The Question of Player Status in World of Warcraft
By Bryan Tu Tran, Claire Hayati, Rebecca Lin, and Hank Whitson
Inside every server of World of Warcraft (WoW) there exists an eclectic community of players from all over the planet who participate in a complex cultural system where co-operative dungeon raids, gladiatorial duels, and constant multi-channeled communication are just part of the daily grind. Yet in a world where such fantastic activities are mediated by an invisible system of intricate calculations, and every character is designated a numerical value, what, aside from the raw math, determines a character’s status? By examining four central aspects of WoW’s game play—race and class configuration, guild membership, participation in player vs. player combat (PvP) and role playing (RP)—our study offers new insights concerning online impression building and the nature of interpersonal status in virtual worlds.
As in real life, a character’s race and class play key roles in determining status on WoW, having dramatic influence on both appearance and abilities. According to the well-known anthropologist Max Weber, there are three factors that may determine one’s social status: Property, Prestige, and Power. We would argue that since property and prestige must be obtained by a player’s actions in-game, his character’s inherent power, based on the criteria of race and class, is of paramount importance.
In order to examine the social influence of a character’s class and race, we conducted research through extensive participant observation and gathered data through semi-structured interviews with participants in person, as well as online through the private chat function. A sum of 120 hours was spent inside of the game. Eight in-depth interviews were obtained from age 15 to age 48. Half of the participants were between the age 18-24 and two were female. These consisted of gamers who just started playing to veterans with at least three years of experience.
In WoW, there are two factions which are called Alliance and Horde. Inside the Alliance faction, there are five races: humans, dwarves, night elves, gnomes, and draenei. Inside the Horde faction, there are also five races: orcs, undead, tauren, trolls, and blood elves. Each race has its own background story as well as a unique appearance. Alongside the physical differences, are the different “racial traits” or special abilities or powers granted to a character based on its race. For example, the blood elf race has a passive magic resistance that reduces the chance you will be hit by spells by 2%. Another example is the racial trait of ‘shadowmeld,’ which allows Night Elves to slip into the shadows, reducing the chance for enemies to detect their presence.
The specific race of the character does have an effect on one’s ascribed status, comparable to the status which is fixed for an individual at birth. In this context, the ascribed status is embodied by racial traits which are given to the character upon creation. According to the interviewees with at least one level 80 character (currently the highest level attainable), racial traits play a crucial role in organized battles such as raids or arena matches. Because the special abilities granted by a character’s racial trait may give a desirable advantage, the preferred race is depicted with more social value. For example, the tauren race, which resembles muscular anthropomorphic bulls, are considered to make better warriors than other races because two of their racial traits: 1) “endurance” in which the base health is increased by 5%, and 2) “war stomp” which stuns the enemy for a small time period, are particularly useful in melee combat, where extra health and a few seconds to get in an extra hit can make all the difference.
In regards to the physical appearance of a race, interviewees who have just started the game would rather choose the more attractive looking races. However, they believe it is relatively insignificant when asked if it has any importance in relation to social status. According to the piece, “The Role of Friends’ Appearance and Behavior on Evaluations of Individuals on Facebook: Are We Known by the Company We Keep?”, “Online users can organize the information flow and enhance self-image by strategically selecting how and what to convey to the receiver” (Walther et al.). However, this is not necessarily true when applied to WoW. Players with more experience in the game tend to disregard the physical appearance and focus more on things that enhance power such as class specialization and racial traits. Appearance then only holds importance to newer players.
Among the different races in WoW, there are ten playable classes: death knight, druid, hunter, mage, paladin, priest, rogue, shaman, warlock, and warrior. Each class is drastically different from each other in that they all have unique abilities through their spells and skills. For example, the priest class is known for their healing abilities and the rogue class is recognized as the primary melee damage dealer because of their powerful attack abilities. Another crucial difference that distinguishes these classes from one another is their ability to wield different types of weapons and wear different types of armors. For example, the paladins, warriors, and death knights are the only three classes that are capable of wearing plate armor, which has the highest defense value. In addition, each character class utilizes unique resources and play systems to give each class a distinct feel. Rogues, for example, draw from a stamina gauge to perform attacks and accumulate combo points as they successfully land hits on enemies. On the other hand, priests draw from a manna gauge to cast spells that may either damage their enemies or heal their allies.
Given its drastic effect on character abilities, players are all but unanimous that class is the single most important choice to consider when creating a character. There is considerable debate however, about which class is the most powerful or important for group play. Most agree that classes who perform specialized roles, such as healers and tanks—characters designed to absorb damage from enemies to protect the rest of the party—are more important than damage dealing classes, which are plentiful. Priests, warriors and death knights were mentioned in almost every single interview. These classes tend to be more valued by the online community because they have more specific duties to fulfill in raids. Ironically, classes focused on dealing high amounts of damage-per-second, or DPS, tend to be the most widely played even though they are less ‘prestigious’ than tanks and healers. This may be accounted for by the fact that DPS classes tend to be more efficient at solo-play than healers and tanks, who enjoy most of their specialized, role-based prestige late in the game, when party organization is crucial for advancing.
Since multiple classes are able to fulfill different roles, there is considerable debate about which class is the best at its job, and frequent debates concerning the balance of power between classes. Blizzard Entertainment addresses these imbalances by adjusting a class’s abilities through the semi-monthly software patches released to fix bugs, and add new content to the game. When a class (or item, or race, or ability) is made stronger, players say that it has been “buffed,” while any weakening adjustments are referred to as “nerfs.” Another remedy that Blizzard Entertainment came up with is introducing new classes and races in expansion packs, to address shortages of certain character types. For example, the death knights were added in the recent Wrath of the Lich King expansion to address the scarcity of tanking classes. Consequently, the status afforded by class and race are constantly in flux.
It is important to understand that the status afforded to race and class is contingent upon the player’s ability to fulfill the role they shape. On occasion, new players who do not want to deal with the trouble of building a character will purchase high-level, well-equipped characters from other players, despite Blizzard explicitly prohibiting the practice in their terms of service agreement. In most cases, the new player’s inexperience will betray itself through foolish mistakes in group play and net them an extremely negatively reputation, despite the prestige of their experience, and the strengthened attributes of their equipment, or property.
Regardless of how powerful a class is at a given time, a single player cannot hope to tackle WoW’s hardest challenges alone. Guilds are essential for high-end game play, providing the support and connections necessary to take on the game’s greatest challenges. Although it does not affect a player’s external appearance as drastically as race, guild membership is prominently displayed under characters’ names in-game, and it plays a considerable role in establishing their reputation.
Blizzard devised guilds as the mechanism to ensure that a sense of community and social networking was present in WoW. Guilds function as support groups and friend databases in which a member is considered responsible for participating in guild activities, helping fellow members, and following rules set by the guild leaders. Guilds are especially useful for high level players and obtaining “achievements.” They are important to study because they provide insight into how relationships form between characters and how status relationships develop both amongst their members and in contrast to nonmembers. Based on the research on guilds performed by Chen, Sun, and Hsieh, we hypothesize that high-level guilds, also referred to as power-guilds, create a sense of community amongst their members and isolate outsiders. We tested our theory through participant observations and interviews.
Guilds in WoW are constructed by individual players and grow when other players join. Haris and Nardi say that guilds’ main “focus is [to collect] reliable players for advanced play” (Haris and Nardi). Each guild acquires a reputation and unofficial status based on the identity of its members. According to Chen, Sun and Hsieh “the percentage of avatars joining guilds [increases] steadily with avatar level” (Chen, Sun and Hsieh). Low-status guilds are not very selective; they tend to be more accepting of characters of all levels, classes, specializations, and races. Most do not have strict regulations, do not require much play time, and often do not have the same sense of community responsibility as other more powerful guilds. The size of the low status guilds varies between 30-200 people, but most of the smaller guilds are not as stable and tend to be less helpful to their players (Chen, Sun and Hsieh). High-status guilds, on the other hand, are very selective, often requiring many interviews and applications to become a member. They also require large amounts of play time, sometimes forty or more hours a week, and implement strict rules.
Power-guilds collect players with high levels of skill and understanding, and therefore can become very insular, with their members rarely mingling with outside players. The players in such guilds rely on each other for any activity requiring multiple players, including raiding and making items for one another. Within a server the more powerful guilds can become famous and their players respected and well known by players in less powerful guilds. However, the well-known characters tend to keep to themselves and do not need to seek help from others not in their guild. Also these players are extremely hard to access to ask for help from non-guild members. The status of the guilds therefore creates a virtual boundary in which players are separated based on skill and guild association. With all the high-end, skilled players concentrated amongst themselves they are less likely to help less-skilled players to advance in skill or complete hard tasks in the game. This isolation controls which characters someone can play with and hinders access to the more challenging parts of the game. At the same time the skilled players are ever advancing and pushing the boundaries that Blizzard has created.
This separation between guilds and their players is one based on skills and understanding of the game. Within guilds it is not a requirement that in order to be in a high position one has to be more skilled than the others below. Guild hierarchies tend to be more about social relationships than ability. Once in the guild the only way to advance to a more authoritative position is through social connections. “Raider” is the only guild role based on playing skills (interviews). Within a guild there are two levels of authority that are similar to government roles. The top position is guild master, which can be reached only by creating the guild; any player can create a guild. The master has ultimate control over the guild no matter how powerful the other members might be. For example, the master has the right to kick out members, shut the guild down, take all items from the guild bank, and invite anyone into the guild. The next authority level is that of the officers, who have power to add or kick anyone out, have full access to all bank items, and can control who plays in which raid. The only way to become an officer is to be chosen by existing officers or by the guild master. Officers choose raiders to go on raids. Raiders have no authority over other players but do receive automatic preference to receive the best items and a guaranteed spot in raids. Raider status is achieved through merit and the player’s ability to be organized and effective (interviews).
Discrimination between guilds helps to separate people who are not in the same guild and at the same time brings people of the same guild closer together. The hierarchy and different status positions allow the guild to run smoothly, and despite these differences, companionship and friendship is readily available. Guilds create a WoW community that is much smaller than the entire server, thereby providing more opportunity for repeated interactions. Guilds also define and supply a method of approaching the WoW play experience, either technically or with greater social interaction. This, along with boundaries imposed by guild status, pulls together players of similar ability and “can be designed to create somewhat customized play experiences” (Nardi and Harris). By imposing responsibilities on players within the guild, a sense of real-world community develops.
Many of the guild members in power guilds actively play with each other for forty hours a week and constantly use voice and text chat. During these sessions personal information and daily updates are given, bringing the group together to share common interests and experiences that strengthen the relationships between guild members and can create long-lasting friendships. Without the guild structure these groups of strangers and intensive players would not be given the opportunity to come as close to other players and the game would not hold the same sense of reality (Nardi and Harris).
Character abilities and connections have significant influence on forming status in WoW, though few things have more impact on an individual player’s status than their personal skill. But while the dungeon raiding scene is rife with horror stories about reckless players whose mistakes wipe-out entire groups, and “ninja looters” (unscrupulous players who steal valuable items dropped by dungeon bosses without their party’s consent), status gained through Player-versus-Player combat (PvP) is solely focused on competition.
PvP takes a variety of forms in WoW. Certain servers are designated as PvP servers (as opposed to PvE or player versus environment servers), where players are allowed and often expected to attack characters of the opposing faction in zones regarded as contested territory. All servers have access to other types of PvP play, such as arena battles, a more formal system of PvP where players form teams and participate in gladiatorial matches against other teams. Finally, there are Battlegrounds: large scale, mission based skirmishes where one Alliance team and one Horde team compete by accomplishing various objectives.
To research status relating to PvP, we participated in the Warsong Gulch battleground, the first and only type of PvP combat available to low level characters. Our findings suggest that status gained in Battlegrounds is like a sandcastle built near the shoreline, as it is constantly being wiped clean with each new skirmish. In their article, “Where Everybody Knows Your (Screen) Name: Online Games as ‘Third Places’”, Dimitri Williams and Constance Steinkuehler cite “Players [ability] to enter a world in which success is based not on out-of-game status but on in-game talent, wit, diligence, and hard work” as one of the core appeals of MMO’s (Steinkuehler and Williams). Furthermore, they cite ‘a level playing field’ as one of the essential criteria for online games to serve as ‘Third Places’; relaxing social environments outside the work and home. There are many points where WoW wipes a player’s record clean. Character creation allowing players to build their legacies according to their tastes, and forgiving death penalties encourage player’s to take another stab at challenges they fail. Yet Battlegrounds seem to be the best example of this etch-a-sketch-esque cycle, giving players nothing but a blank score and an opportunity to do their best.
To examine the role of status in a PvP battleground match, one must first understand its mechanics. Warsong Gulch is accessible from any major city for all races, wherein the player enters a queue to join the next match. The majority of battleground matches are with pick-up groups, meaning the teams are randomly assembled from those waiting in a queue compiled from several different servers. A player from the Dragonmaw server could find himself with a mix of teammates from the Frostwolf and Blackrock servers. For these reasons it is unlikely a player will join a team with someone he had fought with in the previous match. Consequently, any respect or derision gained in the previous match is wiped clean. Depending on the time of day, queues take anywhere from two to twenty minutes. He has no status among his teammates when the match begins because they have no idea of his skills, save for speculation.
After joining a battleground, the 10-character team has two minutes to lay out basic strategies and buff one another—cast spells to increase damage, strength, health, and general survivability. Once the match begins, the two teams compete to capture the enemy flag and return it to their own camp three times to win. All basic strategies for Warsong Gulch involve three roles: a flag carrier, defense, and offense. The flag carrier, arguably the most important role on a team, enters the enemy camp and is the one who physically—in the game sense—brings the flag back to his team’s home base. Defense characters escort their flag carrier to and from the enemy camp; if the flag carrier is killed, the enemy flag is dropped on the ground and can be recaptured by the enemy. Offense engages the enemy team directly and prevents them from reaching their camp. If their flag is captured, the offense chases down the enemy flag carrier and kills him to restore their flag to its original location inside their camp. Players who fulfill their roles well are respected during the battleground match, and teams who play well gain honor—literally accumulate a PvP currency called honor that they can redeem for special items.
At the conclusion of a match, a chart appears showing the names of each participant, their level, class, damage dealt, health healed, and how many times they captured the enemy flag or recaptured their own flag after it was taken by the opposing team. The player’s status is summarized by the statistics displayed on this chart at the battle’s end. The player who dealt the highest damage or captured the enemy flag the most times is respected, and is thus granted a kind of high status, one that is supported by his apparent gaming skill, an inherent knowledge of the game that fellow players should aspire to. But this status is fleeting; even if the player lingers to look at the end game scoreboard, the battleground automatically closes within minutes and prepares for the next pair of teams to clash.
Given the brevity of each skirmish, players have little opportunity to form lasting impressions on their teammates, leading one to question if appreciable status is created at all. Juniper is a female college student who plays a level 80 character and participates in Battlegrounds almost daily, yet she rejects the notion that status in battleground PvP exists. “There is no status,” she insists. “You almost never have the same teammates again and you’re not going to remember them anyway. It just doesn’t work like that.” Her boyfriend Astrus, with two level 80 characters of his own, agrees: “I don’t think you’re going to find status the way you describe it, probably because they’re all random people, so you don’t feel that kind of connection—that mutual respect for people you do know.”
Etically, one could argue that the post-match scorecard conveys a degree of status on participants, but from an emic point of view, status in battleground PvP is nonexistent, because one’s teammates are randomly selected and it is unlikely that they will be encountered again. Since many players are driven by the desire to compete in as many matches as possible, they leave the Battlegrounds without examining the score. At the same time, there are dedicated teams of players who enter the queue as a group, and conquer other teams with a combination of superior communication and rehearsed tactics. This practice is perfectly legal, but uncommon due to the large of amount of planning necessary, which is comparable to a guild’s preparations for a raid, but yields no experience or equipment. Consequentially, such teams are easily recognized and greatly feared by their competitors.
Another niche activity with considerable impact on player-to player perception is role-playing, (or RP). Throughout our experiences in WoW, we noticed, through conversations and remarks in public chat channels, that the general opinion toward RP and Roleplayer’s is largely hostile or disparaging. This strikes us as both curious and ironic considering WoW’s classification as a Role-playing game (RPG). Our examination produced a fascinating insight concerning the correlation between game design and player behavior.
Before one can examine the effects of role-playing on player status, it is crucial to appreciate the distinction between the class based mechanics that structure role-playing games, and role-playing as a multiplayer activity. As a gaming genre, RPGs use a combination of character-specific categories (in WoW’s case, race and class) and statistics (that gauge attributes like strength and stamina) to determine characters’ abilities and power respectively. As discussed earlier, a character’s race and class have the most impact on a player’s duties during group play in WoW. Therefore, from an etic perspective one might say that people are always playing a role of some sort when they play WoW together. However, the emic definition of RP refers to playing the game in an in-character fashion, where users chat and “act” (through emote commands) as if they are their character, as opposed to their operator.
As with other types of social play in WoW, there are casual and serious role-players. Casual sessions tend to be more improvisational, with participants reacting to in-game events as if it were their reality. Serious role-players generally meet at agreed upon times to act out a storyline in game, and restrict technical discussions of game play to an Out of Character (OOC) chat channel. Serious RP sessions also do not usually take place in dangerous environments; nor are they accommodating of other players who try to jump in uninvited, since unplanned player deaths and arrivals can disrupt the story.
Once again, our research consisted of participant observation and several semi-structured interviews taking place in game and online via an instant messenger program. It is worth noting that Blizzard has taken a decidedly hands-off approach toward facilitating RP in WoW. While there is a matchmaking system and chat channel to help people find groups for PvP and dungeon raiding, the only feature deliberately designed to facilitate role-playing are designated RP preferred servers. Yet this designation does not require players to engage in role play, nor does it give role play any type of priority treatment. This makes sense given the subjective nature of the activity, but one of the first lessons we learned about RP in WoW, is how difficult finding a session to participate in can be, even on a RP preferred server.
Currently, the most used chat channel in WoW is the Trade channel, accessible in each of the game’s capital cities. As its namesake would suggest, the channel is intended for players to conduct business, allowing players to advertise their wares or request goods. Since it is visible to every player in the capital city and moderated only by player complaints, Trade is frequently used for general chat and by role players searching for groups, much to the chagrin of actual traders whose chat logs are crowded with unrelated information.
