Sociology 115: Media & Popular Culture PLEASE MOVE TO THE FRONT! ROW F OR CLOSER Sociology 115: Media & Popular Culture LECTURE 16: Growing up Online October 25, 2016 Matt Kaliner kaliner@fas.harvard.edu Office Hours: Thursday 1:30-5pm WJH 404 And by appointment all week Paper Paper #3: Due Wednesday Nov 2.

Exercise: 3 questions Where did you hang out at as a teenager --Say, at ages 13, 15, 17? Did your family impose any rules on where you could go, how late you could be out, etc? Did your family impose any rules on your online activity?

It’s Complicated “Social media enables a type of youth-centric public space that is often otherwise inaccessible. But because that space is highly visible, it can often provoke concerns among adults who are watching teens as they try to find their way.”(19)

2010 census: 2,431 people, 97% white (wiki)

Anyone suffering from any prom PTSD?

Teenagers online Both books highlight anxieties and fears that face your generation.

Teenagers online Both books highlight anxieties and fears that face your generation. Myth buster: parents are scared of the wrong stuff! (and tend to make things worse) Skeptic: what seems to make life easier might make it less meaningful and creative

Teenagers online Myth buster: parents are scared of the wrong stuff! Both books highlight anxieties and fears that face your generation. Myth buster: parents are scared of the wrong stuff! (and tend to make things worse)

Teenagers online Myth buster: parents are scared of the wrong stuff! Both books highlight anxieties and fears that face your generation. Myth buster: parents are scared of the wrong stuff! (and tend to make things worse)

Internet, from subculture to Mainstream Danah boyd: Internet in 1990’s was a geeky subculture Escape, meeting strangers online 2000s: mainstreamed Becomes the norm Way to reinforce offline friendships

It’s Complicated Main idea: Teenagers these days… just want to hang out with each other and do all the things teenagers always do.

It’s Complicated Stranger Danger! Over scheduled Suburban sprawl Main idea: Teenagers these days… just want to hang out with each other and do all the things teenagers always do. But: Stranger Danger! Over scheduled Suburban sprawl

Networked public “Networked publics are publics that are restructured by networked technologies. They are simultaneously: The space constructed through networked technologies and the imagined community that emerges as a result of the intersection of people, technology, and practice.” (p8)

Networked public Everything carries affordances, or the practices or possibilities enabled by how it is designed. (Designers and Internet people like this word) For the Internet, important affordances include: Persistence Visibility Spreadability Searchability

Generational Collision? “Social media enables a type of youth-centric public space that is often otherwise inaccessible. But because that space is highly visible, it can often provoke concerns among adults who are watching teens as they try to find their way.”(19)

Context Collapse Who do you write for online? Who is your audience? In most social situations, there is a context to take cues from, or a situation we have some control over. Is that true of the internet? Have you ever tried to slip something past different audiences online? How? What’s your strategy? Have you ever been seriously misinterpreted online?

Context Collapse …Have you ever been seriously misinterpreted online? March 2014: My Mom, then a novice to Facebook, noticed that135 people had “liked” my wedding announcement, even though I had only invited 25 people to the actual (very small) wedding. Confusing “likes” and “invites,” she wrote on my wall:

It’s Complicated Context collapse: -Explains new media transition?

It’s Complicated Myth busting(does any of this hold up with you?) Privacy – teens more concerned about parents’ surveillance Danger – “stranger danger” obscures more pressing dangers like family abuse Bullying – can be turned off, ignored.

It’s Complicated Myth busting: Digital natives or digital naives? Obscures more important forms of inequality online. Digital divide: differential access to Internet Digital inequality: differential knowledge of how to use the Internet.

Thursday: Teenagers online Both books highlight anxieties and fears that face your generation.

Did not cover in lecture …but Evidence of Online and Offline blurring?