I agree - this has been very interesting. Lately I've been forming thoughts about the type of socializing teens are doing in social network communities (SNC's), and I've stumbled upon an interesting (anecdotal) insight. Teens spend an enormous amount of time "managing" social interaction in SNC's. That is to say rather than transposing their social existence into services like MySpace and Facebook, they augment their social existence with a level of micro-management never available before. With an entire network of hundreds of "friends" at their fingertips, and always-on communication tools like Instant Messenger and SMS for connection, the perceived need to manage relationships is never-ending. To be a good Facebook friend, you've got to answer your messages, post to your friend's walls, and return pokes; these extensions of the service have become part of the normal social interaction. The situation is compounded on both ends. As inherently-curious students have the ability to deeply explore and manage their social networks, the upstart culture of the services impose good usage rules. The inordinate amount of time students spend in SNC's may be a side effect of the "new rules" required to be a good "MySpace/Facebook/etc" friend. Just as we occasionally have that sort-of-uncomfortable "did you get my email?" interaction, students are constantly having having to worry about who is poking, messaging, and responding to whom, and juggling the status of their virtual social interaction(s). To conclude, I'm really not surprised that students feel a sense of relief when they leave social networks; the cognitive load of always-on social management might be very high. I'd wonder what percentage of students view these services as high-stress, virtual monkeys on their backs. I kid, but maybe not - if I had to spend three hours a day on a website to satisfy all my social requirements, it might get to me as well. Regards, Fred On Tue, 28 Feb 2006, T. Kennedy wrote:
I don't believe that teens problematize their internet use (whatever the weapon of choice/fad may be) the way that we are in this conversation. Many teens - if not most - have always had internet (within a certain demographic of course) - it's a part of their lives; it's ubiquitous - it's invisible; it's part of their domestic ensemble - much like the telephone, tv, and so forth.
-- Fred Stutzman http://claimID.com AIM: chimprawk 919-260-8508