During research, we witnessed a particularly passionate argument arise when two players started to role-play in Trade chat as if they were bartering in the game world. The traders, frustrated by the extra chat, lambasted the role-players who cited the game’s role-playing status. Without any official statement from Blizzard awarding precedence to the RP status of the server or the functional purposes of the Trade channel, the matter is left up to players to determine. In his article, “Beyond Management: Considering Participatory Design and Governance in player Culture” , T.L. Taylor notes that “Players are not merely consumers of games, but actively contribute to their creation,” and goes on to detail the numerous ways players voice their opinions to game designers, citing one example of an in-game protest about the warrior class that occurred in WoW (Taylor). It is interesting to note that when the protest began to affect game play, Blizzard was quick to respond with a message threatening “actions against user accounts.” In the instance of the great Trade channel debate, those opposed to RP suggested that the issue be settled with a vote and claimed that the server was no longer RP preferred according to the results. Proponents of RP argued that the verdict had no ‘official value’ since it was unsanctioned by Blizzard and that the issue was not up for debate. Other parties argued that RP should only take place at specific locations in game.
The discussion gradually died down, though many comments from both sides of the debate suggested that it was a common topic of discussion, and that it would not be the last. Given Blizzard’s prompt and serious response to the warrior protest, it seems curious why the matter of RP in trade has not been laid to rest. Though having identified character class as a primary component of a player’s power over, and status within the game world, it seems reasonable to assume that it was given much higher priority than issues pertaining to RP, which has a very insignificant influence on game mechanics.
It seems that the functional goal driven mechanics seem to stifle the social aspects of the game crucial to role playing. This observation is consistent with Williams and Steinkuehler’s findings, which concluded “As complex, long-term collaborative activities become increasingly prevalent [in MMOs], the game becomes increasingly more entangling, time-consuming, and work-like, diminishing its status as a relaxing social environment” (Steinkuehler and Williams). Having no place to belong to, we expect role-players to feel frustrated or alienated by the generally hostile tone toward their activity.
Yet during our interviews, most role-players stated that they were indifferent or amused by the debates. “It’s easy enough to ignore people online,” said Silver, a level 78 Paladin, “but I think it’s kind of hilarious that you have these people calling us geeks while they’re here in our world, trying to sell virtual dragon teeth.” Hornz, a high level Night Elf Mage who had role-played in other MMOs explained that he did not play in WoW because most role-players seemed inexperienced. He actually felt that the debates on Trade were good, because they served to help weed out less dedicated players: “The ones who get upset are usually just trying it [RP] on. If they like it, they keep at it. If not, it really isn’t for them anyway. I don’t roleplay on WoW because there are too many of those people here.”
When asked about their primary motivations for engaging in RP, most interviewees cited creative expression, immersion in the game world, or a mixture of both. Surprisingly, none of the subjects cited socializing as a primary motivator. Silver observed that RP could make it harder to socialize with other gamers, due to the fabricated personalities players adopted for their characters. Another player, Sage, suggested that role playing does not necessarily need to be a strictly multiplayer activity, feeling single person activities such as Machinima, which use the game world to create movies, constituted role playing as well.
Overall, one’s status in WoW is primarily focused on a player’s power. Classes and races enjoy prestige based on their abilities to help parties achieve specific goals. Power guilds serve as an extension of such practices, fine tuning their ranks to take on the greatest challenges the game has to offer. By contrast, status gained through participation in RP and PvP is largely unrecognized, since the personal satisfaction afforded by such pursuits cannot be precisely quantified by the game’s system. Ironically, even though the interactions of online games occur in virtual worlds which we navigate alone from our computers, there is a strong emphasis on tangibly increasing one’s power, and working with others to achieve great things.
Works Cited
Bonnie Nardi and Justin Harris, Strangers and Friends: Collaborative Play in World of Warcraft, 2006.
Chien-Hsun Chen, Chuen-Tsai Sun, and Jilung Hsieh. Player Guild Dynamics and Evolution in Massively Multiplayer Online Games. Cyber Psychology & Behavior. 11(3), 2008.
Constance Steinkuehler and Dimitri Williams, Where Everybody Knows Your (Screen) Name: Online Games as “Third Places.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 11(4), article 1, 2006.
Interviews conducted. February 20th- March 5th of 2009.
Joseph B. Walther, Brandon Van Der Heide, Sang-Yeon Kim, David Westerman, & Stephanie Tom Tong, The Role of Friends’ Appearance and Behavior on Evaluations of Individuals on Facebook: Are We Known by the Company We Keep? Human Communication Research 34(1):28-49, 2008.
T. L. Taylor, Beyond Management: Considering Participatory Design and Governance in Player Culture. First Monday, Special Issue #7, 2006.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Age and Gender in Online Dating Websites: An Analysis of User Profiles on Mingles.com
Age and Gender in Online Dating Websites: An Analysis of User Profiles on Mingles.com
Ed Chow
D Coulombe
Valerie Garcia
Donna Vuu
Jen Wade
Introduction:
Cyberspace has a great effect on how we communicate, interact, and form relationships online/offline, and affects how we see ourselves both in the realm of virtual space and real/actual space. Online dating sites are spaces where the actual and virtual self are intended to be as identical as possible. Within the domain of online dating, the self is presented through constructs of gender, age, and social interaction. Online dating arenas represent an opportunity to record changing cultural norms regarding technology-mediated relationship development and gain insights into important aspects of online behavior, such as gender identity construction and self-presentation strategies. Understanding the ways people create online identities based on their “offline” selves gives insight into the interplay between virtual and actual worlds, i.e. how our real world culture affects the culture we create online and vice versa. Relationships wherein people first meet online and then move offline, known as mixed mode, challenge established theories focusing exclusively on online relationships and provide opportunities for new theory development (Ellison, Heino and Gibbs 2006).
The study of online dating profiles provides interesting dimensions to research of identity, gender, and relationships in cyberspace. This research project was developed to analyze the gender identities of users, e.g. how they present themselves in their profiles and the kind of relationships they are looking for or expect to find using online dating sites. In addition, we examined the differences and similarities between men and women, using age as a variable. Using data gathered from personal profiles on Mingles.com we were able to compare the ways these sites mediated users’ identities through online interactions with the prospect of developing an offline relationship.
Mediated matchmaking is not a new phenomenon: Newspaper personal advertisements have existed since the mid-19th century and video dating was popular in the 1980s. Tom Standage (1998) gives a fascinating account of online dating in his book The Victorian Internet, which documents the history of the telegraph, the first invention that truly had the potential to facilitate romance through virtual space. Standage gives reports of telegraph operators who fell in love while chatting online during slow work hours. Like the modern computer monitor, the tickers functioned as the interface where information was sent and received by telegraph operators. Although different than modern computer-mediated communication, the telegraph and the relationships it facilitated are similar in kind, and this research, along with other research conducted on virtual spaces, aims to shed light on the dynamics of online dating.
Literature Review
A large body of research exists on virtual spaces, the ways in which individuals interact within them, as well as the myriad of ways in which people construct their own identities and perceive those of others. Research on online dating sites in particular have focused on how the online dating platform inhibits and permits impression management and the ways in which romantic relationships develop.
As mentioned above, “love over the wires” is not a new phenomenon. Not only was the telegraph utilized as a way to transmit love messages from one person to another, but telegraph operators actually utilized the device for their own ends, forging romantic relationships between one another through the wires, having never actually seen each other and no visual cues to base impressions: “Despite the apparently impersonal nature of communicating by wire, it was in fact an extremely subtle and intimate means of communication” (Standage 1998:130). Even through female telegraph operators were physically separated from their male counterparts, and often overseen by a matron, men and women were enabled to make romantic connections across the wires (Standage 1998:134). Anecdotes of online love affairs illustrate the inevitability of romance through any communicative form. Also, both the Internet and telegraph have the ability to “help couples transcend real-world barriers” (Standage 1998:137), particularly physical distance, but also shyness and social anxiety.
Visual stimulation is an essential element of the internet, and social networking and on-line dating websites “support members pursuing their own objectives of socializing and sharing of textual and pictorial content” (Messinger 2008:5). Yet, despite the increased means through which users are able to express and represent themselves, notions of authenticity are further complicated, rather than simplified. Online impression formation and management is uniquely complicated because interaction is substantially reduced online from what it would be in the actual world, rendering online impressions suspect because they are so controllable (Walther 2008:32). “People make active decisions about when and how they will self-disclose. These decisions involve a complex process in which people set rules about how and when they will divulge private information, negotiate those rules with other people, and make decisions to disclose based on violations of those rules” (Walther 2008:32).
Deception on the internet, especially within the realm of online dating, has been extensively documented in online research studies. Although the anonymous aspect of the internet may suggest widespread lack of authentic self-representation, the majority of online dating members state they are honest, and research suggests online dating may discourage deception as a result of the technical and social aspects of the environment (Ellison, Heino and Gibbs 2006:419). For example, the expectation of face-to-face contact affects self-representation decisions where individuals engage in more intentional and deliberate self disclosure as the likelihood of face to face interaction increases (Ellison, Heino and Gibbs 2006:419). Design features such as profiles where information is recorded and archived may also deter individuals from lying online (Ellison, Heino and Gibbs 2006:419). Furthermore the essence of online dating websites is to find a romantic partner in real life which may decrease misrepresentation compared to other online relationships (Ellison, Heino and Gibbs 2006:420).
Online dating participants operate in an environment in which assessing the identity of others is a complex and evolving process of reading signals and deconstructing cues, using both active and passive strategies. A study conducted by Ellison, Heino, and Gibbs found that online daters consistently engaged in “creative circumvention strategies as they went through the process of posting a profile, selecting individuals to contact, communicating with potential romantic partners and developing rules for assessing other profiles as well as their own” (2006:431). Online daters use information in profiles to form impressions of others using limited cues available online such as screen names, activeness, and friends (Ellison, Heino and Gibbs 2006:420).
Research conducted by Whitty discovered that online daters were attracted to genuine and honest people and they hoped an individual’s profile presented something about who the individual “really” is (2007:1718). In fact, over half of the participants said an attractive person was one who was truthful and honest. It appears these individuals were more attracted to individuals who expressed their “actual” self, that is, “online daters perceived honest and genuine people to be those who included in their profiles the traits or characteristics that they typically express in everyday offline social setting” (Whitty 2007:1719). Whitty’s research also highlighted the idea that the value placed on physical attributes may be greater for online daters than for individuals establishing relationships is other places on the Internet (2007:1716). However, online daters still engage in impression management, negotiating a delicate balance between revealing their true selves in their profiles and trying to “sell” themselves to prospective partners by describing how they would like to be. The motivation for this was based on not wanting to disappoint the date once they met face-to-face, but at the same time trying to attract a decent number of individuals (Whitty 2007:1716).
The pervasiveness and influence of gender stereotypes and ideologies in everyday life has prompted significant research on the effects of gender in online spaces. Del-Teso-Craviotto’s study on the language differences among men and women in online dating chat rooms found linguistic strategies such as self descriptions and screen names (2008:264). The resulting gender and sexual identities are sketches of stereotypes whose value derives from the acceptance of social and cultural discourses on gender and sexuality negotiated through interactions. Authentication is not an external process imposed upon people but the result of specific social practices (Del-Teso-Craviotto 2008:264).
Methods
Initially, our research was to be conducted using NoLongerLonely.com, an online dating website for people with mental illnesses; a marginalized group not only within society but also within the realm of research conducted in cyberspace. However, we were unable to obtain permission from the administrator of the site to conduct research. Limited access to the site and the ethics involved in working with the mentally ill as research subjects forced us to find a new direction while staying within the arena of online dating. Nonetheless, we came across Mingles.com, an open website for people looking for relationships online. Mingles.com is substantially smaller in membership than eHarmony and Match.com, but it offers a glimpse into the culture of online dating.
Online dating sites are set-up very differently from other virtual spaces, such as newsgroups, virtual worlds, chat rooms, and MMOGs. Individuals are required to construct a profile, where they may upload photographs and videos and write a description of who they are. On Mingles.com, individuals contact each other through “winks,” email, and chat features. The site also provides forums and blogs where members can interact.
Exploratory research was conducted in open forums and blogs dedicated to online dating. Through data collection, we narrowed down our research and focused on the dynamics between gender and age and impression management on online dating sites. A sample of 100 profiles was taken from Mingles.com, 50 men and 50 women. Five age cohorts were established between the ages 18-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-60, and 61-99. Twenty profiles from each cohort were sampled, each containing 10 men and 10 women. The profiles were analyzed based on content; self preferences, preferences in a mate, profile pictures, friends, groups, tags, blogs, and forum posts. A textual analysis was performed on the personal essays in the profiles, as well as members’ screen names.
A short survey was constructed and posted on the Culture and Cyberspace class blog. The survey consisted of questions about the subjects’ age, sex, and experiences with online dating. The survey was mostly used to compliment the data procured from the Mingles.com profiles. Although it would have been ideal to conduct interviews with online daters, we were unable to find informants willing to participate in the study.
Results
Profile Pictures
On average women posted more pictures of themselves than men. Women’s pictures were also more posed and they seemed to pay more attention to their physical appearance than men; they wore dressier clothing and makeup. Men appeared more casual in their pose and dress. Women tended to smile in their pictures more than men. Male pictures were more inactive (had less comments from other members) than the female pictures.
The younger online daters had more active pictures and they also tended to pay more attention to their appearance and pose in their pictures, especially compared to the oldest cohort (61+ years old). The younger cohorts on average posted more pictures of themselves.
Personal Essays
Women on average wrote more in their personal essays than men and tended to be more descriptive when describing themselves and the type of men and relationships they were looking for. Most of the women described themselves as loving, caring, romantic, sexy, and honest, while men used words such as funny, easy going, open minded, and honest to describe themselves. Gender-specific language was used by both men and women in their essays and screen names. Men chose masculine terms such as stone, crane, and bear for their screen names, and women used words like sassy, flower, sweet, and spunky in theirs. Women used expressive text more often in their personal essays, including emoticons, e.g. smiley faces, exclamations marks, tildes, ellipses, and quotation marks. The use of this kind of language made the tone of the essay more informal then the men’s essays. Women were more inclined to mention friends and family as their priorities in life, whereas men often stated their interest in sports and travel.
Preferences
Women were more descriptive than men regarding the partner and relationship they were seeking. The older cohorts were more specific regarding the kind of relationship they wanted and the kind of partner they were seeking, while the younger cohorts, especially 18-30, were more open to different kinds of people and interactions.
Women from the older cohorts varied in types of relationships they were looking for, although most of them stated a preference for more casual relationships such as email/chat and friendships. Older men and women stated they were interested in casual dating or serious relationships. However, women reported a desire for friendship and email/chat relationships as well. Women in general stated a preference for friendships and email/chat relationship compared to men who were looking for serious relationships. This was also supported in the survey results.
Most of the people in the sample were single or divorced, of course this varied across age cohorts with the older members more likely to be divorced. The majority of the men and women in the sample were Caucasian. Both men and women were most specific in their preference of the marital status and ethnicity of prospective partners, most favoring a person who is single, divorced, or widowed and Caucasian or Hispanic/Latin.
Age
Women were more limiting regarding the age of prospective partners, usually preferring an older man, although this varied across age cohorts. Men within the oldest cohort preferred younger women (25.7 years younger) while younger men preferred women who were closer to them in age.
Height
The majority of women stated a preference for a taller man; however, the majority of men did not state a precise height preference.
Body Type
In terms of their body types, the majority of women preferred a body type bigger than their own, and the majority of men preferred a body type smaller than their own. Men reported looking for a woman with a body type of either “thin, average or athletic.” Women were more inclusive than men regarding body type often listing the body types “a few extra pounds” and “larger” in their preferences. This was true across all age cohorts.
Friends
The majority of men and women sampled did not have friends listed in their profile; however, among those who did, women were more likely to have same sex friends as compared to the men. Among men who had friends in their profile, all of them were female and they were typically significantly younger (20- 25 years). Men in the two oldest cohorts had a higher average of friends compared to women in those cohorts.
Analysis
Pictures are one of the most salient aspects of a profile. The placement and size of the picture in relation to other elements of a profile make it the focus of the profile page. This makes the presentation of a profile picture extremely important. Almost every profile in the sample had a personal picture with most of them averaging two pictures each. The women in our study were especially conscious of their physical appearance in profile pictures. We can infer that women share a perception that there exist certain gender norms they are expected to adhere to in order to attract a romantic partner. Men seemed to share a desire for aesthetics in their pictures although not in the same way as women. Men appeared more laid back in their profile pictures, often in casual, sporty attire with less expressive and friendly facial expressions (e.g. smiling, laughing) which exemplifies gender stereotypes prevalent in American culture.
Virtual environments are not devoid of the cultural norms and historical events from which they emerged, but instead, are embedded with the ideologies of the dominant society. In their ethnographic study of cyber marriage on the Chinese Internet, Wu et al. discuss “how in-game marriage, with its game codes and marriage regulations, turns out to be the most visualized, institutionalized, and heteronormative form of cyber marriage” ( 2007:59). Similar to online dating sites such as Mingles.com, online games in China are dominated by real world practices, ideas, and norms. Gender is as much an aspect of virtual environments as it is of actual environments. The rules and regulations of marriage in China is mirrored in those of cyber marriage in online games, thus, cyber marriage is an example of the hegemonic powers in China that control the gender norms and expectations of Chinese society (Wu et al. 2009:85). While power may not be perceived to be centralized in America such as it is in China, there are nonetheless, dominant ideologies which direct our day to day interactions, thoughts, and behaviors (see Bourdieu’s concept of “habitus”) which are visualized on the Internet. The gendered behavior displayed in the online dating profiles sampled reflects the prevailing gender ideologies in the real world.
This is not to imply cyberspace is not inhabited by dissidents of the status quo, for the internet is rife with individuals and communities who deviate from the norm. For example, Chinese male gamers often play with their gender identities through gender swapping in online games. Through a practice referred to as renyao, they subvert the binary gender roles implanted within the design of Chinese online games and explore new concepts of gender and sexuality. In addition, not every female in the online dating sample fits the stereotypical image of a feminine and demure lady. In fact there were gender outliers who preferred more masculine dress and behavior, although this was less the case with men. Gendered behavior and language is prevalent in online dating sites and signifies the culture of both cyberspace and the corporeal world.
