Life as Constant Performance Art

I just finished reading Cinderella Ate My Daughter, which is both pleasant and horrible to read. It essentially breaks down how marketing defines womanhood from an early age (think princesses and more princesses), and how that impacts a woman's sense of self and sexuality moving forward. The chapter on girl beauty pageants almost did me in.

Towards the end of the book, author Peggy Orenstein comments on how social networking plays into this trap of womanhood = constant need to uphold an image of perfection and beauty:

"I don't mean to demonize new technology. I enjoy Facebook myself...Yet I am also aware of the ways Facebook and Twitter subtly shifted by self-perception. Online, I carefully consider how any comments or photos I post will shape the persona I have cultivated; offline, I have caught myself processing my experience as it occurs, packaging  life as I live it...part of my consciousness splits off, viewing the scene from the outside and imagining how to distill it into a status update or Tweet." p. 166

I wonder if this is how youth today constantly process their lives. What should I wear? Will there be cameras? Will this end up on Facebook? What will people say about me? What if I am there and people *don't* say anything about me? Is what I am doing right now worthy of a post or Tweet? As Orenstein notes, life becomes performance, not process. In other words, our days are lived for others' entertainment, comments, and approvals -- not the self. This is frightening to me. For how are we going to truly discover who we are and want to be, if we are not allowed to fail and flounder, lest we be judged by our "friends" and "followers"? Young women certainly want their 15 minutes of fame to be something worthy of celebration, not embarrassment. The trick is to make it safe to feel vulnerable with so many watching.

Naughty or Nice? Teens on social networking sites

I am woefully behind, and therefore just now reading the report from Pew released November 9th: How American teens navigate the new world of "digital citizenship." Some things that strike me:

• While I am glad that majority of young people (69%) say that their peers are "mostly nice to each other" on social networking sites, I am disturbed that 1 in 5 state that young people are mostly mean and another 11% stating that "it depends." In other words, almost 1 in 3 teens can't say that young people are mostly nice. That is a problem.
• Almost all (90-95%) of teens say they ignore online cruelty when they see it. And 21% say that they "join in" when witnessing it.

I guess I am not surprised by that second bullet point -- at least when it comes to ignoring. It's what happens with other forms of bullying. In face-to-face environments, bullying/name calling/exclusion are seen every day at school, and youth just turn their heads, hoping it goes away, hoping it doesn't happen to them. And the joining in? That saddens me more for sure, but I can see similar motivations that drive people to ignore fueling those who are just a little more insecure, a little more scared, to jump into the fray. After all, if you are mean to someone, then perhaps the attention is directed away from you as the potential next target. Given that bullies are often bullied, there is some support for this argument.

And while it can be shocking to think of the passivity that supports (and condones?) cruelty, it's also understandable. A young person's desire to fit in is strong and developmentally appropriate. And right now, adults certainly don't provide good role models for speaking out against those who exude power inappropriately. Celebrities fights, demeaning radio show hosts, a divided Congress, and the way in which Occupy Wall Street protests are being handled, are all examples of how those in power matter and are listened to. And in all these instances, power is equivalent to putting someone else down.

If we don't redefine power and what it means to be important, how can we expect youth to do it for those of us who supposedly know better?

Straight from the Source: A Youth View of Social Networking Woes

I love reading essays published by youth. In fact, part of my job consists of working with young writers and getting their work published either online or in print, and it's extremely rewarding and educational. So I could not resist sharing this post (on Huff Post High School, but originally on TeenInk) from a young person who discusses how her addiction to Facebook interferes with her daily life as a student. While scholars continue to debate on the issue, it's nice to actually listen to a narrative about experience rather than generalities every once in a while.

The author discusses her struggles with time suck -- being drawn into social networking at the expense of getting her assignments done efficiently:

"When I sit down to write an essay, it can take me almost an hour to start my work. “Just one quick look at Facebook,” I think to myself. I then end up on the website for an extended period of time."

