Wednesday, 19 October 2011
Friends Forever - How Young Adolescents Use Social-Networking Site
On BBL, under the Readings section you will find the paper 'Friends Forever - How Young Adolescents Use Social-Networking Site'. Have a quick read of this paper, and building on the lecture session today, what do you think about friendship in the Web 2.0 world?
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Young adolescents now feel that they can explore themselves in a whole new way with social networking sites; by them exaggorating their characteristics. They feel that freindships are very important and that this causes reassurance and some experimentation. Using SNS meant freinds could keep in contact over long distances, as described in the paper. The paper also describes using SNS to aid adolescents Psychological Development, with adolescents believing 'they will be freinds forever'. But what do you think about freindship in the web 2.0 world. Do you believe this is expanding freindships and aiding adolescents development in a good way, or do you think by adolescents 'experimenting', this could cause some concerns?
ReplyDeleteFacebook have recently added something to the user experience. With them adding ‘lists’ you can now class your ‘friends’ however you want to, the pre-set ones being ‘Close Friends’ and ‘Family’. It’s sure to break a few ties here and there. If people’s social lives revolve around Facebook, how would they deal with someone making the conscious decision to leave them out of their ‘Close Friends’ or so called ‘Family’? Twitter had this feature before FB, Google+ had it too, and it was only a matter of time right?
ReplyDeleteFor a more professional approach though, you can now classify people on your friend lists as ‘acquaintances’. It should give users a bit more breathing space. Let’s all be honest, there are people we have on our friend lists we only want to talk to about work. I’m sure they’ll still be able to like and comment on your awkward pictures but it is still nice to have the option to let them know where they stand.
Most young adolescents love to feel popular and some need the feeling of being popularity. The problem with Facebook and Twitter is the friend tally that is there for all to see. It’s a subtle factor but it’s there for all to see.
I think it is particularly interesting that SNSs can be used to ease and buffer relationships as these children progress through the radical changes they undergo as they progress through adolescence. Children who would have otherwise quickly grown apart due to significant differences in interests can now maintain periodic contact, even if only passively, until familiar events in their lives are noted (for example, in a status update) allowing them to reconnect through shared experiences. This perception of not being alone in their differences during this period of self discovery and identification insulates them from the otherwise hard requirement of the "mirror self", difficult to find when those around you are in a state of constant change, of more intimate friendships.
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