The attractiveness and impression of personal pictures is clearly an important aspect of individuals’ online profiles. This suggests profile pictures correlate with avatars commonly used in online games and virtual worlds. Avatars allow internet users to easily play around with their identity by manipulating and changing the appearance of their avatars. Online daters may not be able to change their profile pictures to the degree they could avatars, however, they deliberately select pictures that best represent who they are and how they see themselves. This act by itself is a form of identity transformation. Since the point of online dating is to attract other online daters, it is common for them to choose an attractive profile picture. If individuals believe their profile picture is attractive they may be more inclined to contact others they view as attractive. Therefore, the perceived attractiveness of profile pictures, “avatars,” can cause them to behave differently.
Although our research does not measure changes in behavior before and after selection and placement of pictures on dating profiles, we can infer that individuals with attractive profile pictures exhibit more confidence and increase self-disclosure in their profiles and interactions with other online daters. Nick Yee and Jeremy Bailenson discuss the Proteus effect of transformed self-representation on behavior in their experiments with altered avatars. Yee and Bailenson’s experiments compared participants with attractive avatars to participants with unattractive avatars and revealed that participants with the attractive form were more inclined to lessen their interpersonal distance with others and disclosed more personal information (Yee and Bailenson 2007:281). They also found participants with taller avatars behave in a more confident manner and “negotiate more aggressively than participants in shorter avatars” (Yee and Bailenson 2007:285). These statements correlate with research conducted on height and attractiveness in the actual world. The interesting thing about online dating sites is virtual technology is used to facilitate actual world interactions. Like the participants in Yee and Bailenson’s study, online daters are constantly negotiating interactions with others using their profile pictures to influence prospective romantic partners’ perceptions of them.
In our study age differences and similarities among online dating participants, we found that younger people posted more pictures in their profiles and sought more casual relationships such as dating, friendships, and email/chat friendships. Online daters between the ages of 18-30 have grown up within the digital culture age, which affects how they view and use digital technology, specifically the internet. A seminal study on youth and digital media funded by the MacArthur Foundation, researchers found young people mostly used communication devices such as private messages, IM and mobile phones to interact with close friends and romantic partners (Ito et al. 2008:16). For youth in America today, “new media provide a new venue for their intimacy practices, a venue that renders intimacy simultaneously more public and more private. Young people can now meet people, flirt, date” within an online setting (Ito et al. 2008:17).
The Internet offers a space for youth to experiment with identity, communication patterns, and new relationships in relatively safe environment. For young people, joining an online dating site may be a form of “hanging out” online. Ito et al. describe hanging out as a way for young people to develop peer relationships within a supportive learning environment and the quick accessibility of “multiple forms of media, in diverse contexts of everyday life, means media content is increasingly central to everyday communication and identity construction” (Ito et al. 2007:14). In addition, they use the term “hypersocial” to define the process through which young people use specific media as tokens of identity, taste, and style to negotiate their sense of self in relation to their peers” (Ito et al. 2007:14). In the case of online daters, young people use online dating sites and media such as profile pictures to navigate emerging concepts of identity and social relationships. As observed in various online dating forums, many youth use these sites as practice for real world interactions, a way of gaining real world social skills and experience through virtual spaces, which may explain their lack of desire for serious relationships.
Little research has been conducted on older generations and their participation in cyberspace. A common perception of older people, generally speaking, is they are computer illiterate, possess no computer, or they have little or no interest in the services provided by the internet. However, after conducting our research we have concluded the internet is a viable and useful resource for older people. Although the lack of profile pictures among the oldest cohorts infers they are not as tech-savvy as youth today, they are engaging in the same virtual spaces as young people. Pearce’s work on the baby boomer generation and online gaming noted the significant percentage of baby boomers participating in online gaming, particularly a high rate of women. She also discovered through interviews with informants that “adult gamers tend to socialize and game with peers instead of younger people,” who are viewed as immature (Pearce 2007:148). In addition, baby boomers expressed a desire for more mature companionship in their gaming communities, as well as courteous and pleasant social interaction (Pearce 2007:150,157). In our research only women tended to prefer to develop a relationship with peers whereas men preferred younger women. Men’s and women’s desire for a more committed relationship, such casual dating and serious relationships, in the three oldest cohorts (41-50, 51-60 and 60+) could be indicative of Pearce’s conclusions that they seek mature companionship online, where desire or a long term relationship connotes maturity in an online dater.
The friends list section on the Mingles.com profiles seems to operate in many of the same ways they do on social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace. In their study on the affects of friends’ appearance and behavior on assessment of Facebook profiles, Walther et al. state, “the physical attractiveness of one’s friends’ photos, as seen in the Facebook wall postings presented on another individual’s profile, had a significant effect on the physical attractiveness of the profile’s owner” (2008:44). We can tie this back the initial argument made above that the pictures in a dating profile, whether they belong to the profile’s owner or their friends, influence how a person perceives a profile. In our research, men had more friends than women, all of them women who tended to be younger than their male friends. This could have a positive affect on how a man is perceived, since men are generally allowed by society to cavort with younger females. However, this type of behavior is not expected or appropriate for females although there seems to a slight shift regarding this construct. Walther et al also discusses this sexual double standard in his findings, stating misbehavior displayed on Facebook profiles makes men more attractive, but has the opposite effect on women (Walther et al, 2008:45).
Conclusions
Ranging from profile pictures to essays, age and gender identity constructs are apparent throughout daters’ profiles. We found similarities between online dating sites and other virtual spaces, e.g. online games, and virtual worlds. Profile pictures act as a mechanism through which daters not only express their identity but experiment with different identities as well, and this can have implications on the behaviors and interactions of online daters. Similar to avatars, people can change their appearance in the pictures they post, changing perceptions of themselves to better negotiate relationships online. Age affects the technology employed on online dating sites and as a result impacts interactions online. In our research we discovered that the younger generation tends to use the more technological features of online spaces to socialize and reach more people; older generations used these features less frequently. In addition, we found that young people preferred more casual relationships while the older population desired stable, serious relationships. Lastly, we observed how the friends listed on a dater’s profile forms an impression on those viewing it, and depending on the gender of the owner of the profile, may create a negative image of the owner. Males tend to have greater freedom than women in regards to the content they post and the friends they list on their profiles, owing to the sexual double standard.
As we have conducted research pertaining to age and gender identities on online dating sites, there exist completely different realms of online dating we have not discussed. We only researched the heterosexual population, leaving out homosexuals, bisexuals, and transsexuals from our study. Through studying different types of sexuality, we might have drawn conclusions relating to the heterosexual population. In addition, we did not discuss the affects of race and ethnicity on identity construction within online dating sites. Our sample was predominantly white, leaving out significant parts of the population. Our restricted access to closed websites such as Match.com also created limitations to our research as well as our inability to conduct interviews with online dating informants. These limitations should be addressed in future research on identity construction and impression management on dating websites.
Bibliography
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2008 Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project. Chicago: The MacArthur Foundation.
Messinger, Paul R., Eleni Stroulia, and Kelly Lyons
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Introduction:
Cyberspace has a great effect on how we communicate, interact, and form relationships online/offline, and affects how we see ourselves both in the realm of virtual space and real/actual space. Online dating sites are spaces where the actual and virtual self are intended to be as identical as possible. Within the domain of online dating, the self is presented through constructs of gender, age, and social interaction. Online dating arenas represent an opportunity to record changing cultural norms regarding technology-mediated relationship development and gain insights into important aspects of online behavior, such as gender identity construction and self-presentation strategies. Understanding the ways people create online identities based on their “offline” selves gives insight into the interplay between virtual and actual worlds, i.e. how our real world culture affects the culture we create online and vice versa. Relationships wherein people first meet online and then move offline, known as mixed mode, challenge established theories focusing exclusively on online relationships and provide opportunities for new theory development (Ellison, Heino and Gibbs 2006).
The study of online dating profiles provides interesting dimensions to research of identity, gender, and relationships in cyberspace. This research project was developed to analyze the gender identities of users, e.g. how they present themselves in their profiles and the kind of relationships they are looking for or expect to find using online dating sites. In addition, we examined the differences and similarities between men and women, using age as a variable. Using data gathered from personal profiles on Mingles.com we were able to compare the ways these sites mediated users’ identities through online interactions with the prospect of developing an offline relationship.
Mediated matchmaking is not a new phenomenon: Newspaper personal advertisements have existed since the mid-19th century and video dating was popular in the 1980s. Tom Standage (1998) gives a fascinating account of online dating in his book The Victorian Internet, which documents the history of the telegraph, the first invention that truly had the potential to facilitate romance through virtual space. Standage gives reports of telegraph operators who fell in love while chatting online during slow work hours. Like the modern computer monitor, the tickers functioned as the interface where information was sent and received by telegraph operators. Although different than modern computer-mediated communication, the telegraph and the relationships it facilitated are similar in kind, and this research, along with other research conducted on virtual spaces, aims to shed light on the dynamics of online dating.
Literature Review
A large body of research exists on virtual spaces, the ways in which individuals interact within them, as well as the myriad of ways in which people construct their own identities and perceive those of others. Research on online dating sites in particular have focused on how the online dating platform inhibits and permits impression management and the ways in which romantic relationships develop.
As mentioned above, “love over the wires” is not a new phenomenon. Not only was the telegraph utilized as a way to transmit love messages from one person to another, but telegraph operators actually utilized the device for their own ends, forging romantic relationships between one another through the wires, having never actually seen each other and no visual cues to base impressions: “Despite the apparently impersonal nature of communicating by wire, it was in fact an extremely subtle and intimate means of communication” (Standage 1998:130). Even through female telegraph operators were physically separated from their male counterparts, and often overseen by a matron, men and women were enabled to make romantic connections across the wires (Standage 1998:134). Anecdotes of online love affairs illustrate the inevitability of romance through any communicative form. Also, both the Internet and telegraph have the ability to “help couples transcend real-world barriers” (Standage 1998:137), particularly physical distance, but also shyness and social anxiety.
Visual stimulation is an essential element of the internet, and social networking and on-line dating websites “support members pursuing their own objectives of socializing and sharing of textual and pictorial content” (Messinger 2008:5). Yet, despite the increased means through which users are able to express and represent themselves, notions of authenticity are further complicated, rather than simplified. Online impression formation and management is uniquely complicated because interaction is substantially reduced online from what it would be in the actual world, rendering online impressions suspect because they are so controllable (Walther 2008:32). “People make active decisions about when and how they will self-disclose. These decisions involve a complex process in which people set rules about how and when they will divulge private information, negotiate those rules with other people, and make decisions to disclose based on violations of those rules” (Walther 2008:32).
Deception on the internet, especially within the realm of online dating, has been extensively documented in online research studies. Although the anonymous aspect of the internet may suggest widespread lack of authentic self-representation, the majority of online dating members state they are honest, and research suggests online dating may discourage deception as a result of the technical and social aspects of the environment (Ellison, Heino and Gibbs 2006:419). For example, the expectation of face-to-face contact affects self-representation decisions where individuals engage in more intentional and deliberate self disclosure as the likelihood of face to face interaction increases (Ellison, Heino and Gibbs 2006:419). Design features such as profiles where information is recorded and archived may also deter individuals from lying online (Ellison, Heino and Gibbs 2006:419). Furthermore the essence of online dating websites is to find a romantic partner in real life which may decrease misrepresentation compared to other online relationships (Ellison, Heino and Gibbs 2006:420).
Online dating participants operate in an environment in which assessing the identity of others is a complex and evolving process of reading signals and deconstructing cues, using both active and passive strategies. A study conducted by Ellison, Heino, and Gibbs found that online daters consistently engaged in “creative circumvention strategies as they went through the process of posting a profile, selecting individuals to contact, communicating with potential romantic partners and developing rules for assessing other profiles as well as their own” (2006:431). Online daters use information in profiles to form impressions of others using limited cues available online such as screen names, activeness, and friends (Ellison, Heino and Gibbs 2006:420).
Research conducted by Whitty discovered that online daters were attracted to genuine and honest people and they hoped an individual’s profile presented something about who the individual “really” is (2007:1718). In fact, over half of the participants said an attractive person was one who was truthful and honest. It appears these individuals were more attracted to individuals who expressed their “actual” self, that is, “online daters perceived honest and genuine people to be those who included in their profiles the traits or characteristics that they typically express in everyday offline social setting” (Whitty 2007:1719). Whitty’s research also highlighted the idea that the value placed on physical attributes may be greater for online daters than for individuals establishing relationships is other places on the Internet (2007:1716). However, online daters still engage in impression management, negotiating a delicate balance between revealing their true selves in their profiles and trying to “sell” themselves to prospective partners by describing how they would like to be. The motivation for this was based on not wanting to disappoint the date once they met face-to-face, but at the same time trying to attract a decent number of individuals (Whitty 2007:1716).
The pervasiveness and influence of gender stereotypes and ideologies in everyday life has prompted significant research on the effects of gender in online spaces. Del-Teso-Craviotto’s study on the language differences among men and women in online dating chat rooms found linguistic strategies such as self descriptions and screen names (2008:264). The resulting gender and sexual identities are sketches of stereotypes whose value derives from the acceptance of social and cultural discourses on gender and sexuality negotiated through interactions. Authentication is not an external process imposed upon people but the result of specific social practices (Del-Teso-Craviotto 2008:264).
Methods
Initially, our research was to be conducted using NoLongerLonely.com, an online dating website for people with mental illnesses; a marginalized group not only within society but also within the realm of research conducted in cyberspace. However, we were unable to obtain permission from the administrator of the site to conduct research. Limited access to the site and the ethics involved in working with the mentally ill as research subjects forced us to find a new direction while staying within the arena of online dating. Nonetheless, we came across Mingles.com, an open website for people looking for relationships online. Mingles.com is substantially smaller in membership than eHarmony and Match.com, but it offers a glimpse into the culture of online dating.
Online dating sites are set-up very differently from other virtual spaces, such as newsgroups, virtual worlds, chat rooms, and MMOGs. Individuals are required to construct a profile, where they may upload photographs and videos and write a description of who they are. On Mingles.com, individuals contact each other through “winks,” email, and chat features. The site also provides forums and blogs where members can interact.
Exploratory research was conducted in open forums and blogs dedicated to online dating. Through data collection, we narrowed down our research and focused on the dynamics between gender and age and impression management on online dating sites. A sample of 100 profiles was taken from Mingles.com, 50 men and 50 women. Five age cohorts were established between the ages 18-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-60, and 61-99. Twenty profiles from each cohort were sampled, each containing 10 men and 10 women. The profiles were analyzed based on content; self preferences, preferences in a mate, profile pictures, friends, groups, tags, blogs, and forum posts. A textual analysis was performed on the personal essays in the profiles, as well as members’ screen names.
A short survey was constructed and posted on the Culture and Cyberspace class blog. The survey consisted of questions about the subjects’ age, sex, and experiences with online dating. The survey was mostly used to compliment the data procured from the Mingles.com profiles. Although it would have been ideal to conduct interviews with online daters, we were unable to find informants willing to participate in the study.
Results
Profile Pictures
On average women posted more pictures of themselves than men. Women’s pictures were also more posed and they seemed to pay more attention to their physical appearance than men; they wore dressier clothing and makeup. Men appeared more casual in their pose and dress. Women tended to smile in their pictures more than men. Male pictures were more inactive (had less comments from other members) than the female pictures.
The younger online daters had more active pictures and they also tended to pay more attention to their appearance and pose in their pictures, especially compared to the oldest cohort (61+ years old). The younger cohorts on average posted more pictures of themselves.
Personal Essays
Women on average wrote more in their personal essays than men and tended to be more descriptive when describing themselves and the type of men and relationships they were looking for. Most of the women described themselves as loving, caring, romantic, sexy, and honest, while men used words such as funny, easy going, open minded, and honest to describe themselves. Gender-specific language was used by both men and women in their essays and screen names. Men chose masculine terms such as stone, crane, and bear for their screen names, and women used words like sassy, flower, sweet, and spunky in theirs. Women used expressive text more often in their personal essays, including emoticons, e.g. smiley faces, exclamations marks, tildes, ellipses, and quotation marks. The use of this kind of language made the tone of the essay more informal then the men’s essays. Women were more inclined to mention friends and family as their priorities in life, whereas men often stated their interest in sports and travel.
Preferences
Women were more descriptive than men regarding the partner and relationship they were seeking. The older cohorts were more specific regarding the kind of relationship they wanted and the kind of partner they were seeking, while the younger cohorts, especially 18-30, were more open to different kinds of people and interactions.
Women from the older cohorts varied in types of relationships they were looking for, although most of them stated a preference for more casual relationships such as email/chat and friendships. Older men and women stated they were interested in casual dating or serious relationships. However, women reported a desire for friendship and email/chat relationships as well. Women in general stated a preference for friendships and email/chat relationship compared to men who were looking for serious relationships. This was also supported in the survey results.
Most of the people in the sample were single or divorced, of course this varied across age cohorts with the older members more likely to be divorced. The majority of the men and women in the sample were Caucasian. Both men and women were most specific in their preference of the marital status and ethnicity of prospective partners, most favoring a person who is single, divorced, or widowed and Caucasian or Hispanic/Latin.
Age
Women were more limiting regarding the age of prospective partners, usually preferring an older man, although this varied across age cohorts. Men within the oldest cohort preferred younger women (25.7 years younger) while younger men preferred women who were closer to them in age.
Height
The majority of women stated a preference for a taller man; however, the majority of men did not state a precise height preference.
Body Type
In terms of their body types, the majority of women preferred a body type bigger than their own, and the majority of men preferred a body type smaller than their own. Men reported looking for a woman with a body type of either “thin, average or athletic.” Women were more inclusive than men regarding body type often listing the body types “a few extra pounds” and “larger” in their preferences. This was true across all age cohorts.
Friends
The majority of men and women sampled did not have friends listed in their profile; however, among those who did, women were more likely to have same sex friends as compared to the men. Among men who had friends in their profile, all of them were female and they were typically significantly younger (20- 25 years). Men in the two oldest cohorts had a higher average of friends compared to women in those cohorts.
Analysis
Pictures are one of the most salient aspects of a profile. The placement and size of the picture in relation to other elements of a profile make it the focus of the profile page. This makes the presentation of a profile picture extremely important. Almost every profile in the sample had a personal picture with most of them averaging two pictures each. The women in our study were especially conscious of their physical appearance in profile pictures. We can infer that women share a perception that there exist certain gender norms they are expected to adhere to in order to attract a romantic partner. Men seemed to share a desire for aesthetics in their pictures although not in the same way as women. Men appeared more laid back in their profile pictures, often in casual, sporty attire with less expressive and friendly facial expressions (e.g. smiling, laughing) which exemplifies gender stereotypes prevalent in American culture.