She also gets even more serious when she discusses the need to maintain popularity, but in a way that is essentially false camaraderie:

"These websites are addicting because they give a false sense of community. Users are tricked into believing that they are part of a close group...People become addicted to the high they get when someone acknowledges them on these websites." 

Even as an, ahem, "older" adult, I can fall into this trap. I sometimes wonder why a particular post of mine goes unnoticed, when I find it highly amusing and/or inspiring; it disappoints me for that moment (I think that's the strongest word I can honestly write about my reaction, though sometimes my reaction can increase to "bummed"). Conversely, I can feel giddy when I see lots of people responding to something that I posted, especially when I didn't expect anyone to really notice (So why even do it? That's a question for another time).

While this story is not meant to infer that all young people suffer from these issues, I think it's important to be reminded that there are young people who are struggling with, not always embracing, social networking.  And since socializing online is an integral part of the ways in which communities are formed and maintained, it's important to understand where and when frustration and disconnect exist for youth -- those whom older folk often assume celebrate such connections the most.

The Need to Connect

This weekend is my 25th High School Reunion. For many reasons, I decided not to go -- mostly time, cost, and distance. But there is another reason: To some extent, thanks to social networking, I already feel that I am caught up enough with my classmates, those with whom I was not close, but in whose well-being I am still interested. I see their lives flash before my eyes in the form of baby pictures, complaints about work, news posting that reflect their ideals.

My class even set up a "private" group in which we share more specific memories and photos (I put "private" in quotes, because I really feel like I can't trust the privacy of anything online, but boy I sure hope most of those pics stay behind closed doors!). In many ways, this group made me even more excited to attend the reunion, while at the same time sated my desire to. All in all, I am sure I will miss some laughs, but I am OK with not attending.

I wonder how reunions are going to be perceived among the younger generations. Will they even be seen as necessary? Will they be conducted remotely? Or will they be even more important because no one will have lost touch in the first place?

The idea of connecting via social networking, especially when Facebook and other sites first launched, was an abrupt, novel experience. Within minutes of setting up a profile, I had several friend requests and I was suddenly being (re)introduced to people from my past who were reaching out. And I had a great time thinking of people I wanted to reach out to and thrilled in perusing their pages when they accepted the connection.  This sudden onslaught of faces and memories is not really a part of younger people's experiences. The people they know will be connected to them online from the very beginning. There will be no online "reunion" with the initial establishing of a social networking presence. The whole concept of "hello" and "goodbye" has changed.

This can be seen in the decline of the yearbook. What was once an essential piece of nostalgia may become nostalgia itself. Why reference an old book when you can see pictures old and new on a screen?

Writing this post makes me sad that I am going to miss sharing stories and creating new ones at our old-town watering hole. But I know that I'll at least be able to see what's going within minutes of it all happening. Question is, will that be enough, or will it make me feel even more isolated from the group? And, to draw the parallel to youth today: When they see pictures of an event from which they couldn't attend or were excluded, where does that leave them?

Why is it so easy to hurt someone?

A recent poll co-sponsored by the AP and MTV reveals some disturbing, though perhaps not surprising figures. Over half (55%) of the teens and 20-somethings surveyed say they have seen people being mean to each other on social networking sites, and half see discriminatory words (e.g. "slut" or a racial slur) or images on those sites.

Yet 41% of these young women are offended by the word "slut" -- 65% are offended if the word is used to describe themselves -- 60% of African American youth would be offended if they saw the N-word being used against other people. Put another way, young people commonly engage in, and witness, behavior that hurts and offends their peers.

So what gives? Good old basic psychological theory which includes the disinhibition effect and dissociative anonymity, both described extremely well here by researcher John Suler, explains a lot of this phenomenon. In a nutshell, these theories explain the ease of name-calling online this way: it's easier to type words than say them out loud because writing is a more indirect form of communication than speaking. It's especially easier to write words on a computer screen than to say them out loud right in front of another human being. This is because I don't see the emotional response to the person. I don't have to defend myself in a physical environment if people disapprove of my actions. In short, I am shielded from the immediate effects of my actions, so it's easier to perform them.

