Heyyy, this week I will be presenting on the article "Why Youth Heart Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life" by Danah Boyd. I thought that this article was an interesting read, opening up my mind, raising a lot of issues and questions I have in relation to social network sites. Even though this article was based on teenager’s involvement with MySpace in the United States, I think that what is presented is relevant to Australia’s society, and also to other sites like Facebook. In my presentation I will focus on the idea that social network profiles are becoming ones “digital body” which Boyd makes reference to numerous times in her article. I also will discuss how the sites change the way today’s society interacts with one another offline and online, the reasons why teenagers get so involved and the positive and negative effects these sites have on teenagers.
Boyd’s main argument is that “social network sites are a type of networked public with four properties that are not typically present in face to face public life: persistence, searchability, exact copyability, and invisible audiences” and that these factors are responsible for complicating the ways people interact “(2). I agree with this proposition, in the way social network sites make it very easy for someone to be searched and found. This can be positive in the way it can connect you to relatives and friends from the past however it can also make it easy for young girls to become victims to online predators.
It can be suggested that a social network profile becomes ones digital body. Boyd states in the article “A MySpace profile can be seen as a form of digital body where individuals must write themselves into being”. I do agree with this idea, as MySpace in particular allows members to have a profile picture, write about themselves, their likes, activities, personal information, hobbies, education, and allows members to change the look of their profiles to make it even more personalised. The quotation from 18 year old Skyler at the beginning of the article “If you’re not on MySpace, you don’t exist” seems to support the idea that a MySpace profile is a digital body because she believes you are nobody if you don’t have one. This is a powerful quotation because it represents the pressure for teens to be involved in social network sites in order to be cool and fit in with their peers. Boyd does not mention multiple digital bodies in her discussion of MySpace. If a MySpace profile is someone’s digital body, what about the other profiles people have of themselves on different social network sites? Could having multiple profiles be described as having multiple digital bodies?
In terms of the way people interact with one another, I agree with Boyd as social network sites have complicated social interaction. Are the “friends” people have on their profiles really their friends? I am sure some of you have experienced a situation where someone you have nothing to do with has tried to add you as a friend and then ignores you in reality. The Top friends feature also seems to complicate relationships, for example 17 year old Olivia states “I’m sick of the pain and the hurt and the tears and the jealousy and the heartache...I have people complain to me that they are not my number one on my top 8” (14). Boyd then suggests that the reason the top friends feature complicates interaction is because “there are social consequences in publically announcing one’s friends...Feelings are hurt when individuals find that someone that they feel close with does not reciprocate” (14). Social network sites can also cause drama online and offline as people may not be happy if someone posts a photo of them they do not like as well as cyber bullying. These are just a few examples of the ways social network sites complicate things online and offline.
This article presents so many issues, ideas and arguments relating to social networking sites, and I could go on for ages discussing everything, however I will leave the rest of my thoughts about the article to discuss in tomorrow’s tutorial
Tomorrow I will bring up the following questions in the tutorial:
1.Do you think social network sites alter social dynamics and complicate the ways people interact with one another?
2.Do you think people’s experience of social network sites is influenced by their gender, race or class?
3.Do you think MySpace takes social voyeurism too far? Do people reveal too much of themselves?
4.Do you agree with Boyd’s representation of MySpace profiles being ones digital body?
5. Why do you think social network sites have become so popular in society? Do you think there is a social pressure to have a facebook or MySpace account?
6.In the article there is an example of a young black man from a poor urban community who sent an application to a prestigious college and ended up being turned down because the admissions centre found him on MySpace and didn’t like the hip-hop, urban and gang presentations on his profile. They felt that he contradicted the anti-gang opinions he put forth in his application. Do you think that this is taking social networking too far? Is this unprofessional of the admissions centre to have done this?
7.What do you think the positive and negative aspects of social network sites are?
8.Do you think that social network sites are empowering or oppressive for women in particular? Do these sites offer gender equality?
9.Boyd discusses how some parents of teens ban their children from creating MySpace accounts. If you were a parent, would you feel comfortable letting your children go onto these networking sites? As a teenager were you allowed to go onto social networking sites?
Looking forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts about social networking and Danah Boyd’s article.
See you tomorrow
Boyd’s main argument is that “social network sites are a type of networked public with four properties that are not typically present in face to face public life: persistence, searchability, exact copyability, and invisible audiences” and that these factors are responsible for complicating the ways people interact “(2). I agree with this proposition, in the way social network sites make it very easy for someone to be searched and found. This can be positive in the way it can connect you to relatives and friends from the past however it can also make it easy for young girls to become victims to online predators.