Virtual environments are not devoid of the cultural norms and historical events from which they emerged, but instead, are embedded with the ideologies of the dominant society. In their ethnographic study of cyber marriage on the Chinese Internet, Wu et al. discuss “how in-game marriage, with its game codes and marriage regulations, turns out to be the most visualized, institutionalized, and heteronormative form of cyber marriage” ( 2007:59). Similar to online dating sites such as Mingles.com, online games in China are dominated by real world practices, ideas, and norms. Gender is as much an aspect of virtual environments as it is of actual environments. The rules and regulations of marriage in China is mirrored in those of cyber marriage in online games, thus, cyber marriage is an example of the hegemonic powers in China that control the gender norms and expectations of Chinese society (Wu et al. 2009:85). While power may not be perceived to be centralized in America such as it is in China, there are nonetheless, dominant ideologies which direct our day to day interactions, thoughts, and behaviors (see Bourdieu’s concept of “habitus”) which are visualized on the Internet. The gendered behavior displayed in the online dating profiles sampled reflects the prevailing gender ideologies in the real world.
This is not to imply cyberspace is not inhabited by dissidents of the status quo, for the internet is rife with individuals and communities who deviate from the norm. For example, Chinese male gamers often play with their gender identities through gender swapping in online games. Through a practice referred to as renyao, they subvert the binary gender roles implanted within the design of Chinese online games and explore new concepts of gender and sexuality. In addition, not every female in the online dating sample fits the stereotypical image of a feminine and demure lady. In fact there were gender outliers who preferred more masculine dress and behavior, although this was less the case with men. Gendered behavior and language is prevalent in online dating sites and signifies the culture of both cyberspace and the corporeal world.
The attractiveness and impression of personal pictures is clearly an important aspect of individuals’ online profiles. This suggests profile pictures correlate with avatars commonly used in online games and virtual worlds. Avatars allow internet users to easily play around with their identity by manipulating and changing the appearance of their avatars. Online daters may not be able to change their profile pictures to the degree they could avatars, however, they deliberately select pictures that best represent who they are and how they see themselves. This act by itself is a form of identity transformation. Since the point of online dating is to attract other online daters, it is common for them to choose an attractive profile picture. If individuals believe their profile picture is attractive they may be more inclined to contact others they view as attractive. Therefore, the perceived attractiveness of profile pictures, “avatars,” can cause them to behave differently.
Although our research does not measure changes in behavior before and after selection and placement of pictures on dating profiles, we can infer that individuals with attractive profile pictures exhibit more confidence and increase self-disclosure in their profiles and interactions with other online daters. Nick Yee and Jeremy Bailenson discuss the Proteus effect of transformed self-representation on behavior in their experiments with altered avatars. Yee and Bailenson’s experiments compared participants with attractive avatars to participants with unattractive avatars and revealed that participants with the attractive form were more inclined to lessen their interpersonal distance with others and disclosed more personal information (Yee and Bailenson 2007:281). They also found participants with taller avatars behave in a more confident manner and “negotiate more aggressively than participants in shorter avatars” (Yee and Bailenson 2007:285). These statements correlate with research conducted on height and attractiveness in the actual world. The interesting thing about online dating sites is virtual technology is used to facilitate actual world interactions. Like the participants in Yee and Bailenson’s study, online daters are constantly negotiating interactions with others using their profile pictures to influence prospective romantic partners’ perceptions of them.
In our study age differences and similarities among online dating participants, we found that younger people posted more pictures in their profiles and sought more casual relationships such as dating, friendships, and email/chat friendships. Online daters between the ages of 18-30 have grown up within the digital culture age, which affects how they view and use digital technology, specifically the internet. A seminal study on youth and digital media funded by the MacArthur Foundation, researchers found young people mostly used communication devices such as private messages, IM and mobile phones to interact with close friends and romantic partners (Ito et al. 2008:16). For youth in America today, “new media provide a new venue for their intimacy practices, a venue that renders intimacy simultaneously more public and more private. Young people can now meet people, flirt, date” within an online setting (Ito et al. 2008:17).
The Internet offers a space for youth to experiment with identity, communication patterns, and new relationships in relatively safe environment. For young people, joining an online dating site may be a form of “hanging out” online. Ito et al. describe hanging out as a way for young people to develop peer relationships within a supportive learning environment and the quick accessibility of “multiple forms of media, in diverse contexts of everyday life, means media content is increasingly central to everyday communication and identity construction” (Ito et al. 2007:14). In addition, they use the term “hypersocial” to define the process through which young people use specific media as tokens of identity, taste, and style to negotiate their sense of self in relation to their peers” (Ito et al. 2007:14). In the case of online daters, young people use online dating sites and media such as profile pictures to navigate emerging concepts of identity and social relationships. As observed in various online dating forums, many youth use these sites as practice for real world interactions, a way of gaining real world social skills and experience through virtual spaces, which may explain their lack of desire for serious relationships.
Little research has been conducted on older generations and their participation in cyberspace. A common perception of older people, generally speaking, is they are computer illiterate, possess no computer, or they have little or no interest in the services provided by the internet. However, after conducting our research we have concluded the internet is a viable and useful resource for older people. Although the lack of profile pictures among the oldest cohorts infers they are not as tech-savvy as youth today, they are engaging in the same virtual spaces as young people. Pearce’s work on the baby boomer generation and online gaming noted the significant percentage of baby boomers participating in online gaming, particularly a high rate of women. She also discovered through interviews with informants that “adult gamers tend to socialize and game with peers instead of younger people,” who are viewed as immature (Pearce 2007:148). In addition, baby boomers expressed a desire for more mature companionship in their gaming communities, as well as courteous and pleasant social interaction (Pearce 2007:150,157). In our research only women tended to prefer to develop a relationship with peers whereas men preferred younger women. Men’s and women’s desire for a more committed relationship, such casual dating and serious relationships, in the three oldest cohorts (41-50, 51-60 and 60+) could be indicative of Pearce’s conclusions that they seek mature companionship online, where desire or a long term relationship connotes maturity in an online dater.
The friends list section on the Mingles.com profiles seems to operate in many of the same ways they do on social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace. In their study on the affects of friends’ appearance and behavior on assessment of Facebook profiles, Walther et al. state, “the physical attractiveness of one’s friends’ photos, as seen in the Facebook wall postings presented on another individual’s profile, had a significant effect on the physical attractiveness of the profile’s owner” (2008:44). We can tie this back the initial argument made above that the pictures in a dating profile, whether they belong to the profile’s owner or their friends, influence how a person perceives a profile. In our research, men had more friends than women, all of them women who tended to be younger than their male friends. This could have a positive affect on how a man is perceived, since men are generally allowed by society to cavort with younger females. However, this type of behavior is not expected or appropriate for females although there seems to a slight shift regarding this construct. Walther et al also discusses this sexual double standard in his findings, stating misbehavior displayed on Facebook profiles makes men more attractive, but has the opposite effect on women (Walther et al, 2008:45).
Conclusions
Ranging from profile pictures to essays, age and gender identity constructs are apparent throughout daters’ profiles. We found similarities between online dating sites and other virtual spaces, e.g. online games, and virtual worlds. Profile pictures act as a mechanism through which daters not only express their identity but experiment with different identities as well, and this can have implications on the behaviors and interactions of online daters. Similar to avatars, people can change their appearance in the pictures they post, changing perceptions of themselves to better negotiate relationships online. Age affects the technology employed on online dating sites and as a result impacts interactions online. In our research we discovered that the younger generation tends to use the more technological features of online spaces to socialize and reach more people; older generations used these features less frequently. In addition, we found that young people preferred more casual relationships while the older population desired stable, serious relationships. Lastly, we observed how the friends listed on a dater’s profile forms an impression on those viewing it, and depending on the gender of the owner of the profile, may create a negative image of the owner. Males tend to have greater freedom than women in regards to the content they post and the friends they list on their profiles, owing to the sexual double standard.
As we have conducted research pertaining to age and gender identities on online dating sites, there exist completely different realms of online dating we have not discussed. We only researched the heterosexual population, leaving out homosexuals, bisexuals, and transsexuals from our study. Through studying different types of sexuality, we might have drawn conclusions relating to the heterosexual population. In addition, we did not discuss the affects of race and ethnicity on identity construction within online dating sites. Our sample was predominantly white, leaving out significant parts of the population. Our restricted access to closed websites such as Match.com also created limitations to our research as well as our inability to conduct interviews with online dating informants. These limitations should be addressed in future research on identity construction and impression management on dating websites.
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Exploring Art in Online Communities
Exploring Art in Online Communities
Stephanie Hu
Madelyne Oliver
Kevin Pham
Geraldo Raygoza
Gwen Stacy
The advent of the virtual world poses challenges for the art community within the physical world. Artists who showcase their portfolios in galleries, coffee shops, and museums have shifted over to the Internet where their artwork reaches a wider network of people, leading to broader exposure. This exposure is crucial for artists who make a career of their art because it enhances their prospects of selling their artwork and earning an income.
In this exploration of World Wide Web, many social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Friendster have allowed people from separate locations around the world to develop close social ties, or to reconnect with a high school friend. Joseph Walther in his article comments that a social networking site like Facebook has “a million new users establish[ing] accounts each week”, attracting 52 million people worldwide (Walther 2008:532). So if communities are building rapidly in these online spaces, in what way does the artist and his or her art use the Web? We explore this question as a group of five undergraduates who are also artists. While each member of the group has taken on a different virtual online site that is aimed at creating or expanding a pre-existing art community, our focus is on the function of art on these online art communities. Is the art influenced by the social aspects of a website? How does the art in return influence creating social bonds? As users create a profile and log on with the intention of promoting their art, this intention evolves to expanding his or her own personal social network. However, inevitably this naturalized norm of socializing or building a network traces back in a full circle to the reason he or she logged on the website—the art.
Frame of Mind
What can be said about social networking sites and online art communities?When building a social community there is usually a medium, or space, for the community to communicate with and/or in. There are examples of this in the physical world- church communities, clubs at school, and sports teams. These communities communicate in the physical space of the church, the school building, or the field. The medium is verbal as well as physical communication. In church, it is often about the religion in which the community has collectively identified with. For the others, it is the theme of the club or the play of the game.
Online the space is the internet itself, and because of its ambiguous location the community becomes dependent on the medium to glue the community together in the virtual “space.” In this research the space[s] that communities have agreed to identify with are we art-related websites. This medium is heavily visual, with a textual interface. The cue is at first visual as the artwork initiates the attraction and introduction to art-networking sites such as Flickr, Tapsmack, and DeviantArt. Other sites such as Myspace and Facebook, which are less targeted towards artists, also participate in providing personalized community. This is accomplished through the broad functions, applications, and freedom of usage on the sites.
According to J. B. Walther, author of “Interpersonal effects in computer-mediated interaction,” there is a SIP theory (social information processing theory) in which people manage to find ways to use their environment in any means available to create a presence, identity, or impression, even when nonverbal cues are not present (Walther & Parks in “Too Much of a Good Thing? The Relationship Between Number of Friends and Interpersonal Impressions on Facebook,” 2008: 533). In art websites the cues that are mainly depended upon for social interaction initiation are visual because the environment is artistic at its core.
Aside from establishing that art websites have these social factors, we can see that these websites have drastically influenced the success, accessibility, and limitations for the artist. Chris Robertson, author of Majon International, one of the world’s top internet marketing companies writes in his article, “The Advantage of Interactive Online Art Communities,” that:
In the olden days before the communications revolution, it was a few assorted experts, art critics and art galleries that decided what was art and how desirable it was. Anyone who did not have access to those experts and galleries had essentially no chance to have their art seen and discussed by an audience outside of friends and family (Robertson, www.abcarticledirectory.com/Article/The-Advantage-of-Interactive-Online-Art-Communities/207558).
With the web, instead of waiting to be discovered by an art collector or gallery owner, artists can display their art on their own terms in their own online art gallery. In this manner fame is not guaranteed, as Robertson points out, but “it provides what many artists desire most: getting feedback from peers and enthusiasts and to be able to make their art potentially available to millions, no matter where on the planet they may live” (1). For example, when I surf through a new online community, I can click on any photograph and am instantly in contact with the artist. I can comment on their art, chat with them, buy their art directly, or interview them. This instant access to endless varieties of art, all gathered in one communal space, where any viewer only needs to click to interact with the artist, is revolutionary in itself and should not be overlooked.
Methods
For the purpose of this research, we did not want to be selective by narrowing our scope to one website source. Instead, we chose five primary websites, two that are art-designated in addition to the two largest social networking sites on the web: Myspace and Facebook. Our five websites included: Myspace, Facebook, Tapsmack, Flickr, and DeviantArt. Each member of the group was responsible for taking a website and creating an account. As such, we became active users of the sites and active artists of the sites. We promoted our own artwork for the necessity of truly fulfilling the role of an artist using these social networking sites. In addition to this, we regularly updated our accounts, posted news, joined groups and chats to gain acceptance within the online community and explore the functions and applications within each website. Our primary method was participant observation as we observed profile pages of other active users, top artists, artwork, and even our own status- as it significantly grew due to the accustomed habit of logging in. From this we found that many artists used these sites as a middle ground for their own personalized sites. Those jump links were then also explored and observed. In order to explore how these websites shape the artist’s success, it was crucial for us to present our research directly and in the lingo used by the community on message boards and in chat rooms. This was most effective on Myspace and journal postings. On Facebook in particular, joining art groups composed of artists was effective because contrary to our original assumptions, their artwork was not posted in a photo album and uploaded to the site. Once joining the art groups it became clear that Facebook was not favored as an ideal space for an artist to showcase her artwork due to its emphasis on social networking. However, applications such as posting an event, where artists could locate an art show held by their fellow Facebook friends, was utilized heavily as a form of building a presence within the art community. Within online art communities like DeviantArt, observing activity on artists’ profile pages with high activity rates, “Deviations,” “Features,” “Favorites” and “DeviantWatches” were all crucial for understanding the ways in which an artist utilizes the online space. Most importantly, the best results were yielded from participating in the activity of commenting on artwork or responding to comments made—which created a life of its own—threads of conversation that revealed much about social dynamics and the role of art in these online spaces. On Flickr, having a profile and being a part of many different groups was crucial- as was expanding one’s social network within the site as much as possible. Through the constant exploration of the various features on the site and the close observation of social norms, we are able to witness how Flickr flourishes under both its artistic and social aspects.
Findings
Facebook
During the several weeks we followed art communities on Facebook, we observed several different types of actions. Facebook allows individuals to start groups based on different themes. Part of our research included joining different art groups to observe how they operate and to see how artists used these sites to promote their own art. One thing we noticed was that these art groups do not operate as a place for artists to showcase their work. None of the groups have wall space where members uploaded their own artwork. In fact, the only function that groups did employ within the group page itself was the wall. The wall served as a place for members to chat amongst each other about art; however, most of the sites had only a few wall posts, and others hadn’t been used in months.
Withing a couple of weeks after one member of our group joined one of these groups, the member started to receive messages. Messages appeared to be the one constant medium of exchange among these groups. It was surprising that all of the messages had the same theme—art shows. It appears that the real purpose of these groups was not to post pictures of artist’s work, or to chat within the group, but as a ground to publicize individual artist’s art shows. After receiving several invitations to shows, the member of our group started to befriend some of the artists. As this member of our group perused their profile pages, she noticed that only about half of these artists had photo albums dedicated to their artwork. In several Facebook chat interviews the member of our group asked why this was so, and received replies including “Facebook really isn’t the place where I post my art, I use other sites for that... I just use Facebook to tell me friends about my upcoming shows.” There appeared to be a consensus that many artists did not feel that Facebook was the best place to display their art. As one female college student reiterated, “On Facebook I just talk to my friends, and they have already seen all my work- so there’s no real need to post it again.” Conclusively, Facebook’s “events” and “message all members” functions are generally the most useful and popular tools among artists using Facebook.
Flickr
One member of our group has been a member of Flickr for almost a year now, and in this time its complex social nuances have gradually revealed themselves. When this member of our group first started, she assumed that Flickr was just a medium for users to upload photos to the web and share their albums with friends, family, and the occasional stranger. However, as she explored further, she stumbled upon dozens of artists and photographers whose Flickr profiles generated thousands of hits a day, and for whom an image could yield up to 400 comments within hours of its upload. The images were amazing, the member of our group conceded—however, the member of our group could not understand how another artist with similar talent could have such drastically lower view-counts and comments on his photo-stream. Another mystery to me was the phenomenon on Flickr known as “explore.” Through a complex, secret algorithm, Flickr calculates the “interestingness” of every upload based upon “where the clickthroughs are coming from; who comments on it and when; who marks it as a favorite; its tags and many more things which are constantly changing. Interestingness changes over time, as more and more fantastic content and stories are added to Flickr” (http://www.Flickr.com/explore/interesting/). The photographs deemed “most interesting” by this algorithm are then conducted into the venerable pages of “explore.” This is a highly discussed and highly sought-after honor within the Flickr community, and a quick glance through the pages of “explore” will reveal some of the most fantastic images Flickr has to offer.
I quickly realized that to “make explore,” one must first establish a network of loyal “contacts,” or friends and fans of your work. These are the people who would provide the views, comments, and “faves” that would elevate an image’s “interestingness.” The more you comment and “fave” others’ images, the courtesy is for them to return the favor. Slowly, an increasingly wider social network is established through this process, until every image you upload will have at least several obligatory comments from your contacts praising your work. In this way, the social and artistic aspects of Flickr are inextricably linked, so that rarely can one succeed without the other. Only the most brilliant and effortlessly talented image-makers on Flickr can flourish without being social, and only the most sociable and comment-happy members on Flickr can succeed without having much talent.
As an online art community, Flickr has evolved to somewhat of a popularity contest amongst artists vying to become the most “interesting” photographer on Flickr. Because of the conveniently social and often competitive nature of online art communities, it is now easier than ever to gain widespread popularity on Flickr, whether you truly have talent or not.