And then enter the bystander effect.  This is when a bunch of people witness something horrible and/or dangerous (an assault, a burning building, a car accident), yet no one does anything to intervene, figuring that others will do it instead -- this is diffusion of responsibility. In short, the larger the audience, the less likely intervention will occur. Given the potentially hundreds, if not thousands of witnesses to name calling on a social networking site, who are also influenced by the disinhibition effect, it's no wonder cyberbullying runs rampant and no one does anything to stop it!

Cyberbullying is so toxic because it feeds off of human nature, so in order to stop it we have to be more deliberate in our approach and address it head-on. We have to teach people about our inclinations and how to fight them. We need to focus on empathy, understanding, and our circles of influence -- we need to think outside of ourselves. Because our instincts are going to lead us to be just another bystander in cyberspace.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/09/20/national/w000539D79.DTL#ixzz1Ybj8Nj1s

Do we really know how social networking impacts youth?

A plenary presentation at this year's American Psychological Association's convention is getting a lot of press (in part due to the APA's own press release). The talk, entitled “Poke Me: How Social Networks Can Both Help and Harm Our Kids,” highlights of the talk, at least according to the press release, include findings such as:

1. Teens who use Facebook more often show more narcissistic tendencies while young adults who have a strong Facebook presence show more signs of other psychological disorders, including antisocial behaviors, mania and aggressive tendencies.  
2. Daily overuse of media and technology has a negative effect on the health of all children, preteens and teenagers by making them more prone to anxiety, depression, and other psychological disorders.

 The research nerd in me sees the first statement as more "mild" than the second for one main reason: The first statement simply shows associations.  An association, in teens, between being full of oneself and being on Facebook more often. In young adults, hanging out on Facebook more is associated with being anti-social and having mania. Those statements make sense to me -- you can see how those characteristics go together, but there is no indication that being on Facebook causes narcissism, mania (which can result in not being able to sleep and thus being online more), and/or anti-social behavior.

Then, there is that second bullet -- the one that makes me nervous and even angry. First of all, what is "overuse"? How many hours constitute that concept? Second, the phrase “has a negative effect” implies that the researcher studied young people over time – and if that happened, how long a time? I would love to see that actual study so I can answer those questions for myself.

Finally, the word “all” – really? Every single child, tween, and teen is going to be prone to anxiety, depression, and other mental health concerns by “overusing” Facebook? Wow. Never in my life have I heard a researcher claim that a phenomenon impacts every single person. Think of all those chain smokers that manage to not get lung cancer, for example.

Most of you will probably think that I am being a little too picky here, but I think it’s important to point out how these phrases can mislead reporters. I understand that most reporters are not trained in research – that’s OK. But, to feed them such broad generalizations is nothing short of dangerous and irresponsible. Which, in turn, misleads the public. I will take back everything I say here if somehow “overusing” Facebook causes every single young person mental harm, but until then, shame on you APA.

I wanna live forever...

Fame! The biggest priority among youth these days? Take the New York Times article on how some young teens are becoming cultural phenomenon within a matter of days. Or 23-year-old "internet sensation" Dia Frampton, who originally got her fan base through You Tube, but then gained even more popularity by being the runner-up on NBC's The Voice. I'm sure there are many other examples, but I, alas, am not all that great when it comes to pop-culture savvy.

And then there's the research. Recent work out of the Children's Digital Media Center at UCLA finds that "fame" is the number one value conveyed in television shows targeting 9-11 year olds in 2007. This is in sharp contrast to the top value of "community feeling," which topped the list from 1967 all the way through 2006. And a survey of adults by Dr. Jean Twenge revealed that 10% of young adults (in their 20s) had experienced symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, as compared to only 3% of Seniors.

So, why all the focus on the self? It's possible that the simple answer is "because we can." The internet (especially social networking) can cause an individual to reach a vast number of people exponentially, something that probably couldn't be done a decade ago, and most certainly was unobtainable a generation ago. Pair that with the normative developmental stage of egocentrism often found in teens and young adults, and their tech-savvy, and the recipe is perfect for this storm.

