I'm noticing that chats and
MUDs/MOOs keep getting mentioned as having these heavy stigmas attached to
them.  On the other half of the spectrum seem to be social network sites and
instant/text messaging, though I'm sure this varies some by social group.  In
my own discussions with students about hanging out online, I've noticed that
Massive Multiplayer Online Games kind of fall somewhere in the middle of those
two poles - not entirely mainstream enough for everyone within an age cohort
to do it and feel good about it, but not nearly as (nerdy?  dorky?  lame?) as
hanging out on IRC for hours at a time.  I'm interested in this because, at
their core, MMOGs combine elements of both chatting and MUDs/MOOs, although
they're much more high-tech, so I'm wondering if those stigmatized forms are
looked down upon because they're seen as kind of antiquated?  Any thoughts?

Not to avoid Nancy's original (!) thread, of course, to which I'd say yes,
kids these days definitely see online social interaction in general as less
stigmatized than they used to (and this change *has* happened pretty quickly).



Joshua Raclaw
Dept of Linguistics
University of Colorado



Quoting "Bunz, Ulla" <Ulla.Bunz at comm.fsu.edu>:

* Danah says, "They definitely don't have a stigma attached to the
* Internet" and actually, this I find very interesting, because while my
* early 20s students seem to think it's perfectly normal to be on MySpace
* or Facebook, and while they find it normal to have relationships there,
* they think that people who made friends in LambdaMoo must be really
* weird, socially inept weirdos and that online communities are a thing of
* the past (not realizing that they are, indeed, part of one themselves).
* Just a fun-fact.
* Ulla
*
*
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