DeviantArt
When one member of our group first logged onto my account under my DeviantArt avatar name “thinkmadcrazy” to upload photos of her artwork, her work was added to three other users’ “favorites” collection, and she received four comments and sixteen messages—all within the first several minutes. This member of our group did not know these other members personally, but because her art was uploaded to a public viewing platform with instant access, her artwork acted as her agent, attracting future contacts. The art initiated our first introduction and further social interactions. As a beginning DeviantArt user, or a “newbie,” this member of our group wanted to further explore the purpose of networking with other artists and how these social interactions affect the art. One feature in particular on DeviantArt is the message alert system that functions similar to a “newsfeed” on Facebook creating a sense of immediate intimacy within this art community. On Facebook we have what Clive Thompson, in his article “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy,” calls “ambient updates-” which on the ‘Newsfeed’, “are all visible on a single page…they’re not really directed at you. This makes them easy to skim, like newspaper headlines” (Thompson 2008:5). Clicking on this alert system built into the site, called “DeviantWatch,” this “skimmable” inbox is divided into smaller categories: deviations, journals, news, polls, feedback, comments, replies, and activity. It is within this forum that most social interaction occurs.
“Deviations” are the images of artwork from other artists that pop up in your deviation inbox every time she or he has uploaded a new work of art. These works range in traditional art, digital art, photography, literature, artisan crafts, designs and interfaces, animation, manga, anime. In this way, the art remains the primary foundation for taking an initial interest in other artists. By clicking on an image that sparks interest, one is led immediately to the artist’s profile page where further text and visual information can be exchanged. However, under “Activity” and “Comments” was where the member of our group found herself having more immediate conversations with other artists.
Just having her artwork added to many DA users’ favorites also noticeably sparked a sense of excitement within this member of our group. In that moment she became more concerned with how other artists viewed my artwork, their thoughts or opinions, which were revealed in detail in the ‘comments’ section. While viewing and reading the comments, she noticed that conversation was often initially focused on the art, but often evolves into a free-form discussion on other topics.
The act of checking favorites, adding other members, and comments shows that “individuals are concerned to explore how it mediates between persons after publication. Indeed, the ease of online publishing means that they can devote most of their attention to how the weblog is received” (Reed 2005: 230). Within the space of “Comments” particularly, how art is received becomes a crucial stimulus to social interaction. These concerns of public feedback is crucial for developing closer ties such as “adding” other members or even buying art from that artist. Social interaction evolves from the subject of art to a more socialized textual atmosphere, yet still traces back to being about the art.
This member of our group also noticed that constructive criticism of the artwork is always in a very positive tone. It has become the social norm for DeviantArt users to comment positively on others’ work, while negative or hateful comments are often looked-down upon. This tendency to comment and communicate constructively regardless of the quality of the artwork and skill level of the artist seems to be unique to online art communities, and further establishes a communal bond that is centered on inspiring and creating art.
Functions such as commenting, adding members as favorites, or “watching” someone, all allow for a constructive community within a forum of ever-expanding social networks. However, because these social ties are founded upon the sharing of art-pieces, the community inevitably remains centered around the art itself, building relationships and expanding networks along the way.
Tapsmack
Tapsmack is a young, up-and-coming web site that fulfills the roles of social networking and marketplace. As a social network, Tapsmack brings together non-artists who have ideas for art pieces and artists ready to showcase their talents by fashioning those ideas into visual art. As a marketplace, Tapsmack allows all users, referred to as “Smackers”, to vote on the best ideas and designs. All Smackers have the option to then purchase the designs for use on actual products such as clothing and tattoos.
Unlike a social networking web site, TapSmack does not have a “friending” system in place or a ready-made network to join upon registering. However, TapSmack is not simply an art website either; while TapSmack allows Smackers to maintain a portfolio of their artwork, TapSmack does not emphasize only art showcasing or sharing. In addition to presenting ideas and designing them into a visual artwork, all Smackers can vote on their favorite designs by clicking either the “Love It” or “Like It” button next to the design being voted. They can also give feedback on designs and ideas by commenting on the respective designs or ideas’ web pages. There are also incentives for Smackers to continue participating as both Artists and Idea Creators and contributing to the growth of TapSmack. First, TapSmack establishes a rank of Smackers based on seniority. In order to move up the ranks, a Smacker would have to earn SmackCash, the TapSmack “currency” which is used as participation “points” rather than actual cash- by posting ideas and designs, voting on designs, selling designs, and inviting friends to join TapSmack.
Some people are concerned about the commoditization of art, as demonstrated in the activities on Tapsmack. However, Tapsmack is a young web site with good potential as a worthy enterprise. Sales and consumption of art are made directly between artists and consumers. Tapsmack also encourages online participation in order to form an intimate community within a common space. Non-artists, in particular, are encouraged to participate and contribute their visions and ideas. In this way, Tapsmack becomes a community in which the central focus is on generating art for the purpose of both showcasing talent and making money. Through comments, votes, and criticism of the art created, a social community is born that regulates and perpetuates the art that is created. The art originates as the central theme of discussion, and through the social functions of the site, it is either rejected as a concept or fully realized through commercial sale.
Myspace
Tattoos, as a form of art and business, have grown exponentially in popularity. Since the explosion of the Myspace community, a number of factors have contributed to the expansion and accessibility of the tattoo industry. With over 110 million monthly active users, tattoo artists have gained massive clientele potential. Internet search engines such as Lycos have revealed the popularity of tattoos, as it ranked “tattoos as the number two most requested search term on the internet in 2002.”
Myspace has provided a useful medium for tattoo artists to further their client base, network with other artists and get a better sense of “what’s being done out there”. As opposed to displaying photos of the artists themselves, most default pictures and avatars are pictures of the artist’s work. This allows for judgment based solely on merit, as people do not know what race or sex the artist is. Race and sex are not identity cues, as Wagner addressed in the article “The Skin You’re In”. Clicking on the avatars will likely reveal a profile page complete with shop location, hours, contact information and fliers for art shows. The “blog” section will normally exhibit merchandise such as sketchbooks, t-shirts and tattoo machines. Most notable is the “photos” section, containing portfolios displaying hundreds of tattoos and paintings the artist has done. In a sense, Myspace serves as a facilitator of business and advertising for the independently contracted tattoo artist, all created and personalized by the artists themselves.
Whether or not Myspace has “improved” the tattoo industry is an issue of debate among tattoo enthusiasts and artists. A 41-year-old veteran tattoo collector told a member of our group, “It’s given stupid people the ability to annoy a larger number of tattoo artists at one time.” Another tattoo collector said, “Well, for one the internet makes art much more accessible, and a lot easier to be plagiarized”. After hearing snippets of random people’s two cents, one member of our group decided to attempt to contact and conduct interviews with two world-renowned tattoo artists. Surprisingly, they responded and provided insightful information.
One of the artists felt that Myspace had not given him more clients or made him any busier than he was before Myspace, but has allowed for easier and more effective communication with customers from other countries. However, just as people believed the transatlantic cable would bring about positive world peace, the same cannot be assumed for Myspace’s impact on the tattoo industry. “Ever since people have invented things, other people have found ways to put those things to criminal use” (Standage 2007:105). An apparently negative influence of Myspace on the tattoo industry happens to be coming from the younger generation of tattoo artists. These upstart young artists have had access to worlds of artwork on Myspace. What results is the assumption that the profession of tattooing is an easy industry to enter. Thus, the youth within the community do not learn the ethics of the business or the way of the industry, disrespecting the veterans who paved the way before them. Many steal designs and plagiarize the work of other artists, making the older, more experienced tattoo artists reluctant to help their younger counterparts.
However, the connectivity and accessibility offered by Myspace has also raised the standard within the community in terms of quality and creativity. One artist told me that in the 70s and 80s, tattoos were generally simple and small. Now, the current standard of tattoos would have seemed impossible back then. Myspace has raised awareness about the incredible works possible in the profession, and has raised the bar for everyone.
Furthermore, other renowned artists also felt more positively about Myspace. One artist felt Myspace greatly helped his career as an artist by allowing him to network with thousands of other artists- resulting in more clients, more friends, and more opportunities to travel and work at different shops.
Conclusion
Through our explorations of the five websites—Facebook, Myspace, DeviantArt, Tapsmack, and Flickr—we discovered that art functions as a visual focus to initiate social interaction and relationships. As time progresses, the focus may shift slightly away from the art as social bonds are formed and networks of contacts are expanded. However, community attention will inevitably redirect itself to focus on the artwork within the community, and the primary reason most users log on remains for the purpose of sharing and distributing art.
Chatting with other artists, joining groups, commenting on artwork, and participating in buying or selling are all useful features and sometimes distractions within these spaces- however the art never leaves the online scene. Despite its advantages of providing a sense of community, feedback, and a space for the artist to reach a wider audience, online art communities have their drawbacks. For instance, plagiarism, blatant art theft, and cheapening artwork have become more rampant because of the internet. Furthermore, the social aspects of online communities can also detract from the art when users become too focused on gaining notoriety and popularity within the community, and pieces can become cheap ploys to generate hits.
Consequently, online art communities both benefit and detract from artists in a circular motion. The art will initially attract viewers and social contacts, but can evolve to the point where the quality and integrity of the art is compromised. However, with time, most members within art communities will re-balance their attention and harness the social and interactive aspects of the community to benefit their work.
This varies from our initial assumption that online art communities were just becoming networking grounds for socializing. We did not fully realize the complex relationship between an online social community and the character of the art within it. However, it has become evident that the internet has exerted great influence on the art world in more ways than one, and only one thing is for certain- the art community will never be the same.
Were we able to do things differently, we would probably have conducted more interviews with members of each site in order to gain insight into how other users view the complex relationship between the internet and the art world. Also, we would probably have focused more in-depth on one or two main online art communities, rather than dividing our resources between five vastly different communities.
Stephanie Hu
Madelyne Oliver
Kevin Pham
Geraldo Raygoza
Gwen Stacy
The advent of the virtual world poses challenges for the art community within the physical world. Artists who showcase their portfolios in galleries, coffee shops, and museums have shifted over to the Internet where their artwork reaches a wider network of people, leading to broader exposure. This exposure is crucial for artists who make a career of their art because it enhances their prospects of selling their artwork and earning an income.
In this exploration of World Wide Web, many social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Friendster have allowed people from separate locations around the world to develop close social ties, or to reconnect with a high school friend. Joseph Walther in his article comments that a social networking site like Facebook has “a million new users establish[ing] accounts each week”, attracting 52 million people worldwide (Walther 2008:532). So if communities are building rapidly in these online spaces, in what way does the artist and his or her art use the Web? We explore this question as a group of five undergraduates who are also artists. While each member of the group has taken on a different virtual online site that is aimed at creating or expanding a pre-existing art community, our focus is on the function of art on these online art communities. Is the art influenced by the social aspects of a website? How does the art in return influence creating social bonds? As users create a profile and log on with the intention of promoting their art, this intention evolves to expanding his or her own personal social network. However, inevitably this naturalized norm of socializing or building a network traces back in a full circle to the reason he or she logged on the website—the art.
Frame of Mind
What can be said about social networking sites and online art communities?When building a social community there is usually a medium, or space, for the community to communicate with and/or in. There are examples of this in the physical world- church communities, clubs at school, and sports teams. These communities communicate in the physical space of the church, the school building, or the field. The medium is verbal as well as physical communication. In church, it is often about the religion in which the community has collectively identified with. For the others, it is the theme of the club or the play of the game.
Online the space is the internet itself, and because of its ambiguous location the community becomes dependent on the medium to glue the community together in the virtual “space.” In this research the space[s] that communities have agreed to identify with are we art-related websites. This medium is heavily visual, with a textual interface. The cue is at first visual as the artwork initiates the attraction and introduction to art-networking sites such as Flickr, Tapsmack, and DeviantArt. Other sites such as Myspace and Facebook, which are less targeted towards artists, also participate in providing personalized community. This is accomplished through the broad functions, applications, and freedom of usage on the sites.
According to J. B. Walther, author of “Interpersonal effects in computer-mediated interaction,” there is a SIP theory (social information processing theory) in which people manage to find ways to use their environment in any means available to create a presence, identity, or impression, even when nonverbal cues are not present (Walther & Parks in “Too Much of a Good Thing? The Relationship Between Number of Friends and Interpersonal Impressions on Facebook,” 2008: 533). In art websites the cues that are mainly depended upon for social interaction initiation are visual because the environment is artistic at its core.
Aside from establishing that art websites have these social factors, we can see that these websites have drastically influenced the success, accessibility, and limitations for the artist. Chris Robertson, author of Majon International, one of the world’s top internet marketing companies writes in his article, “The Advantage of Interactive Online Art Communities,” that:
In the olden days before the communications revolution, it was a few assorted experts, art critics and art galleries that decided what was art and how desirable it was. Anyone who did not have access to those experts and galleries had essentially no chance to have their art seen and discussed by an audience outside of friends and family (Robertson, www.abcarticledirectory.com/Article/The-Advantage-of-Interactive-Online-Art-Communities/207558).
With the web, instead of waiting to be discovered by an art collector or gallery owner, artists can display their art on their own terms in their own online art gallery. In this manner fame is not guaranteed, as Robertson points out, but “it provides what many artists desire most: getting feedback from peers and enthusiasts and to be able to make their art potentially available to millions, no matter where on the planet they may live” (1). For example, when I surf through a new online community, I can click on any photograph and am instantly in contact with the artist. I can comment on their art, chat with them, buy their art directly, or interview them. This instant access to endless varieties of art, all gathered in one communal space, where any viewer only needs to click to interact with the artist, is revolutionary in itself and should not be overlooked.
Methods
For the purpose of this research, we did not want to be selective by narrowing our scope to one website source. Instead, we chose five primary websites, two that are art-designated in addition to the two largest social networking sites on the web: Myspace and Facebook. Our five websites included: Myspace, Facebook, Tapsmack, Flickr, and DeviantArt. Each member of the group was responsible for taking a website and creating an account. As such, we became active users of the sites and active artists of the sites. We promoted our own artwork for the necessity of truly fulfilling the role of an artist using these social networking sites. In addition to this, we regularly updated our accounts, posted news, joined groups and chats to gain acceptance within the online community and explore the functions and applications within each website. Our primary method was participant observation as we observed profile pages of other active users, top artists, artwork, and even our own status- as it significantly grew due to the accustomed habit of logging in. From this we found that many artists used these sites as a middle ground for their own personalized sites. Those jump links were then also explored and observed. In order to explore how these websites shape the artist’s success, it was crucial for us to present our research directly and in the lingo used by the community on message boards and in chat rooms. This was most effective on Myspace and journal postings. On Facebook in particular, joining art groups composed of artists was effective because contrary to our original assumptions, their artwork was not posted in a photo album and uploaded to the site. Once joining the art groups it became clear that Facebook was not favored as an ideal space for an artist to showcase her artwork due to its emphasis on social networking. However, applications such as posting an event, where artists could locate an art show held by their fellow Facebook friends, was utilized heavily as a form of building a presence within the art community. Within online art communities like DeviantArt, observing activity on artists’ profile pages with high activity rates, “Deviations,” “Features,” “Favorites” and “DeviantWatches” were all crucial for understanding the ways in which an artist utilizes the online space. Most importantly, the best results were yielded from participating in the activity of commenting on artwork or responding to comments made—which created a life of its own—threads of conversation that revealed much about social dynamics and the role of art in these online spaces. On Flickr, having a profile and being a part of many different groups was crucial- as was expanding one’s social network within the site as much as possible. Through the constant exploration of the various features on the site and the close observation of social norms, we are able to witness how Flickr flourishes under both its artistic and social aspects.
Findings
During the several weeks we followed art communities on Facebook, we observed several different types of actions. Facebook allows individuals to start groups based on different themes. Part of our research included joining different art groups to observe how they operate and to see how artists used these sites to promote their own art. One thing we noticed was that these art groups do not operate as a place for artists to showcase their work. None of the groups have wall space where members uploaded their own artwork. In fact, the only function that groups did employ within the group page itself was the wall. The wall served as a place for members to chat amongst each other about art; however, most of the sites had only a few wall posts, and others hadn’t been used in months.
Withing a couple of weeks after one member of our group joined one of these groups, the member started to receive messages. Messages appeared to be the one constant medium of exchange among these groups. It was surprising that all of the messages had the same theme—art shows. It appears that the real purpose of these groups was not to post pictures of artist’s work, or to chat within the group, but as a ground to publicize individual artist’s art shows. After receiving several invitations to shows, the member of our group started to befriend some of the artists. As this member of our group perused their profile pages, she noticed that only about half of these artists had photo albums dedicated to their artwork. In several Facebook chat interviews the member of our group asked why this was so, and received replies including “Facebook really isn’t the place where I post my art, I use other sites for that... I just use Facebook to tell me friends about my upcoming shows.” There appeared to be a consensus that many artists did not feel that Facebook was the best place to display their art. As one female college student reiterated, “On Facebook I just talk to my friends, and they have already seen all my work- so there’s no real need to post it again.” Conclusively, Facebook’s “events” and “message all members” functions are generally the most useful and popular tools among artists using Facebook.
Flickr
One member of our group has been a member of Flickr for almost a year now, and in this time its complex social nuances have gradually revealed themselves. When this member of our group first started, she assumed that Flickr was just a medium for users to upload photos to the web and share their albums with friends, family, and the occasional stranger. However, as she explored further, she stumbled upon dozens of artists and photographers whose Flickr profiles generated thousands of hits a day, and for whom an image could yield up to 400 comments within hours of its upload. The images were amazing, the member of our group conceded—however, the member of our group could not understand how another artist with similar talent could have such drastically lower view-counts and comments on his photo-stream. Another mystery to me was the phenomenon on Flickr known as “explore.” Through a complex, secret algorithm, Flickr calculates the “interestingness” of every upload based upon “where the clickthroughs are coming from; who comments on it and when; who marks it as a favorite; its tags and many more things which are constantly changing. Interestingness changes over time, as more and more fantastic content and stories are added to Flickr” (http://www.Flickr.com/explore/interesting/). The photographs deemed “most interesting” by this algorithm are then conducted into the venerable pages of “explore.” This is a highly discussed and highly sought-after honor within the Flickr community, and a quick glance through the pages of “explore” will reveal some of the most fantastic images Flickr has to offer.
