[Air-l] A verb for using social networking sites

[danah boyd]

I'm a bit late but i thought i'd pipe up since i've been following  
the terms...

Press and parents often use the term "social networking to describe  
what their teens are doing, but this is not the language of youth.   
Part of the reason for this is that the youth are not networking.   
This is where i think that the term has been flawed and why i call  
the sites "social network sites."  What makes them unique and  
important is not the ability to engage in networking, but the ability  
to model out a social network in a visible way.  When you're willing  
to let go of the sites as one practice, you'll find all sorts of -ing  
terms embedded within: friending, commenting, messaging (i.e. private  
messaging), copy/pasting or making layouts, etc.  Youth distinguish  
between these because participation on social network sites varies  
tremendously.

I don't think a generic term will arise from the youth to discuss  
practices across social network sites.  I think that you will  
continue to see more and more use of the proprietary name, just as  
you hear youth talk about "googling" things.

Also, regarding the comments on Facebook vs. MySpace, i'm trying to  
write up an essay about my data on this.  The short answer is that  
it's classed at the high school level in the US.  Working class kids,  
subcultural kids, queer kids, kids of color, etc. are using MySpace.   
College-bound kids, "good" kids, wealthy kids, sporty kids, etc. are  
all using Facebook.  This has changed in the last year.  It plays out  
some in college.  If you go to a Latino-dominated community college,  
you're far more likely to see MySpace be the force.  But if you're  
teaching a a 4-year institution, MySpace is barely visible except in  
the artist, queer, and subcultural communities.  More on this on my  
blog shortly.

danah


- - - - - - - - - - d a n a h ( d o t ) o r g - - - - - - - - - -
"taken out of context i must seem so strange"

musings :: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts