The Role of Social Web Sites in Teenager's Life

“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”3 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 education4, 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.5 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 15-17.6

While these numbers are most likely low7, 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.8 Conscientious objectors include politically minded teens who

wish to protest against Murdoch’s News Corp. (the corporate owner of MySpace),

obedient teens who have respected or agree with their parents’ moral or safety concerns,

marginalized teens who feel that social network sites are for the cool kids, and other teens

who feel as though they are too cool for these sites. The latter two explanations can be

boiled down to one explanation that I heard frequently: “because it’s stupid.” While the 

various conscientious objectors may deny participating, I have found that many of them

actually do have profiles to which they log in occasionally. I have also found numerous

cases where the friends of non-participants create profiles for them.9 Furthermore,

amongst those conscientious objectors who are genuinely non-participants, I have yet to

find one who does not have something to say about the sites, albeit typically something

negative. In essence, MySpace is the civil society of teenage culture: whether one is for

it or against it, everyone knows the site and has an opinion about it.

Interestingly, I have found that race and social class play little role in terms of access

beyond the aforementioned disenfranchised population. Poor urban black teens appear to

be just as likely to join the site as white teens from wealthier backgrounds - although

what they do on there has much to do with their level of Internet access. Those who only

access their accounts in schools use it primarily as an asynchronous communication tool,

while those with continuous nighttime access at home spend more time surfing the

network, modifying their profile, collecting friends, and talking to strangers. When it

comes to social network sites, there appears to be a far greater participatory divide than

an access divide.

Gender appears to influence participation on social network sites. Younger boys are

more likely to participate than younger girls (46% vs. 44%) but older girls are far more

likely to participate than older boys (70% vs. 57%). Older boys are twice as likely to use

the sites to flirt and slightly more likely to use the sites to meet new people than girls of

their age. Older girls are far more likely to use these sites to communicate with friends

they see in person than younger people or boys of their age.10 While gender differences 

do exist and should not be ignored, most of what I discuss in this article concerns

practices that are common to both boys and girls.

Fundamentally, this chapter is a case study based on ethnographic data. My primary goal

is simply to unveil some of the common ways in which teenagers now experience social

life online.

(MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Learning – Youth, Identity, and Digital

Media Volume (ed. David Buckingham). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.)