Consider the following excerpt from danah boyd's manifesto:
A huge part of the success of MySpace is an age and culture thing. Part of being an American teen is figuring out who you are, how you fit into society and culture, how social relations work, etc. Part of this process involves sharing cultural objects, hanging out and trying out different self-performances to find the one that feels "right" (think Goffman "faces"). There are plenty of adults who are doing this as well, but it is central to youth culture. Youth will always do this, using whatever medium is available to them.
I find the above passage to be particularly striking. The positioning of MySpace and other social networking sites within youth culture isn't surprising, but this is absolutely terrifying. Well, at least that was the knee-jerk reaction. I say this not because I believe the 30+ crowd shouldn't be on these sites, but because I almost never see them there. Am I just oblivious? Are thirtysomethings (and beyond) actually using these things?
We talked about this a lot during our blogging week, but the prospect of potential employers, teachers/professors, parents, etc. finding embarassing information about us on the Internet is scary. And while reports of this information being held against people increase, we've seen MySpace and Facebook respond by allowing users to adjust their own privacy settings. So this sort of armchair detective work is becoming harder to do. So will the people of elder generations have to friend me first? Or can they rely on the six degrees of separation and use my oblivious cousin to make an end-run around my privacy settings?
I have a different take, because I tend to be a lurker. I think most of the non-participants are without malevolent intentions (yes, they might be older than you) who like to see the ways in which others deal with the Internet and themselves. It's much easier to watch others jump in first, after all . . .
But perhaps my Mom did see my MySpace profile before I deleted it. And maybe she wanted one of her own, but this social networking thing might have screamed "kids only" to her. Could that help explain why 40% of MySpace visitors are 35-54, but are largely unnoticed by people my age?
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6 comments:
Hey John, that "six degrees of separation" article was very interesting. But Milgram's quote: "Though poor people always have acquaintances, it would probably turn out that they tend to be among other poor people, and that the rich speak mostly to the rich..." is probably applicable to the web social sites as well. Those older posters are probably hanging with the others in their age group, for the most part, and if the young people feel too overcome by aged-intruders, I suspect they'll move on to the next new social network site. Maybe you should start one...
I find it interesting that people in their 50s are involved at all. I'm over 50 and have not had any interest in MySpace other than to try to keep my 16 year old out of trouble. None of my friends or co-workers are into MySpace or Facebook either so I'm not sure who these 50+ are unless they are looking for someone younger to meet.
I have a lot of friends in the 30-40 age group who use myspace, and it is just because we live spread across the country. Sure we can just email, but how fun is it to also have pictures and music and get to know our friends' friends, and in that way stay involved with their lives. We were all young together, and our relationships are young, no matter how many years we've been on this earth. Just because younger people don't really believe older people once were young and could care about music and other things doesn't mean they don't. I don't mean to sound irritated, but really, just because people have a lot of years under their belt doesn't make them old!
Just to clarify--I didn't mean to offend anybody older than me by my post! I fully support everybody giving it a shot--dealing with the superpublic, that is.
I think Tira is probably right on--I've just been so entrenched with my own circles (be them age or interest-based) that I haven't encountered people who fall outside my normal sphere. So this is somewhat of the opposite effect I'd have guessed from social networking sites--they're just reinforcing the existing boundaries.
But still. I do a lot of lurking, and I guess I would have expected to see some more crossover, especially given the amount of 35+ traffic that these sites get. Not every one of them is looking out for their teenagers, right? I've met a lot of people a generation or two (or three) ahead on Phish/Grateful Dead-related websites, but I also run into said people at shows from those age groups. I just don't see the same range of ages participating in other online circles I belong to (or lurk). /rant
I think a lot of the lack of noticing does come from the types of activities, places you may hang out. But then again, some of it may also be that those you are networking with aren't always forthcoming (honest?) about their ages. Let's face it, there are certain activities that lend themselves to multi-generational participation, and some that just don't. Why would the internet be any different for networking about them than any other venue?
This is off of the age subject, but I wanted to comment on the privacy issue and embarrassing information that can haunt a person later...
Are people more cautious about what they write in emails that are directly connected to an office, school, etc. server/system than they are about what they write/send in these social networking sites? If so, why? If not, why not?
Is it possible that what people write in email messages can come back to haunt them, too, or is it a more controlled system of data collection? Seems to me that the same habits people have writing emails or traditional letters--and even the way they conduct verbal conversations--would carry over to how they communicate in social networking sites.
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