If you're not on MySpace, you don't exist – Skyler, 18, to her mom1
I'm in the 7th grade. I'm 13. I'm not a cheerleader. I'm not the president of the student body. Or captain of the debate team. I'm not the prettiest girl in my class. I'm not the most popular girl in my class. I'm just a kid. I'm a little shy. And it's really hard in this school to impress people enough to be your friend if you're not any of those things. But I go on these really great vacations with my parents between Christmas and New Year's every year. And I take pictures of places we go. And I write about those places. And I post this on my Xanga. Because I think if kids in school read what I have to say and how I say it, they'll want to be my friend – Vivien, 13, to Parry Aftab during a “Teen Angels” meeting2
During 2005, online social network sites like MySpace and Facebook became common destinations for young people in the United States. Throughout the country, young people were logging in, creating elaborate profiles, publicly articulating their relationships with other participants, and writing extensive comments back and forth. By early 2006, many considered participation on the key social network site, MySpace, essential to being seen as cool at school. While not all teens are members of social network sites, these sites developed significant cultural resonance amongst American teens in a short period of time. Although the luster has since faded and teens are not nearly as infatuated with these sites as they once were, they continue to be an important part of teen social life.
The rapid adoption of social network sites by teenagers in the United States and in many other countries around the world raises some important questions. Why do teenagers flock to these sites? What are they expressing on them? How do these sites fit into their lives? What are they learning from their participation? Are these online activities like face-to-face friendships – or are they different, or complementary? The goal of this chapter is to address these questions, and explore their implications for youth identities. While particular systems may come and go, how youth engage through social network sites today provides long-lasting insights into identity formation, status negotiation, and peer-to-peer sociality.
To address the aforementioned questions, I begin by documenting key features of social network sites and the business decisions that lead to mass adoption, and then seek to situate social network sites in a broader discussion of what I call “networked publics.” I then examine how teens are modeling identity through social network profiles so that they can write themselves and their community into being. Building on this, I investigate how this process of articulated expression supports critical peer-based sociality because, by allowing youth to hang out amongst their friends and classmates, social network sites are providing teens with a space to work out identity and status, make sense of cultural cues, and negotiate public life.
I argue 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. These properties fundamentally alter social dynamics, complicating the ways in which people interact. I conclude by reflecting on the social developments that have prompted youth to seek out networked publics, and considering the changing role that publics have in young people’s lives.
Methodology and Demographics
The arguments made in this chapter are based on ethnographic data collected during my two-year study of United States-based youth engagement with MySpace. In employing the term ethnography, I am primarily referencing the practices of “participant observation” and “deep hanging out” alongside qualitative interviews. I have moved between online and offline spaces, systematically observing, documenting, and talking to young people about their practices and attitudes.
While the subjects of my interviews and direct observations are primarily urban youth (ranging in age, sex, race, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, and socio-economic class), I have also spent countless hours analyzing the profiles, blogs, and commentary of teenagers throughout the United States. Although I have interviewed older people, the vast majority of people that I have interviewed and observed are of high school age, living with a parent or guardian. There is no good term to reference this group. Not all are actually students (and that role signals identity material that is not accurate). Vague terms like “youth,” “young people,” and “children” imply a much broader age range. For these reasons, and in reference to the history of the term “teenager” in relation to compulsory high school education, I have consciously decided to label the relevant population “teenagers” even though the majority of individuals that I have spoken with are 14-18. While strictly speaking, there are non-high school age individuals in this category, the vast majority of them are; I will focus primarily on that group.
In examining the practices of teenagers on social network sites, I focus primarily on MySpace. This will be my primary case study, although my discussion of these sites is applicable more broadly; I will reference other sites as appropriate. I should note that prior to studying teen practices on MySpace, I did a two-year ethnographic study of Friendster, another social network site. While it is unlikely that MySpace will forever be the main destination site for teenagers, I use this site because its mass popularity offers critical insight into participation patterns that do and will exist on other sites.
Although news media give the impression that all online teens in the United States are on MySpace, this is not the case. For this reason, I want to take a moment to discuss who is not participating. In 2004, PEW found that 87% of teenagers aged 12-17 have some level of Internet access. In a study conducted in late 2006, they found that 55% of online teens aged 12-17 have created profiles on social network sites with 64% of teens 15-17. While these numbers are most likely low, it is very clear that not all high school students participate in online communities that require public content creation like social network sites.
Qualitatively, I have found that there are two types of non-participants: disenfranchised teens and conscientious objectors. The former consists of those without Internet access, those whose parents succeed in banning them from participation, and online teens who primarily access the Internet through school and other public venues where social network sites are banned. Conscientious objectors include politically motivated individuals who choose not to participate in online communities.