The question I have is, "is this focus on fame inherently a problem?" Part of me says no, simply because to some extent, as I stated above, such focus on the self is pretty typical of youth. Plus, this focus could help increase self-esteem, sense of well-being, and maybe even a sense of purpose and obligation. For example, 14-year-old Benni Cinkle has used her new-found fame to help non-profit organizations. Where's the harm in that?

On the other hand, not having such notoriety -- despite, perhaps, trying hard to achieve it through a clever blog or video -- could backfire on a young person and threaten their sense of self. "After all, if all these peers I hear about on the news can gain such followings, why can't I?" goes the thought process.

It all comes back to a basic reality: There is always someone out there who is "cooler" than you. They have more friends, a better voice, nicer hair, a more impressive jump shot, a more noble cause. If we can convey that basic fact to youth (and heck, to people of all ages), perhaps there would be less focus on fame. And, it would probably help if the media catering to the tweens didn't think it was so great, either.

Reaching Teens

A question for the marketing people, who spend millions of dollars answering this question: How best to reach teens online with good information about their sexual health? Of course teens use social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace and others, but do they want to get information there? Would they "fan" or "friend" a site? For example, Sex Etc. has over 6,000 fans on its Facebook page. But as I scroll through them, a lot of them are older (indeed, I am one of them!). And when you consider that teens often average 100s of friends as an individual, you can see that Sex Etc.'s outreach is far from overwhelming.

It appears they do not use Twitter, so that is probably out. ISIS is trying to use cell phones/texts to deliver its messages about sexual health -- so are others.

As someone who is supposedly an expert at reaching youth, I find that I (and others) still struggle with the best ways to reach out.

Internet: Friend or Foe?

A brief editorial Coming of Age on the Internet by the Association for Psychological Science challenges the still-prevalent notion that the internet is more about isolation than connection. It looks back into the internet dark ages (read: mid to late 90s) to recall how initial studies on the phenomenon focused on how spending time online detracted from "real" relationships and sent our youth into cyber isolation.

Has our mindset changed 10-15 years later? Given that in the United States, online communication among young persons is pretty much universal (up to 97% according to Pew), researchers might have been forced into doing so, but are indeed looking more at the positives. According to the editorial, more recent research findings indicate that online networking is associated with greater happiness and well-being; surfing alone does not have such benefits, and may be related to some psychological risks. This finding isn't any different than face-to-face findings which show that socially connected people are happier.

Is this just evidence that the internet doesn't create problems, but is simply an example of how current human interactions work?

To Friend or not to Friend Your Child?

Let me be honest -- I have no children. I only have memories of what my life was like as a teenager. Now that my disclaimer is out of the way...

With the emergence of Facebook as "the" social networking site for both youth and older adults, the arbitrary division between the world of young people (formerly MySpace or the internet in general) and their parents (formerly the tangible earth or AOL) is narrowing. We are witnessing the winnowing away of a different sort of digital divide. So what does this mean? It means that there are times where I notice my friends (the adult kind) are friends with their children on Facebook. Not friends as in "I am here watching you -- be careful!" but friends as in "hey, let's watch a movie tonight."

I find this a little odd. Probably because I never had that sort of relationship with my parents, so it's hard for me to understand how someone could small talk and just sort of hang out with theirs. But, from the couple of examples I see online, it seems to be working. But what do I know? I am not friends with that teenager's friends and I don't really see what else is going on on the walls of Facebook...

Which brings me to this blog on Plugged in Parent entitled Parental faux pas on Facebook. When I first read it, with its basic rules for parents on Facebook, I thought to myself, duh! What parent wouldn't know not to avoid friending their friends (that's just weird)? Don't parents know not to comment on everything their child writes in their status update (that's annoying)?