I quickly realized that to “make explore,” one must first establish a network of loyal “contacts,” or friends and fans of your work. These are the people who would provide the views, comments, and “faves” that would elevate an image’s “interestingness.” The more you comment and “fave” others’ images, the courtesy is for them to return the favor. Slowly, an increasingly wider social network is established through this process, until every image you upload will have at least several obligatory comments from your contacts praising your work. In this way, the social and artistic aspects of Flickr are inextricably linked, so that rarely can one succeed without the other. Only the most brilliant and effortlessly talented image-makers on Flickr can flourish without being social, and only the most sociable and comment-happy members on Flickr can succeed without having much talent.
As an online art community, Flickr has evolved to somewhat of a popularity contest amongst artists vying to become the most “interesting” photographer on Flickr. Because of the conveniently social and often competitive nature of online art communities, it is now easier than ever to gain widespread popularity on Flickr, whether you truly have talent or not.
DeviantArt
When one member of our group first logged onto my account under my DeviantArt avatar name “thinkmadcrazy” to upload photos of her artwork, her work was added to three other users’ “favorites” collection, and she received four comments and sixteen messages—all within the first several minutes. This member of our group did not know these other members personally, but because her art was uploaded to a public viewing platform with instant access, her artwork acted as her agent, attracting future contacts. The art initiated our first introduction and further social interactions. As a beginning DeviantArt user, or a “newbie,” this member of our group wanted to further explore the purpose of networking with other artists and how these social interactions affect the art. One feature in particular on DeviantArt is the message alert system that functions similar to a “newsfeed” on Facebook creating a sense of immediate intimacy within this art community. On Facebook we have what Clive Thompson, in his article “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy,” calls “ambient updates-” which on the ‘Newsfeed’, “are all visible on a single page…they’re not really directed at you. This makes them easy to skim, like newspaper headlines” (Thompson 2008:5). Clicking on this alert system built into the site, called “DeviantWatch,” this “skimmable” inbox is divided into smaller categories: deviations, journals, news, polls, feedback, comments, replies, and activity. It is within this forum that most social interaction occurs.
“Deviations” are the images of artwork from other artists that pop up in your deviation inbox every time she or he has uploaded a new work of art. These works range in traditional art, digital art, photography, literature, artisan crafts, designs and interfaces, animation, manga, anime. In this way, the art remains the primary foundation for taking an initial interest in other artists. By clicking on an image that sparks interest, one is led immediately to the artist’s profile page where further text and visual information can be exchanged. However, under “Activity” and “Comments” was where the member of our group found herself having more immediate conversations with other artists.
Just having her artwork added to many DA users’ favorites also noticeably sparked a sense of excitement within this member of our group. In that moment she became more concerned with how other artists viewed my artwork, their thoughts or opinions, which were revealed in detail in the ‘comments’ section. While viewing and reading the comments, she noticed that conversation was often initially focused on the art, but often evolves into a free-form discussion on other topics.
The act of checking favorites, adding other members, and comments shows that “individuals are concerned to explore how it mediates between persons after publication. Indeed, the ease of online publishing means that they can devote most of their attention to how the weblog is received” (Reed 2005: 230). Within the space of “Comments” particularly, how art is received becomes a crucial stimulus to social interaction. These concerns of public feedback is crucial for developing closer ties such as “adding” other members or even buying art from that artist. Social interaction evolves from the subject of art to a more socialized textual atmosphere, yet still traces back to being about the art.
This member of our group also noticed that constructive criticism of the artwork is always in a very positive tone. It has become the social norm for DeviantArt users to comment positively on others’ work, while negative or hateful comments are often looked-down upon. This tendency to comment and communicate constructively regardless of the quality of the artwork and skill level of the artist seems to be unique to online art communities, and further establishes a communal bond that is centered on inspiring and creating art.
Functions such as commenting, adding members as favorites, or “watching” someone, all allow for a constructive community within a forum of ever-expanding social networks. However, because these social ties are founded upon the sharing of art-pieces, the community inevitably remains centered around the art itself, building relationships and expanding networks along the way.
Tapsmack
Tapsmack is a young, up-and-coming web site that fulfills the roles of social networking and marketplace. As a social network, Tapsmack brings together non-artists who have ideas for art pieces and artists ready to showcase their talents by fashioning those ideas into visual art. As a marketplace, Tapsmack allows all users, referred to as “Smackers”, to vote on the best ideas and designs. All Smackers have the option to then purchase the designs for use on actual products such as clothing and tattoos.
Unlike a social networking web site, TapSmack does not have a “friending” system in place or a ready-made network to join upon registering. However, TapSmack is not simply an art website either; while TapSmack allows Smackers to maintain a portfolio of their artwork, TapSmack does not emphasize only art showcasing or sharing. In addition to presenting ideas and designing them into a visual artwork, all Smackers can vote on their favorite designs by clicking either the “Love It” or “Like It” button next to the design being voted. They can also give feedback on designs and ideas by commenting on the respective designs or ideas’ web pages. There are also incentives for Smackers to continue participating as both Artists and Idea Creators and contributing to the growth of TapSmack. First, TapSmack establishes a rank of Smackers based on seniority. In order to move up the ranks, a Smacker would have to earn SmackCash, the TapSmack “currency” which is used as participation “points” rather than actual cash- by posting ideas and designs, voting on designs, selling designs, and inviting friends to join TapSmack.
Some people are concerned about the commoditization of art, as demonstrated in the activities on Tapsmack. However, Tapsmack is a young web site with good potential as a worthy enterprise. Sales and consumption of art are made directly between artists and consumers. Tapsmack also encourages online participation in order to form an intimate community within a common space. Non-artists, in particular, are encouraged to participate and contribute their visions and ideas. In this way, Tapsmack becomes a community in which the central focus is on generating art for the purpose of both showcasing talent and making money. Through comments, votes, and criticism of the art created, a social community is born that regulates and perpetuates the art that is created. The art originates as the central theme of discussion, and through the social functions of the site, it is either rejected as a concept or fully realized through commercial sale.
Myspace
Tattoos, as a form of art and business, have grown exponentially in popularity. Since the explosion of the Myspace community, a number of factors have contributed to the expansion and accessibility of the tattoo industry. With over 110 million monthly active users, tattoo artists have gained massive clientele potential. Internet search engines such as Lycos have revealed the popularity of tattoos, as it ranked “tattoos as the number two most requested search term on the internet in 2002.”
Myspace has provided a useful medium for tattoo artists to further their client base, network with other artists and get a better sense of “what’s being done out there”. As opposed to displaying photos of the artists themselves, most default pictures and avatars are pictures of the artist’s work. This allows for judgment based solely on merit, as people do not know what race or sex the artist is. Race and sex are not identity cues, as Wagner addressed in the article “The Skin You’re In”. Clicking on the avatars will likely reveal a profile page complete with shop location, hours, contact information and fliers for art shows. The “blog” section will normally exhibit merchandise such as sketchbooks, t-shirts and tattoo machines. Most notable is the “photos” section, containing portfolios displaying hundreds of tattoos and paintings the artist has done. In a sense, Myspace serves as a facilitator of business and advertising for the independently contracted tattoo artist, all created and personalized by the artists themselves.
Whether or not Myspace has “improved” the tattoo industry is an issue of debate among tattoo enthusiasts and artists. A 41-year-old veteran tattoo collector told a member of our group, “It’s given stupid people the ability to annoy a larger number of tattoo artists at one time.” Another tattoo collector said, “Well, for one the internet makes art much more accessible, and a lot easier to be plagiarized”. After hearing snippets of random people’s two cents, one member of our group decided to attempt to contact and conduct interviews with two world-renowned tattoo artists. Surprisingly, they responded and provided insightful information.
One of the artists felt that Myspace had not given him more clients or made him any busier than he was before Myspace, but has allowed for easier and more effective communication with customers from other countries. However, just as people believed the transatlantic cable would bring about positive world peace, the same cannot be assumed for Myspace’s impact on the tattoo industry. “Ever since people have invented things, other people have found ways to put those things to criminal use” (Standage 2007:105). An apparently negative influence of Myspace on the tattoo industry happens to be coming from the younger generation of tattoo artists. These upstart young artists have had access to worlds of artwork on Myspace. What results is the assumption that the profession of tattooing is an easy industry to enter. Thus, the youth within the community do not learn the ethics of the business or the way of the industry, disrespecting the veterans who paved the way before them. Many steal designs and plagiarize the work of other artists, making the older, more experienced tattoo artists reluctant to help their younger counterparts.
However, the connectivity and accessibility offered by Myspace has also raised the standard within the community in terms of quality and creativity. One artist told me that in the 70s and 80s, tattoos were generally simple and small. Now, the current standard of tattoos would have seemed impossible back then. Myspace has raised awareness about the incredible works possible in the profession, and has raised the bar for everyone.
Furthermore, other renowned artists also felt more positively about Myspace. One artist felt Myspace greatly helped his career as an artist by allowing him to network with thousands of other artists- resulting in more clients, more friends, and more opportunities to travel and work at different shops.
Conclusion
Through our explorations of the five websites—Facebook, Myspace, DeviantArt, Tapsmack, and Flickr—we discovered that art functions as a visual focus to initiate social interaction and relationships. As time progresses, the focus may shift slightly away from the art as social bonds are formed and networks of contacts are expanded. However, community attention will inevitably redirect itself to focus on the artwork within the community, and the primary reason most users log on remains for the purpose of sharing and distributing art.
Chatting with other artists, joining groups, commenting on artwork, and participating in buying or selling are all useful features and sometimes distractions within these spaces- however the art never leaves the online scene. Despite its advantages of providing a sense of community, feedback, and a space for the artist to reach a wider audience, online art communities have their drawbacks. For instance, plagiarism, blatant art theft, and cheapening artwork have become more rampant because of the internet. Furthermore, the social aspects of online communities can also detract from the art when users become too focused on gaining notoriety and popularity within the community, and pieces can become cheap ploys to generate hits.
Consequently, online art communities both benefit and detract from artists in a circular motion. The art will initially attract viewers and social contacts, but can evolve to the point where the quality and integrity of the art is compromised. However, with time, most members within art communities will re-balance their attention and harness the social and interactive aspects of the community to benefit their work.
This varies from our initial assumption that online art communities were just becoming networking grounds for socializing. We did not fully realize the complex relationship between an online social community and the character of the art within it. However, it has become evident that the internet has exerted great influence on the art world in more ways than one, and only one thing is for certain- the art community will never be the same.
Were we able to do things differently, we would probably have conducted more interviews with members of each site in order to gain insight into how other users view the complex relationship between the internet and the art world. Also, we would probably have focused more in-depth on one or two main online art communities, rather than dividing our resources between five vastly different communities.
Cyber Mobs
Cyber Mobs
Khuyen Lam
Brian Tan
Victor Shen
Gloria Law
Prelude
When we found our first informant through a message board, one member of our group asked him if he could answer our questions regarding “trolling.” There was a long pause until he finally responded:
“Interview me is your first step. PayPal me twenty-dollars is your second step. Getting an A is your final step. Trolling is an art it’s hard to explain... It’s like robbing Van Gogh when he is in the Denny’s bathroom. Trolling is a form of expression like dance or writing music. The fanfare is to make people feel like they’re meaningless.” After that, we knew the project would be a long and arduous affair.
As the internet grows increasingly relevant in our everyday lives, it is important to understand the phenomena and cultures it is cultivating. One particular interest that our group decided to focus on is a behavior called “trolling.” The description of this nature is debatable, but through participant observation, interviews and research, our group was able to understand that this cultural scene resulted from “renegades” of these internet communities who disrupt and harass other users for amusement and/or notoriety.
What Counts As Trolling?
While setting down the basic outline of our research, our group often had trouble differentiating between different terms. Words such as “trolling, griefing, flaming, and spamming” are thrown around and used interchangeably at times which made it difficult to conduct research. Also, it was necessary to establish a common language to be used for interviewing. Prior to this, every time someone was interviewed about trolling, we had to first verify that their idea of trolling matches our description. This was a slow process; we often had to stop so that the person being interviewed could explain why each term meant what it meant to them. It was necessary to define trolling for the purpose of our research in order to expedite the process of gathering data. Prior to the interviews we would explain that regardless of what each term meant to them individually, we would be using the term in this particular sense.
Even though we established a common definition for trolling, we still asked what trolling meant to each person. The results often held true to our assumptions: trolling is when someone makes a post that is outrageous, hoping to get a rise out of other users for their own enjoyment. The targets vary, and the troll’s methods vary, but generally it’s making other people angry so that the troll can laugh at them and feel superior.
Oftentimes, the targets are “anybody who falls for it easily.” According to the people doing the trolling, these people are usually newbies to the site, of lower intelligence, have a superiority complex, or are trolls themselves. As one informants said, “Most of the time I am trolling I am doing it because I am bored and need something to do to amuse myself. I pretty much target anyone who displays a weakness which I can capitalize or is in a situation I can manipulate.”
Despite of what the informant above stated, however, there was a surprising find: trolls often troll other trolls. This makes trolls quite different from your typical playground bullies: instead of a group of trolls banning together to pick on a single person, many trolls explicitly expressed their distaste for ganging up on a single target. The trolls we interviewed did not like working together with other trolls and most enjoyed trolling trolls the most. When we asked why they did this, we had expected them to respond that it was fun as long as they felt like they were getting the better of someone else. However, the responses were overwhelmingly about status. These trolls trolled other trolls because it gave them more satisfaction to compete and win over an opponent of a similar level and mindset.
However, when we asked one person to clarify how this could be done, there was no distinct answer. Apparently, not knowing is fine as long as you think you’ve the upper hand and its fun. Thinking more on this issue, trolling trolls could very easily become an endless cycle, since so many different kinds of responses could be categorized as trolling. Troll A could post as a pseudo-naïve character, asking an outrageous question and expecting serious responses from people who don’t “get it.” Troll B comes in and tries to Troll A by responding in a furious and completely serious manner. Troll A will then respond thinking that they’ve found a sucker, and the cycle could continue forever. How would you know that you’ve won? For this question there was no distinct answer.
The question of when trolling occurs was met with some rather unexpected answers; I had originally meant the question to ask for specific times, such as right after someone tries to sound smart in a forum. However, those being interviewed took the question to mean something else and we realized our folly of expecting trolls to need a reason to troll. Most trolls troll when they are bored and want to have fun by messing with other people. Only one person interviewed said that they kept a specific alternate avatar strictly for trolling. Some troll only when they come upon someone who seems like an easy target, and will easily take offense, or there was already an ongoing troll attack that they choose to join in. Others purposely go looking for victims when they have time to kill, or start new threads in forums with outrageous headings to bait people into responding. Sometimes these trolls spend hours of their day continuously feeding this thread.
Contrary to what trolls would like to believe, their victims are not really offended for long. While trolls feed off of angry, excited responses, oftentimes once the victim realizes that they’re being trolled most of their anger dissipates. Rather than staying offended, most victims are just embarrassed that they fell for what the troll said as truth. Once it is clear to these victims that their attacker was just trolling for fun, and that they didn’t really believe in the things they said, they leave the thread quietly. We feel that this is the best and only thing people can do, since trolls get their laughs from making you post angry rebuttals.
Yes, there are still victims out there who know that they were trolled, but they are still deeply offended. These people tend to be perceived as taking things too seriously, and that only leads to be trolled even more.
Since websites thrive by having more people on it and using it, I was concerned over whether or not trolling would cause major damage. In theory, once there were enough trolls to hinder most people from using the site, the website would slowly die as more and more people leave. Most of those interviewed denied this would happen, including several victims. Trolling is not meant to incur real damage, and those who troll really believe that they’re not doing anything wrong. Even though their actions lead to their victims feeling less about themselves, trolls truly believe that they are righting the world with what they do. Alternately, when I asked whether or not the activity of trolls seriously hindered the intended activity on the website, most of my interviewees agreed that it did and that it was a real danger to the website that trolls were getting in the way.
Where Does Trolling Occur?
With the development of the internet, it has evolved into separate clusters, each with a multitude of forums where relevant topics may be discussed. As these hubs for information have flourished, so have those who would subvert these communities. Trolling is a text based harassment that has found a home primarily with in forum communities; however, not all forums, also called boards, experience this plight.
For trolling to occur, some basic requirements exist: the community must have a focus on text based communication, the community must also have the freedom to express themselves fairly openly without too much restraint (i.e. not predetermined responses), and it is typically large enough to have a degree of unfamiliarity between all the members.
By our definition of “trolling” as opposed to commonly seen negative behavior (i.e. griefing or flaming, etc.), we have determined that the desire to psychologically or emotional attack someone exists in text based communities, as other forms of interaction would add other incentives for this negative behavior. Without the freedom to express a person’s ideas we would not see the behavior we call “trolling” as with predetermined responses and created to limit the amount of communication and are generally geared toward a productive and positive community where negative behaviors and impulses are shunned.
Lastly, for the behavior we “considerer” trolling to apply a degree of unfamiliarity must exists between those involved. When this personal barrier does not exist, we see many of the negative aspects taken in a different light; such as an inside joke. When these comments and behaviors are treated in a humorous light, we no longer see the “attack” that we have defined trolling to fall under, so we do not treat those comments as instances of “trolling”. This is reminiscent to a passage Jennifer Mnookin wrote in a publication concerning the emergence of law in one of cyberspace’s first virtual worlds, LambdaMOO: “Remember, LambdaMOO is supposed to be fun. It’s a game. Can’t we all lighten up a bit?” A lash-back to new rules enforced by the administrations of the game, due to text-based harassment.
So long as these requirements are satisfied, trolling tends to exists in these communities; however, the frequency of trolling and whether or not trolling flourishes in the community have plenty of other markers. As trolls differ from one to the next, it is impossible to properly grasp each trolls habit; however, there are a few common situations in which trolling tends gather towards.
Seeking to incite responses out of a community, trolls tend to find a niche in forums that have strong feelings or forums that tend to have a bias regarding something. This “something” is vague precisely because it appears that forums for almost every topic exist somewhere on the internet; this “something” can range anywhere from gaming opinions, political views, religious beliefs, etc. A common method trolls use to incite a response in these situations is to simply place a comment or post that is opposed or opposite the general bias of a forum; many users that are associated with the forum will quickly reply to demonstrate their views and this situation is perpetuated. Another common situation that allows trolling to occur is the “question forums”. These forums are generally utilized for help in certain questions and the trolling of these forums has split into two broad categories: deserved or underserved. Underserved trolling applies to trolls who purposefully give useless advice (i.e. “Do a barrel roll!”) or comments merely to insult and put down the help seeker; this type of behavior is generally not accepted nor appreciated by most communities.
