Way all the way back in September, the first CT Forum of the year was all about the internet. Since then, this post has been kicking around and mocking me. It was started in September. That being said, it sat here partially written festering and gestating over the last few months. Finally, it can be born in a way that does the thoughts justice.
The most interesting aspect of the evening, given my uses of myspace, facebook, and Ravelry, was the discussion by danah boyd . The discussion of social networking online by teens created more questions than answers. One of the statements she made essentially said that teens are doing today the same things that the rest of us did when we were there age, just on the internet instead of the mall. She also talked about how friending works for teens online. She said that there’s three basic levels. First, people whose friends network is in the 10 -20 range. These people keep their connections intimate. After that, the numbers jump to 200-350. These are the people who basically friend their entire high school, analagous, per the moderator, to giving Valentines to everyone in your class in elementary school. After this group, the numbers again jump substantially to somewhere in the 500+ range. Then the discussion turned briefly to the idea of “Top Friends” on myspace and how the drama that ensues over who are your bestest friends tends to be similar to all other teenage dramas. Finally, in a discussion of what these kids will expect in the workforce, Ms. boyd discussed how teens today are connected to each other 24-7 via email, social networking sites, and text messaging.
This then, in turn, brings up the question as to how adults use social networking sites. Recently, a friend determined that he was doing a great job at work when his new boss invited him to his linkedin profile. Obviously, adults are using the internet to network socially. LinkedIn is like a professional myspace. Adults use it to make work connections. This seems the most pure use of adult social networking sites. Grown ups create profiles and add people to help themselves network in their professional careers. This acts as a myspace for the working world. Ok, so they are not adding bands and actors and movies, but the same basic concept applies.
However, even more interesting, are websites in which social networking is a component of the overall purpose of the website. For example, Ravelry assembles knitters, crocheters, and other fiber hounds together in one place. Currently, in its beta form, users must have an account. Mainly this requirement is so that the servers do not crash from over use prior to being fully functional. The effect of this, however, has been that the boards are rampant with users talking, sharing, and creating friendships. Topics of discussion include such things as patterns, yarns, religion, politics, other hobbies, pets, and kids. Indeed, several in real life friendships have been cultivated using the groups dedicated to location and, ironically, tattoos. As with myspace and facebook, membership is free.
In addition, Fertility Friend is a website dedicated to helping women work through the process of trying to conceive a child. The main thrust of this website is a charting program that aids in helping women chart their little ways to the joys of motherhood. Charting, essentially, involves taking a temperature every day and watching for other signs of fertility in an attempt to knock a home run out of the ball park of the bed. The website, however, is not free. The VIP membership involves additional charting capabilities, but also a chat function, a posting board function, and an ability to add friends. This allows women struggling with issues surrounding conception to come together, share their experiences, and talk. Because, really, aren’t women all about the talking?
Are adults essentially doing the same thing as teens in these online communities? The hypothesis, using only personal experience, is yes and no. Aside from uses of myspace and facebook by adults in their 20’s and 30’s, most of the websites through which adults are networking have an interest or some overarching theme that brings them together in the first place. Ravelry brings together fiber enthusiasts. LinkedIn brings together career minded folk. Fertility Friend brings together women going through the trying to conceive experience. The common denominator for many adults seems to be the urge to share a common interest or experience. Even websites like harmony.com and match.com have a common interest or experience - one of wanting to meet other people to cultivate a romantic relationship. Interestingly, more and more adults are using social networking websites in new ways in their lives. People are coming together, but they have a common starting point - a goal, an interest. Social networking websites are rapidly becoming the new church socials or town halls.
The friendships people are cultivating are of two types. Some are ones that transfer over into the real world. Others remain, due to geographical constraints, firmly rooted in the online world. The question that much research has begged is whether people are becoming more or less emotionally connected because of the rise of these internet connections. Ms. boyd, in some of her research, indicates that due to teens not having truly private spaces available to them, the internet is a place where they can be themselves, find their identities, and experiment without having adults constantly overseeing their activities. Meanwhile, what are adults doing? They are essentially doing the same thing. For adults, the social networking often appears to be an attempt to continue to find one’s identity within an emerging world. For example, Ravelry is specifically for fiber enthusiasts, mainly because no one else would want to be there. People are finding that they can leave their limited social segment behind - socioeconomic, religious, and physical -to reach out to other people. People who feel isolated are looking to social networking websites, even if that is not the website’s main intent, as ways to connect. Fiber enthusiasts are not the largest community in the world. Many people have no one around who can understand their obsession. Thus, coming together online allows them to feel more connected to other people. Even if that connection is one that lives only in the pixels and electronic buzzing that is the internet.
The same is true with a website such as Fertility friend. Trying to conceive a child can be difficult. One’s friends, family and even spouse may not understand wholly. Women coming together to discuss their triumphs and tribulations gives them a chance to share their thoughts and feelings, realizing they are not alone. Moreover, in the course of these most intimate of discussions, the whole of their lives become spread open for all to see. The intimacy is one based not just on a common interest but on the most intimate details of a person’s life. These women are negotiating a new identity as women trying to become mothers.
So, without statistical analysis and without in depth research, what do these observations mean? What they mean, it can be supposed, is that adults and teens are not that different. These social connections fulfill, whether they extend to real life or remain on the internet, new frontiers in the ever evolving world of self-identification. Connections made through the internet can be as real as those made in person. Sometimes, since people can find a bit of comfort in detail sharing anonymously, they can become stronger than those in person. It is possible to know more about the history of someone an individual meets on the internet than about a person one has been friends with in real life for years. Sharing of uncomfortable details is easier when eye contact can be avoided. Sharing of feelings is often easier when body language cannot be seen or voice cannot be heard since the fear of implied rejection can be avoided. These friendships can involve just as much support and caring as those made through eye contact and body language.
So, as adults continue to negotiate the world of the internet, perhaps they will be able to renegotiate their identities in an evolving world. Perhaps, even for the oldest of the old school, the ‘net will provide a a social safety net, a place to be oneself and to find oneself without having to up and drive cross country in a 1960’s VW van.
