[Air-l] teens and myspace

[Carol Perryman]

The idea that 'reciprocity is critical for bonding' appears to be
better accepted by teens than by 'suited humans' judging by the tenor
of Dr. Cornwell's response.  I believe the comment that was criticized
was made by someone else, and was based upon informant interviews:

>>Consequently youth do have a sense of stigma around online socializing
in cases where online communication supplants face-to-face interaction.
At least this is how I interpret my informants when they talk about all
the benefits of using personal media (e.g. easier to admit things and
be open, and the flexibility of online socializing), yet still
emphasize that face-to-face interaction is their preferred mode of
socializing. -  Marika Luders, March 1.

There does appear to be some imprecision in several places here
regarding the attribution of stigma.  Stigma by whom?  The comment by
Marika Luders appears to refer to peer-group stigma applied when non
f2f interaction becomes preferable to f2f - a sense of social
dysfunction, perhaps, compared to a more acceptable norm where online
is adjunct to in-person.

Dr. Cornwell's comments, on the other hand

>>My research, observations and common sense tells me that this
assertion is nonsense. The fact is that there is a stigma attached to
not having the ability to cell
phones, text messaging, email or chats.

clearly address a completely different issue.  He is not talking about
an imbalance, but about an ability, a literacy level. I see no reason
to belittle others'  comments, especially when the original messages
have been misinterpreted.


Carol Perryman MSLIS
TRLN Doctoral Fellow
School of Information & Library Science
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

"From then on, when anything went wrong with a computer, we said it
had bugs in it." -- Grace Murray Hopper, on the removal of a
2-inch-long moth from an experimental computer at Harvard in 1945,
quoted in Time 16 Apr 84.