Exploring Adolescence through Social Networking

Athens.
Up next in this WebSci '09 session is Barbie Clarke, who shifts our attention to the social side of social media. It's well known that adolescents are using social networking sites to maintain friendships and explore identity, of course; Sonia Livingstone and Mimi Ito in particular have done some important work on this on both sides of the Atlantic. But things are also changing constantly, and further research is needed.

Most social networking research has looked at older adolescents, but children are going online at increasingly younger ages; in developed nations, there are many 10-14-year-olds using such sites for bulding friendships and exploring their identities now, at a time when they are just reaching puberty. Indeed, puberty is an important point - it is a time of transition, not least also as kids change school around this time, and using digital technology and going online may now also be part of this modern rite of passage: this may now be the time that kids get their first mobile phones and/or computers. The London School of Economics' Mobile Youth report found some 59% of British kids using social network sites, in fact.

Digital media are a source of power, therefore, but also pose substantial risks (though kids are also very aware of this, and many of them have effective protection mechanisms). Parents' understanding of this may be more limited and sketchy than their kids', in fact. For the kids, online friendships - conducted through social network sites themselves as well as through the social networking functions of online games - can be caring, supportive, and a means to keep in touch with friends whom they have moved away from (for example after a change of school). They also engage in collaborative creative practices, for example on YouTube and similar sites.

And, of course, the friending functions of social networking sites also enable them to maintain and display their networks of friendships - kids typically start off with some 50 friends, but accumulating close to 1000 friends is also not uncommon, and some of them are starting to be fascinated also with the graphical representations of their friends networks. Such activity helps kids explore their own identity, of course, and exercise their reflexive self - not least by uploading their stuff: photos and other materials they've created or collected.

In the process, kids are exploring the nature of friendship, becoming 'best friends forever', declaring themselves as boyfriend and girlfriend, and in this way exploring their emergent sexuality. This, too, is part of the rite of passage of early adolescence, and social networking provides kids with an enormous source of knowledge and an important site for them to express themselves creatively. This way, they express their freedom, create a 'secret' world away from the adults which operates by their own rules, and in exploring friendship and identity carry out the most important task of adolescence.

Technorati : WebSci '09, adolescence, community, friendship, identity, privacy, social media, social networking
Del.icio.us : WebSci '09, adolescence, community, friendship, identity, privacy, social media, social networking