Then I realized that parents might NOT know those things. Why? Because they might not realize the basic nettiquette of Facebook and online interactions in general! I was lucky enough to become part of the online social scene relatively early (was on Friendster in the 90s, was IM'ing back then too with up to 10 windows open at once), so I need to remember that not everyone who is "old" like me understands the not-so-basic rules of the online world. They will become intuitive enough, but right now they are like those bizarre exceptions to the spelling rules you learned in grade school "i before e except after c..."

So thank you Plugged in Parent Sharon Miller Cindrich for sharing some of the basic rules so we can all live happily under the same URL.

What's in a Name?

In a classic example of communication breakdown, a new study reports that over half (58%) of those surveyed do not know what "social networking" is. The international study did note that 70% of Americans did recognize the term. However, that means that close to 1 in 3 persons in this country have somehow not been exposed to the phrase, or simply don't remember what it means. Implications? We need to be careful about the terms we use when talking about the phenomenon of interacting with others in these types of online spaces. I know I am guilty of talking about "social networking," as I do not want to call out certain sites and brands when talking about the concept as a whole. Too often, MySpace is scapegoated because people talk about the dangers associated with social networking in general, but end up picking on the best-known of the bunch (too bad that survey didn't ask the percentage of persons who have heard of MySpace specifically). But if using the term "social networking" alienates too many people, then we fail to get our message across. While I have no answers, I do believe this issue is important; much like my last post on cyberbulling vs. electronic aggression, I want to stress the need to come to some semblance of consensus on terms so that we educate the public, not confuse them. And given the Ivory Tower's bad reputation for trying to claim expertise at the expense of being useful or collaborative, there is ample reason to prioritize clear communication about issues without using all those fancy and/or new words.

Hot Penguin on Penguin Action!

Just trying to get your attention here with that provocative headline. Anne Collier, in her fabulous Safe Kids newsletter, alerted me to the Club Penguin game "Spin the Fish." You can probably guess what it's modeled after -- the good old fashioned "Spin the Bottle" game in which IRL a group of young persons sit in a circle, a bottle is spinned, and the spinner has to kiss the person the bottle is pointing at (or be put into a closet with them for five minutes while everyone else stands outside with their ears pressed to the door). I remember in grade school longing for that bottle to point to Scott Cassidy or David Bowerbank. But I digress...

Not to be thwarted by the lack of real smooching, kids at Club Penguin (around ages 9 and up, from what I gather) are playing this game virtually. See it in "action" here:



Note how the fish doesn't really spin. Note how you can react using emoticons about how you feel about being kissed by someone (too bad we don't know whether these penguins actually know each other offline or not). Note how this is yet another example of how kids will do ANYTHING to express their crushes on someone -- and can also snub certain peers just as easily. For more rules on how to play it "cool" (the unwritten rules of this unofficial game) during Spin the Fish, look here. The point in this blog I found most poignant is that the author commented that "No one asked me because I didn't have my latest style on yet." Apparently it's just as important for a penguin to look hot as it is for a pre-teen...

Rewriting the Dictionary

Apparently, I am leaving all the "on topic" posts to Sarah, while I vent on issues that are at least somewhat related to this blog. I guess I can get away with it since I started it :-).

Many people ask me how and why I got into this field (broadly speaking, adolescent development, and more narrowly adolescent sexual health, and then of course there is the focus on technology that is supposed to drive this blog). One of the reasons is that I had a crappy adolescence. Another reason is that I am a research nerd, and I get very upset when people ignore established findings and instead go with what they think "feels right." And the majority of our sex education and approach to young people's sexuality dismisses research and educated theory and instead leans towards moral righteousness and panic. Example: I get mad when I hear about abstinence only curricula and policies mandating its implementation because there is no evidence that abstinence until marriage changes young people's sexual behaviors. Another example: I am frustrated with the panic about the alleged dangers of social networking and how they are destroying young people's relationships (though see this article which provides evidence of the benefits of social networking).

So you can imagine how I feel when people take the liberty of changing the definitions of words in order to suit their needs. This is what I read about today. According to the New York Times, Bush has decided that "abortion" means “any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.” That definition is completely wrong. According to the medical professions an abortion is "when the fetus is expelled from a woman's uterus" (yes, a "miscarriage" is just a more delicate way of saying "spontaneous abortion"). Here is the key difference: an abortion can only occur if there has been implantation. Bush seems to forget that essential component and instead broadens his own special version of the word to incorporate anything that interferes with a fertilization.