Deserved trolling applies in a narrowly defined margin, where trolling is applauded and appreciated because the question may have special circumstances attached to it; such as, questions that are forbidden to be asked as stated in the rules of a forum community or else questions asked for so often that a special post or sub-forum may exists to handle inquiries of those type. Trolls that attack these questions are accepted because it is perceived that members of the community that fail to conform and follow the rules are detracting and hindering the community. These two situations have developed into natural attractants for trolling behavior; however, just as there are natural attractants for trolls, some communities present a natural deterrent for this behavior based upon its structure. One prime example is smaller internet communities. As previously stated, trolls are more prevalent the larger the community. This reason cannot be solely attributed to the odds of interacting with the same members, because of open registration the ease in which a troll can create and “alt,” which means alternative accounts, for negative or positive purposes does not account for the absence of trolling on smaller communities. In some ways, it alters the presentation of an individual. In Nick Yee and Jeremy Bailenson’s writing, they posed the question: “Virtual environments, such as online games and web-based chat rooms, increasingly allow us to alter our digital self-representations dramatically and easily. But as we change our self-representations, do our self-representations change our behavior in turn?” The anonymity and “appearance” that was created for the sake of trolling most likely influences the attitude and behaviors of the individual.
Another heavily prevalent factor that helps maintain the level of trolling that appears upon various internet communities is the interactivity of the administration with the regular members of the community. In online forums where the administrators are not shadowy overlords dictating rules and presenting penalties, but utilize the forum as it was its original purpose, the sharing of ideas, those forum appear to have the least trolling activity. The two most plausible reasons for this lowered trolling activity are either the moderators are constantly dealing with the trolls as they will come across them in their own forum use, or trolls in such communities do not exists because of the fostered good will between all members and staff that appears to be created. Trolling appears to permeate all internet communities in a shape or form; however, trolls are far from the random attacks, rather they have a governing method.
Methods
For our original research, we used two methods to intimately understand trolls and trolling behavior. Initially, we interviewed three individuals with whom one of our team members are friends. Through these connections, a level of trust had already been established, so we sent a preliminary set of open-ended questions for the individuals to respond to via instant messaging. Since the questions were grouped together, the respondents answered our questions very quickly like a questionnaire. Also, there was little opportunity to immediately follow-up on their responses. Unfortunately, none of them have responded to our second set of questions which were composed to gather more in-depth responses. Our team member speculates that the friends did not perceive our research project to be serious work.
Secondly, we analyzed the text of an online forum where trolling occurs to better understand the context of these incidents. We briefly looked at the layout of the messages and the thread hierarchy of the website along with the additional features the forum might have such as indicators regarding the popularity of a particular discussion. Then we inspected the semantic organization of the website and compared its intended forum discussion topics to the messages posted on the forums. We identify the troll message as one that is completely off the topic of discussion or the topic of the moment that evolved from the leading thread. From the posting of the troll message, we read the responses proceeding it. Some of these messages were addressed to the troll, while some later responses were reactions to them. However, there were responses that were ambiguous to whom they were addressing.
Also, we attempted to contact trolls and a few respondents through the forums via the private messaging feature if it was available, which is usual on forums that require an account name. Unfortunately, after introducing our research project to our prospective informants, they did not respond. We speculate that they ignore the private messaging notifications for a few main reasons. The first major reason is that the message received notification is not displayed prominently when the user logs on. There was probably no improvement on this feature because it is rarely used. Second, the users may have read our message, however they may have felt that our message was off topic to the discussion. Some may have wanted to forget about the trolling incident and allocate their efforts towards their interests at the forum. Third, we did not gain enough trust with the informant despite guarantees of anonymity. Since we recently created new accounts at the forums, we may not have established enough of a reputation to identify ourselves beyond our message. With a lack of reputation around the forums, our intention for interviewing trolls may have seemed suspect. Lastly, the user may only created the account for a particular set of purposes: to troll or respond to trolling. Also, some users set up an account to troll over a set period time and then abandon it. So the user may not have seen our message at all.
It is difficult to define distinctions among flaming, griefing, trolling. Due to the growing popularization of Internet access and increasing unique users joining online forums, the definitions among flaming, trolling, and griefing have very little precision that distinguishes them from each other. This occurs as a result from the recent emergence of these phenomena, the lack of a central authority to define such a recent activity, and the multiple understandings of hostile online behavior. Although Wikipedia seems to emerge as a center of authority regarding knowledge about recent phenomena, there is a pervasive lack of reflection on the methodology of their definitions. Since these terms are undergoing debate and still gaining a consensus on their precise meanings, we will attempt to outline some criteria that might distinguish these activities. Julian Dibbell, a writer for the Wired Magazine, wrote, “Griefing, as a term, dates to the late 1990s, when it was used to describe the willfully antisocial behaviors seen in early massively multiplayer games like Ultima Online and first-person shooters like Counter-Strike (fragging your own teammates, for instance, or repeatedly killing a player many levels below you).” In some ways, trolling is a variation of griefing, except that it primarily uses a text-based form. The first criterion to consider is the number of participants involved in the activity. For all of these, the act can be performed by one user, but there can be a group of users that perform this anti-social behavior through signaling with the hostile message itself or coordinating outside of the site of the attack. Moreover, the number of those affected by the act should be considered. Flaming is believed to target only one user on a personal level, while trolling and griefing targets multiple users usually on an impersonal level. However, there can be cases where trolls and griefers seek to disrupt a particular user’s experience throughout the site.
Next, the site of the attack should be considered. Flamers use many online channels of communication, such as chatrooms and e-mails, to attack the user. On the other hand, trolling and griefing seem be contained in a forum or graphical virtual world, respectively. The last criterion to contemplate could be the level of annoyance that the affected users experience. An attack from flamers appears to be inescapable as they send continuous amounts of hostile messages from as many channels as possible, which disrupts the user’s ability to use those affected channels. Due to the impersonality of most trolling and griefing incidents, users can leave the certain parts of the site and ignore them. However, frequent repetition of those anti-social acts will decrease the appearance of social cohesion within those virtual worlds, and thus detract from their social utility.
More Trouble Shooting
A difficult issue that our research pertained to the subject matter; trolling is a behavior that is based off of wiles, mischief, transient users and deceit—many of our interviewees did not believe that we were being honest, and felt that we were trolls. In other cases, there were a lot of interactions that seemed fruitless. As one informant, nicknamed “Snapper,” wrote, “You already asked me these. S-stop. I am n-not a troll. Who else are you going to ask these to? If they’re a troll none of them will give serious responses.” One group member, who served as a field researcher, responded, “Like you?” After a short while, the informant began to cooperate and said, “Then.... they are not.... masters of the art. The art of “trolling.” I only troll defensively or people I don’t know. “The Art of Troll” ~ Tun (sic) Szu.” At which the researcher responded, “Alright, that’s enough.” It was difficult trying to cope with hours and hours of trying to find informants, and once that opportunity comes, the informant does not yield the results desired. However, after trial and error, we realized uncooperativeness was not necessarily “useless information,” as it is still a part of our data.
In some interesting situations, there were some interviewees who claimed they were trolls, because they were excited to have their names published in a paper. As one informant asked, “Will I be on this as KK51 or anonymous?” However, the researcher responded, “Sorry, but I don’t think it is ethnical for me to put your screen name on this. I have to cite you as anonymous.” The interviewee was disappointed and responded, “But I want to be on this as KK5.” Unfortunately, after this exchange, he ignored further follow-up questions. Again, while frustrating, this behavior was still a useful incite. Our perception of what was “useful information” or not was influenced by the fact that some of our group members had a myopic gaze, which means that some data that may be significant to a research might be lost because the researchers are already well-integrated in the field they are studying in. However, thanks to the use of detailed field notes, we were able to go over the data in detail.
It was interesting how there were some individuals who vehemently denied that they were trolls. While acting as a participant observer on a forum, the researcher noticed one member that acted extremely brash and insulted everyone on the forum in a ridiculous and exaggerated manner that resembled many other trolls she had previously interviewed. She sent him a private message and explained that she was conducting a research on trolls, and outlined in detail how he matched the description of a troll. However, he adamantly denied that he exhibited any behaviors. Before the conversation evolved into an argument, the researcher ignored him. It is unclear whether or not he did that because he wanted to troll our research, or because he honestly believed that the way he acted as fine.
Conclusion
Though the research was arduous, it was fruitful; however, because trolling is a modern phenomenon that is changing each day, we cannot ascertain that our definition of trolling and explanations for why it exists is absolute and universal. Arguably, we can make the argument that most individuals that engage in this type of aggressive and anti-social behavior are heavily motivated by jovial intentions, despite of the fact that their actions may seem extremely negative and brutish.
Citations
Dibble, Julian
2008 Mutilated Furries, Flying Phalluses: But the Blame on Griefers, Sociopaths of the Virtual World. Electronic document,
http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/magazine/16-02/mf_goons?currentPage=all, accessed March 19, 2009.
Mnookin, Jennifer
1996 Virtual(ly) Law: Emergence of Law in LambdaMOO. Electronic document,
http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol2/issue1/lambda.html#Law%20and%20Politics,
accessed March 19, 2009.
Turner, Fred
1998 Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy: The WELL and the Origins of Virtual Community. Electronic document,
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/technology_and_culture/,
accessed March 19, 2009.
Yee, Nick and Bailenson, Jeremey
The Proteus Effect: The Effect of Transformed Self-Representation on Behavior. Electronic document,
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/118533557/PDFSTART, accessed March 19, 2009.
Appendix
Figure A—”Trollz,” Encyclopedia Dramatica
1 This username is a pseudonym for the purpose of this research paper
Khuyen Lam
Brian Tan
Victor Shen
Gloria Law
Prelude
When we found our first informant through a message board, one member of our group asked him if he could answer our questions regarding “trolling.” There was a long pause until he finally responded:
“Interview me is your first step. PayPal me twenty-dollars is your second step. Getting an A is your final step. Trolling is an art it’s hard to explain... It’s like robbing Van Gogh when he is in the Denny’s bathroom. Trolling is a form of expression like dance or writing music. The fanfare is to make people feel like they’re meaningless.” After that, we knew the project would be a long and arduous affair.
As the internet grows increasingly relevant in our everyday lives, it is important to understand the phenomena and cultures it is cultivating. One particular interest that our group decided to focus on is a behavior called “trolling.” The description of this nature is debatable, but through participant observation, interviews and research, our group was able to understand that this cultural scene resulted from “renegades” of these internet communities who disrupt and harass other users for amusement and/or notoriety.
What Counts As Trolling?
While setting down the basic outline of our research, our group often had trouble differentiating between different terms. Words such as “trolling, griefing, flaming, and spamming” are thrown around and used interchangeably at times which made it difficult to conduct research. Also, it was necessary to establish a common language to be used for interviewing. Prior to this, every time someone was interviewed about trolling, we had to first verify that their idea of trolling matches our description. This was a slow process; we often had to stop so that the person being interviewed could explain why each term meant what it meant to them. It was necessary to define trolling for the purpose of our research in order to expedite the process of gathering data. Prior to the interviews we would explain that regardless of what each term meant to them individually, we would be using the term in this particular sense.
Even though we established a common definition for trolling, we still asked what trolling meant to each person. The results often held true to our assumptions: trolling is when someone makes a post that is outrageous, hoping to get a rise out of other users for their own enjoyment. The targets vary, and the troll’s methods vary, but generally it’s making other people angry so that the troll can laugh at them and feel superior.
Oftentimes, the targets are “anybody who falls for it easily.” According to the people doing the trolling, these people are usually newbies to the site, of lower intelligence, have a superiority complex, or are trolls themselves. As one informants said, “Most of the time I am trolling I am doing it because I am bored and need something to do to amuse myself. I pretty much target anyone who displays a weakness which I can capitalize or is in a situation I can manipulate.”
Despite of what the informant above stated, however, there was a surprising find: trolls often troll other trolls. This makes trolls quite different from your typical playground bullies: instead of a group of trolls banning together to pick on a single person, many trolls explicitly expressed their distaste for ganging up on a single target. The trolls we interviewed did not like working together with other trolls and most enjoyed trolling trolls the most. When we asked why they did this, we had expected them to respond that it was fun as long as they felt like they were getting the better of someone else. However, the responses were overwhelmingly about status. These trolls trolled other trolls because it gave them more satisfaction to compete and win over an opponent of a similar level and mindset.
However, when we asked one person to clarify how this could be done, there was no distinct answer. Apparently, not knowing is fine as long as you think you’ve the upper hand and its fun. Thinking more on this issue, trolling trolls could very easily become an endless cycle, since so many different kinds of responses could be categorized as trolling. Troll A could post as a pseudo-naïve character, asking an outrageous question and expecting serious responses from people who don’t “get it.” Troll B comes in and tries to Troll A by responding in a furious and completely serious manner. Troll A will then respond thinking that they’ve found a sucker, and the cycle could continue forever. How would you know that you’ve won? For this question there was no distinct answer.
The question of when trolling occurs was met with some rather unexpected answers; I had originally meant the question to ask for specific times, such as right after someone tries to sound smart in a forum. However, those being interviewed took the question to mean something else and we realized our folly of expecting trolls to need a reason to troll. Most trolls troll when they are bored and want to have fun by messing with other people. Only one person interviewed said that they kept a specific alternate avatar strictly for trolling. Some troll only when they come upon someone who seems like an easy target, and will easily take offense, or there was already an ongoing troll attack that they choose to join in. Others purposely go looking for victims when they have time to kill, or start new threads in forums with outrageous headings to bait people into responding. Sometimes these trolls spend hours of their day continuously feeding this thread.
Contrary to what trolls would like to believe, their victims are not really offended for long. While trolls feed off of angry, excited responses, oftentimes once the victim realizes that they’re being trolled most of their anger dissipates. Rather than staying offended, most victims are just embarrassed that they fell for what the troll said as truth. Once it is clear to these victims that their attacker was just trolling for fun, and that they didn’t really believe in the things they said, they leave the thread quietly. We feel that this is the best and only thing people can do, since trolls get their laughs from making you post angry rebuttals.
Yes, there are still victims out there who know that they were trolled, but they are still deeply offended. These people tend to be perceived as taking things too seriously, and that only leads to be trolled even more.
Since websites thrive by having more people on it and using it, I was concerned over whether or not trolling would cause major damage. In theory, once there were enough trolls to hinder most people from using the site, the website would slowly die as more and more people leave. Most of those interviewed denied this would happen, including several victims. Trolling is not meant to incur real damage, and those who troll really believe that they’re not doing anything wrong. Even though their actions lead to their victims feeling less about themselves, trolls truly believe that they are righting the world with what they do. Alternately, when I asked whether or not the activity of trolls seriously hindered the intended activity on the website, most of my interviewees agreed that it did and that it was a real danger to the website that trolls were getting in the way.
Where Does Trolling Occur?
With the development of the internet, it has evolved into separate clusters, each with a multitude of forums where relevant topics may be discussed. As these hubs for information have flourished, so have those who would subvert these communities. Trolling is a text based harassment that has found a home primarily with in forum communities; however, not all forums, also called boards, experience this plight.
For trolling to occur, some basic requirements exist: the community must have a focus on text based communication, the community must also have the freedom to express themselves fairly openly without too much restraint (i.e. not predetermined responses), and it is typically large enough to have a degree of unfamiliarity between all the members.
By our definition of “trolling” as opposed to commonly seen negative behavior (i.e. griefing or flaming, etc.), we have determined that the desire to psychologically or emotional attack someone exists in text based communities, as other forms of interaction would add other incentives for this negative behavior. Without the freedom to express a person’s ideas we would not see the behavior we call “trolling” as with predetermined responses and created to limit the amount of communication and are generally geared toward a productive and positive community where negative behaviors and impulses are shunned.
Lastly, for the behavior we “considerer” trolling to apply a degree of unfamiliarity must exists between those involved. When this personal barrier does not exist, we see many of the negative aspects taken in a different light; such as an inside joke. When these comments and behaviors are treated in a humorous light, we no longer see the “attack” that we have defined trolling to fall under, so we do not treat those comments as instances of “trolling”. This is reminiscent to a passage Jennifer Mnookin wrote in a publication concerning the emergence of law in one of cyberspace’s first virtual worlds, LambdaMOO: “Remember, LambdaMOO is supposed to be fun. It’s a game. Can’t we all lighten up a bit?” A lash-back to new rules enforced by the administrations of the game, due to text-based harassment.
So long as these requirements are satisfied, trolling tends to exists in these communities; however, the frequency of trolling and whether or not trolling flourishes in the community have plenty of other markers. As trolls differ from one to the next, it is impossible to properly grasp each trolls habit; however, there are a few common situations in which trolling tends gather towards.
Seeking to incite responses out of a community, trolls tend to find a niche in forums that have strong feelings or forums that tend to have a bias regarding something. This “something” is vague precisely because it appears that forums for almost every topic exist somewhere on the internet; this “something” can range anywhere from gaming opinions, political views, religious beliefs, etc. A common method trolls use to incite a response in these situations is to simply place a comment or post that is opposed or opposite the general bias of a forum; many users that are associated with the forum will quickly reply to demonstrate their views and this situation is perpetuated. Another common situation that allows trolling to occur is the “question forums”. These forums are generally utilized for help in certain questions and the trolling of these forums has split into two broad categories: deserved or underserved. Underserved trolling applies to trolls who purposefully give useless advice (i.e. “Do a barrel roll!”) or comments merely to insult and put down the help seeker; this type of behavior is generally not accepted nor appreciated by most communities.
Deserved trolling applies in a narrowly defined margin, where trolling is applauded and appreciated because the question may have special circumstances attached to it; such as, questions that are forbidden to be asked as stated in the rules of a forum community or else questions asked for so often that a special post or sub-forum may exists to handle inquiries of those type. Trolls that attack these questions are accepted because it is perceived that members of the community that fail to conform and follow the rules are detracting and hindering the community. These two situations have developed into natural attractants for trolling behavior; however, just as there are natural attractants for trolls, some communities present a natural deterrent for this behavior based upon its structure. One prime example is smaller internet communities. As previously stated, trolls are more prevalent the larger the community. This reason cannot be solely attributed to the odds of interacting with the same members, because of open registration the ease in which a troll can create and “alt,” which means alternative accounts, for negative or positive purposes does not account for the absence of trolling on smaller communities. In some ways, it alters the presentation of an individual. In Nick Yee and Jeremy Bailenson’s writing, they posed the question: “Virtual environments, such as online games and web-based chat rooms, increasingly allow us to alter our digital self-representations dramatically and easily. But as we change our self-representations, do our self-representations change our behavior in turn?” The anonymity and “appearance” that was created for the sake of trolling most likely influences the attitude and behaviors of the individual.
