Greetings 10am.
Kelly and I are presenting on Danah Boyd’s ‘Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life’. I have focused my part of the presentation on how social networking sites change how we interact with each other, both on and offline, ie the ‘friend’ side of social networking. One of the most important things to remember about this article is that it is focusing on teenagers in the United States, specifically high-school aged teenagers. So, believing that you have all read the article in question, I am going to summarise the most key points only relating to how social networking affects us in relation to other people, not how it affects our sense of ourselves. My first question to the tute is whether or not we are all on a social networking site? Which one/s? What made you decide to join or resist? And most importantly, do social networking sites change how we relate to each other?
One of the key points brought up within this article is that for the MySpace youth in the United States, MySpace is a way of interacting in public while being confined to the private. On page 9, Boyd states, ‘When I ask teenagers why they joined MySpace, the answer is simple: “Cuz that’s where my friends are.”’ And then on page 18 and 19, she explores how ‘: Regardless of whether teens in the US have the time to engage in public life, there are huge structural and social barriers to them doing so. First, there is the issue of mobility. … Even if they want to go somewhere they are often unable to. Youth have very little access to public spaces’. That’s understandable. In a world where youth are viewed with mistrust and confined by immobility, social networking sites offer them a way of maintaining contact with their friends. But what about when you are not constrained by immobility? How is the way that we, as university students, experience Facebook different? Does our mobility make sites like Facebook and MySpace more, not less, important? Especially as technology allows us to be on the internet on our phones, people now have more access to such sites. I’m sure we all have friends that constantly update their Facebook status while they are out. Do you think that lack of mobility has made it more important that we are constantly proving to all our friends how much fun we are having? On the other hand, does this constant concern for what our online friends think of us mean that we are neglecting our ‘real’ friends? Do you find this an issue with your friends? Do we need to redefine the parameters of acceptable social behaviour in a new technology-obsessed era? Or is this merely the inevitable evolution of social interactions within an increasingly cyborg society?
Another important part of the article is who these youth are adding as friends, and why. Boyd states ‘while teens will typically add friends and acquaintances as Friends, they will also add people because it would be socially awkward to say no to them, because they make the individual look cool, or simply because it would be interesting to read their bulletin posts’(13). How do you determine who to accept as friends? Do you have any criterion? To expand upon this point, how do you decide who to add as a potential friend? Boyd also brings up how the MySpace ‘Top Friends’ application is both loved and loathed, and considered ‘pure social drama’ (14). Are all social networking sites a hive for social drama? How dependant are we on having our relationships defined for us through social media? Does this suggest a collective lack of self-esteem, that we have to show everyone else how popular (or alternative) we are? How successful we are in the dating scene? I know among my friends that we have started defining a ‘real’ relationship as one that has been confirmed on Facebook. Is Facebook or MySpace jargon becoming ingrained in your and your friends’ verbal interactions?
A question that came to me while reading this article was whether or not social networking sites subvert traditional social conventions, or whether just because it is an online friendship, the rules of friendship have been altered. The difficulty of ‘friendship’ within social networking sites is reflected in Kate Miller-Heidke’s song ‘Are You F@*king Kidding Me? (The Facebook Song)’, as she reflects upon her answer to an ex-boyfriend’s friend request. I’m sure we have all been in the situation where someone from our past has added us, and we think ‘what on earth would possess you to add me?’ ‘Are you really so desperate to increase your friend count that you would deny the uncomfortable past we had?’ Is this a space where previously bad relationships can be healed?
So many questions… I’ll see you all in tute!
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