I understand Bush is anti-choice. I understand many people are. That is not what is at issue here with me right now. What I am concerned about is when politicians decide to redefine words in order to suit their own wishes.

What girls do online

Image via WikipediaThis post is a continuation of yesterday's post, moving through Justine Cassel & Meg Cramer's article "High Tech or High Risk: Moral Panics about Girls Online".

We'll first look at some general teens & the internet facts:

- Today's teens spend over six hours a day in front of some form of media ... at least one of those hours is spent in front of a computer.

- 87% of teens are online

- the activity takes place primarily in the home or school

- 50% of US families are connected with broadband

- girls between 12 and 16 are the fastest growing internet users

- boys are more likely to play games online while girls are more likely to send email, use text messaging, read websites about movie stars, get health or dieting information

- 25% of girls online have a blog (go us!)


Then, some more interesting reading:

- "Teenage blog and social networking site users describe their writing s as read only by their peer network, express surprise that the writings are easily findable by others, and comment on the blogs that they feel are comfortable exposing their innermost feelings in these contexts because of their anonymity (even though the same author may give identifying information in a neighboring post).

- "Teens' use of instant messaging, e-mailing, game playing and website creation are key ways by which they grow into adults who manage, produce, and consume technology intelligently on an everyday basis."

- "... the current panic over girls being online is not new ... the result of moral panic has been a restriction on girls' use of technology."

- "Girls in particular may thrive online where they may be more likely to rise to positions of authority than in the physical world, more likely to be able to explore alternate identities without the dangers associated with venturing outside of their homes alone, more likely to be able to safely explore their budding sexuality, and more likely to openly demonstrate technological prowess, without the social dangers associated with the term "geek." (I'm a geek. I embrace it.)

- "With luck, there will be a single difference between the moral panic surrounding the telegraph and the telephone, and that surrounding the internet: that we will come to recognize young women as more likely to be empowered by technology than damaged by it."

Back to that dirty bedroom

I have a Facebook account, and I have a cre8Buzz account, and neither of these make me feel as dirty as my MySpace account does. I don’t know why – they are all essentially copies of one another. Dr. Kris sent me a fantastic Venture Beat article about Why Facebook is now the number one social network in the world, and why this matters that absolutely validates my feelings.

Eric Eldon is able to sum my feelings up in half a sentence "MySpace is more of a place for people to live out their fantasy lives online ..." while Facebook is more a site where you're required to share "factual information" because otherwise, your friends from across the hallway Freshman year are going to call you out. Eldon writes about the lack of networks creating opportunity for you to create a whole new you unlinke the networking connections created through Facebook.

Reading through the comments on Eldon's article made me think about words, too. How long ago did "friend" become an actual verb? Do you think that usage will ever be integrated into the dictionary? If you wanna friend The Virtual Mystery Tour's dirty MySpace profile* head over here and add us!

While Eldon's article then goes into specific numbers of hits, global growth and advertising dollars, the rest of the article doesn't do much for me; however, it's so very nice to hear yet another blogger vent about how dirty MySpace can really be.


*Dear Perverts who found The Virtual Mystery Tour's blog but were actually searching for a "dirty MySpace profile,"
I apologize. We actually have a very clean MySpace profile.
Trying not to laugh at your Google-fu,
Sarah

Everyone in the Pool!

Not actually related to sexuality, but I found this simultaneously hilarious and unsettling. According to the Sydney Herald (which, yes, is from Australia), teens in the UK are using social networking sites along with Google Maps to locate pools in the area that would be perfect to crash. Want a pool party? Seems as though not having a pool is no longer an obstacle to this dream. According to The Herald, people are coming home from work only to see beer cans littering their poolside, and some have even caught the youth in the act of catching some rays in their yard.

See the ValleyWag for an excellent illustration of how this might look.

