Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life, By: Danah Boyd.

Hey Everyone!!

Jess and I are presenting Danah Boyd's article this week. It is about how online sites like MySpace and Facebook became common destinations for young people/ teens in the United States. I'm sure we are all aware of these sites and after reading the article some of us can probably relate to what these teen went through, as they continue to be an important part of teen social life. I am going to concentrate on the theme of identity, and how teens in the United states shape or hide their identities, and how their identities may be influenced by their online audience, and therefore changed to impress their online participants.

The very first quote of the reading indicates a loss of identity. "If you are not on MySpace, you don't exist". This was said by Skyler, who is 18 and explaining this to her mom. Therefore, it is obviously a combination of peer pressure from school, the interest in online sites, and the pleasure of being able to maybe have another identity that attracts these teens to the sites. Basically Skyler is saying that if you are not on MySpace you are nothing. Skyler also posts things on her Xanga because she thinks if the kids at school read what she has to say and how she says it, they will want to be friends with her. It almost seems like being on MySpace is a way to prove yourself to your teen peers, a kind of initiation that is the "essential to being seen as cool as school". These sites could be seen as "insights to identity formation, status negotiation, and peer-to-peer sociality". Do you agree with this? Were your reasons for joining to feel cool and to fit in at school, or to form an acceptable identity, one which you could manipulate in order to gain acceptance from other kids? Did your joining any online sites have anything to do with your identity?

According to Boyd, "social network sites are providing teens with a space to work out identity and status, make sense of cultural cues, and negotiate public life". These sites are allowing "teenagers to experience social life online". Having a profile on a popular site will give teens the opportunity to be part of a popular online community through which they can craft a personal representation of themselves, and therefore create an identity, or change their identity to suit a norm. Do you think the ability to "visualise their social world through the networked collection of profiles", affects the way these teens want to present themselves, or be identified by other online friends and participants? How do you want to be identified, or seen by others on Facebook or any other online profile you have created? Does the visual aspect of being able to see other peoples' profiles and the fact that they can see yours make you want to present yourself differently, or alter your identity? Having the ability to look at others profiles also gives teens a sense of what types of presentations are socially appropriate. Other's profiles "provide critical cues about what to present on their own profile", and they can therefore "manipulate their profiles to express themselves". Do you find that you see things on someone else's profile and then you go back and change your own, or maybe remove something that has been written on your Facebook wall, just because you don't want people to see? Having the option of being able to remove things off our walls on Facebook might play into the fact that everyone wants to create an acceptable identity, or presentation of themselves that others will see.

Another way we may alter our identity is when we take note of how others have responded to our behaviour, because we can then "assess how well we have conveyed what we have intended", and we can then "alter our performance accordingly". This process of performance, interpretation and adjustment is what Erving Goffman calls impression management". I find this interesting because it is so true in everyday life and on online sites such as Facebook, we all seem to adjust our identities according to what knowledge we have gained from other people's presentations of what is appropriate. So then why do people join these sites if they can't be themselves and they are forever altering who they really are in order to perceived a certain way? Is it maybe because offline this is not as easy, and because online they can be selective with what information they share with others? This direct link between online and offline identities is precisely why teens are inclined to present the side of themselves that they believe will be well received by their peers.This all leads back to impressing one's audience, and one has to understand their audience in order to present one's self in the appropriate way.

MySpace, Facebook and other online sites are definitely, in my opinion, an escape for many young people. Due to the lack of mobility and the structural and social barriers that many teens experience, they see MySpace as an escape. The rapid rise in curfew legislation and the restriction on youths from drinking and socialising in many venues, makes the spaces they can hang out in very controlled and "under surveillance", and therefore they spend most of their time on the net creating profiles from which they can create and alter their identities and be friends with whoever they want. Parental control over youths "explains more than just complications in identity performance; it is the root of why teenagers are on MySpace in the first place". It is clear that when parents try and control teens behaviour in this new space, teens react by hiding away. Do you agree with this? Did your parents try and ban you form joining online sites? If they did, would you say you became devious and hid your identity or created a new secret identity just to stay on the site and so your parents wouldn't bother you about it ?