Well, after a prod, here are the promised 'thoughts' on what danah boyd had to say. I'll warn you now, this is a long post.
First, some background on boyd. danah boyd (yes, it's always in lower case) was brought out to Australia by education.au to talk about Generation MySpace - Social networking and its impact on students and education. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of California - Berkeley and a Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School. Her Masters was in sociable media. So, basically she knows an awful lot about social media and how we use it.
All up, boyd spoke for several hours. Although this sounds like a lot, she was an engaging speaker who responded well to questions. Her breadth of knowledge and ability to convey it to a large audience was astounding. The points I have drawn out below are just a fraction of what was covered overall, so please do not think I have totally represented her talks.
The focus of the day was how teenagers communicate, primarily with each other. A lot of the audience were teachers or somehow involved with schools and the overriding impression I got was that there was a lot of consternation and confusion about how to deal with things like internet access and mobile phones during school hours. For instance, several schools admitted to banning YouTube (but as a student on a panel later in the day pointed out, students will always find YouTube unblockers).
boyd outlined a brief history of social networking sites and then talked about who's using them and how. Some points about technology use that stuck in my mind:
- Despite popular belief, it seems it is the mobile phone that is the critical piece of technology for teenagers (and others). Sure, they use MySpace etc but taking their phone would be cutting off an arm.
- Phones are primarily used for text messaging.
- Australia is actually ahead of the US in terms of phone takeup and usage, boyd putting it down to the fact that in their haste to make money, mobile carriers in the US hinder access rather than expanding it. (Who knew you had to PAY to RECEIVE a text message in the US?)
- Teenagers don't think of the internet and advanced phone usage as 'technology', it is so integrated into their every day life it has become like television.
- As such, schools are fighting a losing battle if they try to inhibit or ban internet access, or access to specific sites. The key is to understand how they are using it and to develop ways of dealing with problems as they arise. The best way teachers can do this is to get in there and use the technology themselves. In doing so though teachers or others in positions of power should be aware of the complex social machinations of social networking sites and text messaging. Having said that, often it’s not the technology itself that is the problem, it’s about the use of it (context, time, sheer lack of manners), or behaviour that is happening offline, like bullying, that is being transferred online and thus becomes more visible, not actually more frequent.
It was boyd's exploration of the social implications of, er, social networking sites, that were really interesting. (There is quite a bit of her work available on her blog and site so if you're interested, I recommend going over there and grabbing some). Understanding how the available technology has changed the dynamics of their relationships is critical if you are going to be able to deal with internet and phone use in a constructive way.
boyd pointed out four key properties of online social networks that cause teenagers to experience communication, and life, in a way that was unimaginable only ten years ago. These are: persistence, replicability, invisible audiences and searchability. These factors have a huge effect on how teenagers approach communication with their peers, parents, teachers etc and if you take these into account you go a huge way to understanding how it all works.
Just briefly:
- Persistence: Things said online are there for a lot longer than the spoken word. What might be written as throwaway line - as we might say something without thinking - can cause the 'speaker' to be held to account later down the line. If you've ever blogged or commented on a blog you will know how dangerous this persistence can be.
- Searchability: the way in which the digital world is organised (or not) enables a 'miscellaneous' order that allows more connections, for the sorting of information according to user needs and for relationships between pieces of information and people to be made more flexibly and on demand. Think about how we used to listen to music and compare it to how we listen to it now. A vinyl record or CD, by virtue of its physical nature, allows for only a certain way of approaching music. A collection of CDs is organised by artist, then by track on each CD. Music in iTunes can be sorted by artist, track, times listened to, genre etc etc. Although iTunes doesn't allow for an infinite number of ways in which to organise the music, it is far more flexible than a CD collection. (If you're interested in this sort of thing read David Weinberger's Everything is Miscellaneous).
Of course, searchability also allows your online rantings to be found, whereas a comment made in the street is gone as soon as it is said.
- Replicability: What you say online can be cut and pasted into any context, by anyone. As we obtain more flexibility through the miscellaneous, we lose definite context.
- Invisible audiences: you never really know all the people who are reading what you have written, who is looking at your picture and how they are interpreting what they see. boyd gave the example of photos of students taken at college parties and posted to the web. In the context of a college party the photos are acceptable, to a future employer they might not be so acceptable. Everything done online is a performance for an audience but we are never really sure who the audience is.
So, take all this into account, apply it to your social life now and compare it to your social life ten years ago. The differences are dramatic.
So what does all this mean for those of us at universities? Well, in recruitment and communication terms it gives us an insight into which communication methods can be used and in what context. For example, for teenagers, email is for old people, is slow and used for ‘official’ purposes, whereas SMS, instant messaging etc is what they prefer to use. This doesn’t mean that universities can jump on the bandwagon. Like all communication methods there are rules about etiquette and the like that if breached, spell disaster. The key is defining certain messages, in certain contexts, using specific mediums. Like a lot of things really.
If you want more from boyd:
- listen to the podcasts from the Brisbane version of the conference
- read some of boyd’s papers
The day wasn’t only about boyd, it also included great talks from Mark Pesce (incidentally, an honourary associate at Digital Culture at Sydney) and Jennifer Wilson, head of innovation at ninemsn. There was also a panel discussion that included two students who acquitted themselves brilliantly (not to mention honestly).
Podcasts of all aspects of the Brisbane version of the seminar available at education.au