While I see this as very clever on the young person's part, this really gets to the idea that none of us are really private anymore thanks to the internet. Even if you don't go online often -- or really, even if you have never even been on the WWW, that doesn't mean your information isn't readily available at the click of a button. Another reason to ego surf to see what people can learn about you.

The dangers of MySpace

Last weekend, I traveled four hours in a mom-van to Wildhorse Canyon, to participate in a young adult church retreat. Over lunch on Saturday, the table of eight talked about what we were doing in school (most of the 320 people that went were students), and what we eventually wanted to do. Since I am in school, am an intern (Hi Dr. Kris!) and am working part-time, I had a lot to say. As I mentioned that I work with how the internet is affecting teens’ sexuality, faces around the table began to turn inside out. As a member of one of the many left-leaning Christian churches in our gorgeous Pacific Northwest city, I was surprised by the reaction of a girl directly across the table from me.

Breathlessly, she almost shouted “the church doesn’t approve of the use of MySpace … by anyone!” and I couldn’t help but laugh. I played devil’s advocate (while at church camp! Oh no!) and asked her to show me in the Bible where that was mentioned “we are a Bible-based church, aren’t we?” I didn’t really mean to embarrass her, but I did, and she didn’t say too much to me the rest of lunch. Oops! Not the way to get conversations going, Sarah.

Another girl eventually started talking to me (while no one was watching … she couldn’t be associated with one of those* girls) about why she believed MySpace was dangerous. “You have a profile on there, and then perverts can find you and stalk you!” I was a little more tactful in explaining to her that you can have a private account; set up controls, keep strangers out (know my last name? only then can we be friends) and that you don’t have to branch out from your main circle of friends if you don’t want to. I think I know 95% of my friends list from in-person relationships.

I was able to talk to another guy at the table about how MySpace is creating positive opportunities for non-profit outreaches. He didn’t realize the positivity that could come from responsible MySpace use, and I felt really great being able to explain this stuff to these kids**. I offered not only the Virtual Mystery Tour’s MySpace address to them, but also my personal address as starting points if any of them ever got over their fear of "all the perverts". And we’ll see if they ever make eye contact with me at church again.

Really though, I was surprised to see such a different reaction to MySpace from people somewhat near my age group. Rather than experimenting with the internet, these 18- and 19-year-old students were acting like my mom; afraid that a misspelled word in Google would yield such wild pornography she'd never be the same. It makes me wonder whether the media is being “effective” in their campaign to scare the younger generation away from the internet. Time will tell. Until then I’ll be searching Leviticus for “If thine daughter maketh a MySpace account, sell her to the Canaanites.”



*aka – one who not only has a personal MySpace account, but also accesses another for school credit
**I later found out my table was mostly college Freshmen … almost a decade younger than me.

I told you to clean your room!

Taking risky opportunities in youthful content: teenagers’ use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy and self-expression from New Media & Society (2008 SAGE Publications) has finally "scientifically" addressed my 4-year-old statement; "MySpaces are the virtual dirty bedroom of today's online teenagers."

Interviews of 16 teenagers (high school sophomore, juniors & seniors) conducted resulted in clarifications like "I think layouts really show like who you are. So look at the rainbow in that. I think that would make you sound very, like bubbly … I like to have different ones ... it’s different likes, different fashion, different feelings on that day." Like changing outfits, changing MySpace backgrounds shows a sense of who the owner may be; however teenagers are aware that profiles can be "just a front."

Interviews brought about an interesting discussion regarding the social differences between MySpace and Facebook. The elaborate layouts available on MySpace seem to be geared towards a younger crowd, while the older social networkers are drawn to the clean, white, everyone-has-the-same layout of Facebook. "This isn’t to show off my personality. I’m not trying to say, oh, I love purple or I love hearts … It’s more just like talking to three friends and, seeing as my friends know me, there’s no real need for me to advertise my personality."