It can be suggested that a social network profile becomes ones digital body. Boyd states in the article “A MySpace profile can be seen as a form of digital body where individuals must write themselves into being”. I do agree with this idea, as MySpace in particular allows members to have a profile picture, write about themselves, their likes, activities, personal information, hobbies, education, and allows members to change the look of their profiles to make it even more personalised. The quotation from 18 year old Skyler at the beginning of the article “If you’re not on MySpace, you don’t exist” seems to support the idea that a MySpace profile is a digital body because she believes you are nobody if you don’t have one. This is a powerful quotation because it represents the pressure for teens to be involved in social network sites in order to be cool and fit in with their peers. Boyd does not mention multiple digital bodies in her discussion of MySpace. If a MySpace profile is someone’s digital body, what about the other profiles people have of themselves on different social network sites? Could having multiple profiles be described as having multiple digital bodies?
In terms of the way people interact with one another, I agree with Boyd as social network sites have complicated social interaction. Are the “friends” people have on their profiles really their friends? I am sure some of you have experienced a situation where someone you have nothing to do with has tried to add you as a friend and then ignores you in reality. The Top friends feature also seems to complicate relationships, for example 17 year old Olivia states “I’m sick of the pain and the hurt and the tears and the jealousy and the heartache...I have people complain to me that they are not my number one on my top 8” (14). Boyd then suggests that the reason the top friends feature complicates interaction is because “there are social consequences in publically announcing one’s friends...Feelings are hurt when individuals find that someone that they feel close with does not reciprocate” (14). Social network sites can also cause drama online and offline as people may not be happy if someone posts a photo of them they do not like as well as cyber bullying. These are just a few examples of the ways social network sites complicate things online and offline.
This article presents so many issues, ideas and arguments relating to social networking sites, and I could go on for ages discussing everything, however I will leave the rest of my thoughts about the article to discuss in tomorrow’s tutorial
Tomorrow I will bring up the following questions in the tutorial:
1.Do you think social network sites alter social dynamics and complicate the ways people interact with one another?
2.Do you think people’s experience of social network sites is influenced by their gender, race or class?
3.Do you think MySpace takes social voyeurism too far? Do people reveal too much of themselves?
4.Do you agree with Boyd’s representation of MySpace profiles being ones digital body?
5. Why do you think social network sites have become so popular in society? Do you think there is a social pressure to have a facebook or MySpace account?
6.In the article there is an example of a young black man from a poor urban community who sent an application to a prestigious college and ended up being turned down because the admissions centre found him on MySpace and didn’t like the hip-hop, urban and gang presentations on his profile. They felt that he contradicted the anti-gang opinions he put forth in his application. Do you think that this is taking social networking too far? Is this unprofessional of the admissions centre to have done this?
7.What do you think the positive and negative aspects of social network sites are?
8.Do you think that social network sites are empowering or oppressive for women in particular? Do these sites offer gender equality?
9.Boyd discusses how some parents of teens ban their children from creating MySpace accounts. If you were a parent, would you feel comfortable letting your children go onto these networking sites? As a teenager were you allowed to go onto social networking sites?
Looking forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts about social networking and Danah Boyd’s article.
See you tomorrow
Sup.
ReplyDeleteGreat pres today you had some really interesting questions.
I find that Boyd raises some good points, most interesting to me is the "individuals must write themselves into being". This can be both good and bad, you have the ability to create your digital self in your own opinion not that which is forced on you by others. HOWEVER the flip side is you can write ANYTHING true or false. I could tell people I'm a 20ft high duck and though they would (SHOULD) be dubious, how do they know!?
The idea of multiple bodies is also another interesting point. You could be male in WoW, female in RL, a tiger on 2nd life and a Youtube sensation hailed for your mad origami skills. It creates a strange technologically induced skitzophrenia.... I just thought it was an interesting idea that we have one real body yet apparently so many 'personalities' trapped inside it which are expressed and controlled through technology.
Em.
Hey! I thought you did a great job with this article.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the article really made me think about the idea of "creating identity". Teenagers love social network sites since it means they have control over what they say about themselves rather then have to go through a screening process with their parents.
The problem is, people forget about the invisible audience and post things intended for specific people without thinking that it's possible for anyone to read it.
And I liked how the article outlined how important music was to MySpace because I really think that's what caused MySpace to be big.
I think if I had teenage children I would let them on a social network site, so long as they fully understood that what they post can websites can be read by anyone, and stupid things will be immortalized on things like failbook.com