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February 21, 2006
the significance of MySpace
Posted by danah boyd
While MySpace has skyrocketed to success beyond any of the other social technologies on the web, too few folks in the industry talk about it, participate in it or otherwise pay attention to it…. mostly because it’s particularly populated by teens, musicians and other folks who are nowhere near connected to the tech industry. Much of what’s discussed is the culture of fear put forward by the mass media. This is quite unfortunate because there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on there.
At AAAS this week, i had the opportunity to present the first phase of my findings in a talk called Identity Production in a Networked Culture. If you want insight into what teens are doing on MySpace and why, check it out.
Comments (4)
+ TrackBacks (3) | Category: social software
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1. foo on February 21, 2006 10:36 PM writes...
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Bloggers_investigate_social_networking_websites
http://www.intermixedup.com/
Read the stories in these links very carefully.
Permalink to Comment2. Felicia on February 22, 2006 1:24 PM writes...
There has been an interesting discussion about MySpace on the Youth Learn list (http://mailman.edc.org/pipermail/youthlearn/2006/002411.html
The list is populated by adults working with youth in technology learning environments. Then sentiments run from outight fear and blocking of these sites to guided use to free form exploration.
Permalink to Comment3. Scott Allen on February 23, 2006 1:42 AM writes...
I agree, danah. There's definitely some interesting stuff going on there -- far more than I expected to find outside of the music and porn industries.
The media hype around safety there is very disappointing. It's not entirely misplaced, but mostly. With 40+ million members and more page views than Google, they're an easy target.
Of course kids (adults, for that matter) shouldn't be handing out their home address and phone number there, but the reality is that sexual predators hang out around schools and playgrounds, too. And worse, most sexual abuse is committed not by strangers, but by family and close friends of the family. I think we should teach our kids realistically about online safety, but relative to the amount of interaction going on there, the safety concerns about MySpace are completely blown out of proportion.
The thing is, much of that information that parents, media and the religious right seem to be so concerned about is being published in newspapers, including their online versions, every day. A volleyball team wins their regional championship, and their names, grades, ages and photos are published for the world to see. A child model has his portfolio on his local agent's web site - first name, last initial, city, hobbies and interests - it's all there.
The safety of our kids has to lie in something more than the false assumption of information privacy/anonymity and keeping them away from any environment where people might talk about sex (like that doesn't go on at school).
Permalink to Comment4. Kartik Agaram on February 25, 2006 9:15 PM writes...
Nice. It seems worth comparing this article about the need of adults for online spaces.
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