Another interesting point Livingstone brings up is that idea that younger teens use their MySpace pages to create an elaborate identity with hundreds, sometimes even thousands of friends and classmates while older teens are using their pages to make authentic friendships and solid relationships. "Adult onlookers have been puzzled by youthful peer practices," states Sonia Livingstone (author of the article Dr. Kris sent me), and I’d love to sit down and talk with her, because I’m starting to be puzzled by these "youthful peer practices." However, this isn’t a new phenomenon.

My Grandpa Lloyd couldn’t (and still doesn't) understand why my dad had to have "The Long Hair." ("Girls wear rubber bands in their hair! Why do you want to go out with hair like that?") My Dad doesn’t get why I added seven extra earring holes to my body. ("If God had meant for you to have a ring in your nose, don't you think you'd have been born that way?") I don’t understand how teenagers can share so much information on their hot pink & green, flashing hearts & flowers MySpace page. Call me an old lady, but I’d be happier if teens kept more of their personal information private and cleaned up those dirty bedrooms!

Six Degrees of Separation

My 12-year-old niece has a MySpace that is somewhat typical of her age group. From what I can see, she says she’s older than she is so she can even have a MySpace, her about me reads like a text message ("and no1 else controls me...i don't blame any1 4 something stupid that i did... i take responsibility 4 my own actions") and her only blog entry is titled "oh life sucks!".

She’s atypical in one sense that I’ve complimented her mother on: she has no clear pictures of herself on her page. I recognize her in a few of the tiny pictures that she has up (because I’ve known her since she was born), but these would not be pervert fodder.

Looking at her friend’s pages I saw a much more typical teen MySpace page – a bright flashy background, dozens of pictures of themselves and their friends, and comments about how much they "luv" one another. For the majority of her immediate friends, their profiles were locked, so I couldn’t see much though. Encouraging, right?

Then I started looking at her friends’ friends, I was confused – 14 year olds with a Playboy background, flirty-looking photographs, and sometimes comments that made me blush.

A third step away from my niece blew me away. I found a 16 year old girl with the main picture of herself a full body shot of her in a bra & underwear with the main tagline "CoMe ON iN lIck Me LiKe A LoLlY PoP!!" This girl’s profile wasn’t pirvate so I was able to look at the photographs on her page. She had poses of herself that I wouldn’t let a professional photographer catch me in. Next to her "Me" album, she had a "my famz" album with over a dozen pictures of her toddler cousins. Talk about a juxtaposition.

MySpace pages are like a teenager's messy bedroom. It’s a place where they can freely (for the most part) express who they are – or who they’d like to be, but what does it mean for them when they leave their bedroom door open to strangers?

How Do I Love Thee? I Better Not Say...

CNET news reports that charges of "of aggravated harassment and endangering the welfare of a child" against 18-year-old Isaiah Rodriguez have been dropped. He was accused of this behavior because he left a series of messages professing his undying devotion to a 14-year-old girl on her MySpace page.

According to CNET, the harassing words in question were: "I love you;" "we need to be together;" I will see you every day;" and "I will never stop trying to talk to you."

Ruling in favor of Rodriguez, Judge Michael Gerstein stated:
" The words "we need to be together;" "I will never stop talking to you;" and "I love you" are not threats, but appear to be merely the symptoms of unrequited love--the same hopeless affection that, among countless others, Dante felt for Beatrice; Don Quixote for Dulcinea; Cyrano for Roxane; Quasimodo for Esmeralda; Young Werner for Lotte; Jay Gatsby for Daisy Buchanan; and that Charlie Brown felt for the Little Red Haired Girl. While these romances do not usually end well for the pursuing party, the People have cited neither statute nor case law that might punish the communication of unrequited love, even if such is undesired."

The defense also could have cited Helen Fisher's work on love as evidence that we don't know what the heck we are doing when we first fall in love:


But it does beg the question, at what point does/should age difference matter here? If the guy was 50, not 18, would the charges still be dropped? What if the two youth were both 14? Technically, the age gap from 14 to 18 is statutory rape territory. Though apparently no physical contact took place, it is somewhat surprising to me that age was not discussed more in this article.