Another heavily prevalent factor that helps maintain the level of trolling that appears upon various internet communities is the interactivity of the administration with the regular members of the community. In online forums where the administrators are not shadowy overlords dictating rules and presenting penalties, but utilize the forum as it was its original purpose, the sharing of ideas, those forum appear to have the least trolling activity. The two most plausible reasons for this lowered trolling activity are either the moderators are constantly dealing with the trolls as they will come across them in their own forum use, or trolls in such communities do not exists because of the fostered good will between all members and staff that appears to be created. Trolling appears to permeate all internet communities in a shape or form; however, trolls are far from the random attacks, rather they have a governing method.
Methods
For our original research, we used two methods to intimately understand trolls and trolling behavior. Initially, we interviewed three individuals with whom one of our team members are friends. Through these connections, a level of trust had already been established, so we sent a preliminary set of open-ended questions for the individuals to respond to via instant messaging. Since the questions were grouped together, the respondents answered our questions very quickly like a questionnaire. Also, there was little opportunity to immediately follow-up on their responses. Unfortunately, none of them have responded to our second set of questions which were composed to gather more in-depth responses. Our team member speculates that the friends did not perceive our research project to be serious work.
Secondly, we analyzed the text of an online forum where trolling occurs to better understand the context of these incidents. We briefly looked at the layout of the messages and the thread hierarchy of the website along with the additional features the forum might have such as indicators regarding the popularity of a particular discussion. Then we inspected the semantic organization of the website and compared its intended forum discussion topics to the messages posted on the forums. We identify the troll message as one that is completely off the topic of discussion or the topic of the moment that evolved from the leading thread. From the posting of the troll message, we read the responses proceeding it. Some of these messages were addressed to the troll, while some later responses were reactions to them. However, there were responses that were ambiguous to whom they were addressing.
Also, we attempted to contact trolls and a few respondents through the forums via the private messaging feature if it was available, which is usual on forums that require an account name. Unfortunately, after introducing our research project to our prospective informants, they did not respond. We speculate that they ignore the private messaging notifications for a few main reasons. The first major reason is that the message received notification is not displayed prominently when the user logs on. There was probably no improvement on this feature because it is rarely used. Second, the users may have read our message, however they may have felt that our message was off topic to the discussion. Some may have wanted to forget about the trolling incident and allocate their efforts towards their interests at the forum. Third, we did not gain enough trust with the informant despite guarantees of anonymity. Since we recently created new accounts at the forums, we may not have established enough of a reputation to identify ourselves beyond our message. With a lack of reputation around the forums, our intention for interviewing trolls may have seemed suspect. Lastly, the user may only created the account for a particular set of purposes: to troll or respond to trolling. Also, some users set up an account to troll over a set period time and then abandon it. So the user may not have seen our message at all.
It is difficult to define distinctions among flaming, griefing, trolling. Due to the growing popularization of Internet access and increasing unique users joining online forums, the definitions among flaming, trolling, and griefing have very little precision that distinguishes them from each other. This occurs as a result from the recent emergence of these phenomena, the lack of a central authority to define such a recent activity, and the multiple understandings of hostile online behavior. Although Wikipedia seems to emerge as a center of authority regarding knowledge about recent phenomena, there is a pervasive lack of reflection on the methodology of their definitions. Since these terms are undergoing debate and still gaining a consensus on their precise meanings, we will attempt to outline some criteria that might distinguish these activities. Julian Dibbell, a writer for the Wired Magazine, wrote, “Griefing, as a term, dates to the late 1990s, when it was used to describe the willfully antisocial behaviors seen in early massively multiplayer games like Ultima Online and first-person shooters like Counter-Strike (fragging your own teammates, for instance, or repeatedly killing a player many levels below you).” In some ways, trolling is a variation of griefing, except that it primarily uses a text-based form. The first criterion to consider is the number of participants involved in the activity. For all of these, the act can be performed by one user, but there can be a group of users that perform this anti-social behavior through signaling with the hostile message itself or coordinating outside of the site of the attack. Moreover, the number of those affected by the act should be considered. Flaming is believed to target only one user on a personal level, while trolling and griefing targets multiple users usually on an impersonal level. However, there can be cases where trolls and griefers seek to disrupt a particular user’s experience throughout the site.
Next, the site of the attack should be considered. Flamers use many online channels of communication, such as chatrooms and e-mails, to attack the user. On the other hand, trolling and griefing seem be contained in a forum or graphical virtual world, respectively. The last criterion to contemplate could be the level of annoyance that the affected users experience. An attack from flamers appears to be inescapable as they send continuous amounts of hostile messages from as many channels as possible, which disrupts the user’s ability to use those affected channels. Due to the impersonality of most trolling and griefing incidents, users can leave the certain parts of the site and ignore them. However, frequent repetition of those anti-social acts will decrease the appearance of social cohesion within those virtual worlds, and thus detract from their social utility.
More Trouble Shooting
A difficult issue that our research pertained to the subject matter; trolling is a behavior that is based off of wiles, mischief, transient users and deceit—many of our interviewees did not believe that we were being honest, and felt that we were trolls. In other cases, there were a lot of interactions that seemed fruitless. As one informant, nicknamed “Snapper,” wrote, “You already asked me these. S-stop. I am n-not a troll. Who else are you going to ask these to? If they’re a troll none of them will give serious responses.” One group member, who served as a field researcher, responded, “Like you?” After a short while, the informant began to cooperate and said, “Then.... they are not.... masters of the art. The art of “trolling.” I only troll defensively or people I don’t know. “The Art of Troll” ~ Tun (sic) Szu.” At which the researcher responded, “Alright, that’s enough.” It was difficult trying to cope with hours and hours of trying to find informants, and once that opportunity comes, the informant does not yield the results desired. However, after trial and error, we realized uncooperativeness was not necessarily “useless information,” as it is still a part of our data.
In some interesting situations, there were some interviewees who claimed they were trolls, because they were excited to have their names published in a paper. As one informant asked, “Will I be on this as KK51 or anonymous?” However, the researcher responded, “Sorry, but I don’t think it is ethnical for me to put your screen name on this. I have to cite you as anonymous.” The interviewee was disappointed and responded, “But I want to be on this as KK5.” Unfortunately, after this exchange, he ignored further follow-up questions. Again, while frustrating, this behavior was still a useful incite. Our perception of what was “useful information” or not was influenced by the fact that some of our group members had a myopic gaze, which means that some data that may be significant to a research might be lost because the researchers are already well-integrated in the field they are studying in. However, thanks to the use of detailed field notes, we were able to go over the data in detail.
It was interesting how there were some individuals who vehemently denied that they were trolls. While acting as a participant observer on a forum, the researcher noticed one member that acted extremely brash and insulted everyone on the forum in a ridiculous and exaggerated manner that resembled many other trolls she had previously interviewed. She sent him a private message and explained that she was conducting a research on trolls, and outlined in detail how he matched the description of a troll. However, he adamantly denied that he exhibited any behaviors. Before the conversation evolved into an argument, the researcher ignored him. It is unclear whether or not he did that because he wanted to troll our research, or because he honestly believed that the way he acted as fine.
Conclusion
Though the research was arduous, it was fruitful; however, because trolling is a modern phenomenon that is changing each day, we cannot ascertain that our definition of trolling and explanations for why it exists is absolute and universal. Arguably, we can make the argument that most individuals that engage in this type of aggressive and anti-social behavior are heavily motivated by jovial intentions, despite of the fact that their actions may seem extremely negative and brutish.
Citations
Dibble, Julian
2008 Mutilated Furries, Flying Phalluses: But the Blame on Griefers, Sociopaths of the Virtual World. Electronic document,
http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/magazine/16-02/mf_goons?currentPage=all, accessed March 19, 2009.
Mnookin, Jennifer
1996 Virtual(ly) Law: Emergence of Law in LambdaMOO. Electronic document,
http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol2/issue1/lambda.html#Law%20and%20Politics,
accessed March 19, 2009.
Turner, Fred
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Appendix
Figure A—”Trollz,” Encyclopedia Dramatica
1 This username is a pseudonym for the purpose of this research paper
The Cyber Generation: Today's Children and Adolescents on the Internet
The Cyber Generation: Today's Children and Adolescents on the Internet
Jessica Cha
Kelly Forster
Miko Hoshino
Merusha Nasoordeen
Introduction
Since its inception, the Internet has been a realm for those seeking possibilities. It was originally a space for wealthy adults, based mostly on text, but now has been transformed into the hip new place to be for the younger generations. For the past five years, there has been a large influx in the number of children and adolescents interacting with cyberspace as the graphics became better and a large number of services became available to the general public. This has made for a growing business market in developing online games, virtual worlds, and social networking sites. There has been a niche for online games for children as children as young as six are on the Internet playing games. In essence, the adolescents and children of this day and age are the “cyber-generation” as they are more savvy about online technology than many young adults.
This paper will seek to address the issue of how children and adolescents in the new “cyber-generation” use the Internet and for what purposes they use it for. The paper will proceed by explaining the methods used to obtain information on the usage of the Internet by the “cyber-generation.” It will then go into detail of one of the most popular children and pre-teen online spaces, Club Penguin. Then, in sum, a discussion will be held on how children’s and adolescents’ differing races and genders affect their use of the Internet.
Methods
To obtain information on children and adolescents on the Internet, personal and group interviews were used. In an effort to address issues of race and gender, children and adolescents from a minority church youth group and a predominately Caucasian San Diego middle school were interviewed. In an effort to protect all the children involved in the interviews, their names are changed for the purposes of this paper and all had parental consent to participate in the study.
Interviews: San Diego Middle School
In order to get a strong grasp of how pre-teens use the Internet a group of four girls and one group of five boys, all between the ages of eleven and twelve, were interviewed. The majority of the students were white and came from an upper-middle class background, which reflected the surrounding neighborhood. It came as a surprise that the children were willing to speak about the Internet and were enthusiastic about sharing their experiences of the Internet.
The girls started using the Internet around the age of seven or eight with their first website being Webkinz and Club Penguin. The two girls who had used these sites said they had out grown Webkins, which both girls described as a place only really little kids go, but continued to play Club Penguin. One of the girls described how, when she was using Webkinz, she had used Google to do research on what pet she might be able to own. In addition to using virtual worlds, some of the children used messaging systems. At least two of the girls said they used AIM (AOL Instant Messaging) on a regular basis. Normally, the girls chatted with people they already knew, but one of the girls mentioned that she once had a conversation with another girl from England.
When asked what they thought about their Internet activity, the girls gave extremely interesting and varied answers. One girl claimed to have “outgrown email.” And a few stated, quite dramatically, that they would “die without the Internet.” Universally, all of the girls were concerned with their safety when engaged with the interview. Each girl was terrified that if they chatted to an unknown person, the person may end up being a forty-year-old perverted man. They all brought up the possibility of abduction and rape if they engaged in dangerous behaviors on the Internet and, as a result, did not talk to strangers. When asked where they had acquired their fear of old, perverted men, they identified their parents as the source for the idea and saw these stalkers as serious threats.
How their relationships had changed with the Internet was harder to gauge because they themselves were not sure about how their relationships had changed at all. The Internet had been a part of their lives for a long time and it was hard for them to imagine a life without it. However, many of the children had mixed feelings about the Internet and how it affected their relationships with others. Some claimed that they had been able to form friendships with individuals from school that they would have never considered talking with in the physical world. However, some claimed that the Internet had exactly the opposite effect. She said that “there are people that I don’t know that I hate now because they were mean to me on the Internet” (Interview with Sixth Grader: 2009). It appears that the Internet is a place for children and teenagers to expand their social circles, break up cliques, make cliques, and bully.
However, because these children are minors, there was strong parental supervision of the girls on the Internet. The parents of these girls used interesting methods to regulate their child’s Internet use. One of the fathers worked with computers for a living and had set up a program that monitored what sites his daughter visited. Another parent made a MySpace account to regulate how their daughter used MySpace and who she could become friends with. Oddly enough, the parent had allowed their daughter to lie about her age in order to get an account in the first place. Still other parents refused to allow their children to engage with social networking sites, such as MySpace or Facebook, until they were sixteen. Furthermore, there was one extreme case where the father did not allow computers in the home at all.
The boys’ experiences of the Internet were different from the girls in distinct ways. All of the boys interviewed were between ages eleven and twelve and had started exploring the Internet from the ages of five to eight. In the beginning, all of them used “little kid games” that featured a prominent main character, such as Arthur or Barney. Only one of the boys interviewed said they played multiplayer online games, such as Poptropica and Runescape, and the rest played single player PC games, such as Legos and Indiana Jones. However, despite the differences in gaming, they all watched Youtube regularly. When asked how they had initially started exploring the Internet or games, many of them could not remember. They said that they felt as if they had always been on the Internet. Others identified a friend or brother that introduced the game or Internet to them, though it was more common in games than for the Internet.
When it came to social networking sites there was only one boy who had a MySpace profile. Though he had lied about his age to obtain one, his parents knew about his page and monitored it regularly. The other boys did not have one and mentioned that their parents found social networking sites inappropriate. It seemed, though that parents had given much of the control of viewing websites to the boys as their only stipulation to the boys’ use of the Internet was to not look up or look at porn. Every one of the boys stated that, at one point or another, their parents had made this a prerequisite for their continued perusal of the Internet.
However, despite the increased leniency given to boys, the boys were still preoccupied with their safety on the Internet. They worried about sex offenders finding them online and engaging in inappropriate behaviors. As such, they said that they never made friends with people that they did not know. Similar to the case with the girls, the main source for this behavior and anxiety was the parents. Because the boys did not talk to strangers or people that they did not normally converse with, boys did not find that the Internet changed their relationship with their peers or family members. They felt strongly that they would have been friends with the people they spoke with online, regardless of the online connection.
Interviews: A Church Youth Group in Torrance, California
The group of children and adolescents interviewed at a small church in Torrance was mainly comprised of ethnic minorities; more specifically, of first generation Asian-Americans. Many of the children interviewed live with a single parent, though not due to a divorce, and reside in a low socio-economic neighborhood. Conversely, many of them attend private schools due to student visa issues. The participants of this study were between the ages of eleven and fourteen.
Girls in this group were mainly preoccupied on the Internet with Club Penguin, if they were under thirteen, and social networking sites along with a chat service, usually ages thirteen to fourteen. All age groups visited Youtube, though they did not post up videos or comment on others’ videos. The girls felt that the Internet enhanced their relationships and enabled them to be social at a level that they deemed to be optimal. With the Internet, they could stay connected to their friends, make new friendships, and talk to their peers without using having their parents monitor their talk time. Since many of them had immigrated to America, they used the sites to stay in touch with friends that they had left in their previous country of residence. Girls used social networking sites mainly to discuss their social activities and look at pictures of each other that they posted.
Boys, on the other hand, used the Internet mainly to game, usually on massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs). They often visited and played World of Warcraft. Though a majority of them had profiles on a social networking site, they did not use it for their main social activities. In fact, they barely used it at all. W stated that he used them only because everyone else used them and he would feel like “a loser” if he didn’t have one. Like girls, the sites were mainly used to stay in touch with friends that they could not physically meet otherwise or talk to people, usually girls, that they could not normally speak with in the physical world.
In terms of social relationships, girls felt that the Internet did not impact their relationships detrimentally. If anything, it enhanced their social relationships. Because of the lack of gaming, the girls used social networking sites and chat services to gossip and talk to friends. With the improved ability to socialize, girls liked the fact that they could carry on multiple conversations at once and inform a large crowd of friends as to what they were doing or what they wanted to say without talking to each one individually. Though they did say that there was more drama because they gossip could spread quickly, some did admit to a sort of enjoyment of a constant, upbeat social world. Furthermore, they felt that boys were more willing to speak with them online because they could not actually “see” the person face to face.
Boys felt that the Internet impacted their social relationships in very specific ways, especially in regards to speaking with girls. Gaming allowed them to connect with their peers and set a common interest that they could talk about. A majority of the boys agreed that games allowed them to overcome language and cultural barriers when around their peers at school. This allowed them to make friends easier and fit in with the cultural norm. In terms of social networking, the boys acknowledged that it greatly uninhibited them around girls. Because they could premeditate what they wanted to say and play off bad comments or rejections, they felt that it made them bolder. They also felt that girls were more willing to talk to them online because they were able to keep their conversations separate. Furthermore, they felt that the Internet allowed them to keep up on the friendships that that they had left in their home country.
Parental control, for both genders in this study group, was relatively lax, possibly due to the technological and language barriers between the parents and the child or adolescent. A small minority of the participants, only about two, admitted that their parents knew about their online activities. There was a general feeling of consensus between the children and the parents that as long as their grades remained high and they were not partaking in dangerous activity, such as porn or chatting with strangers. Every single one of the participants had access to a computer and the Internet at home, though none of them had parental control software to limit their experience of the Internet. None of the participants expressed concern over online activities and when asked whether they worried about their safety on the Internet , they were puzzled. They felt that the Internet was a relatively safe place because they could be anonymous towards strangers. Furthermore, they did not believe that there was a high probability of being approached by a sexual predator on the Internet as long as they were not engaging in dangerous activities.
An Analysis of Virtual Spaces for Children: Club Penguin
Imagine the winter wonderland of Antarctica. The continent is frigid but beautiful, there are massive glaciers jutting up from the ocean, pristine snow, and, of course, all those multicolored penguins. Though Club Penguin never states that it is set in Antarctica, it is clear that this is were the virtual world takes place. That is where most penguins live after all. There are a few discrepancies between the icy country/continent and the world of Club Penguin. The whole world is covered in snow but there are trees, ski lifts, a pirate ship, as well as a downtown area. In this virtual world there are mini games to play against other penguins. By playing these games the penguins receive coins. The coins can then be used to buy an igloo to live in or clothing and there is no shortage of variety. There are clothing stores all over Club Penguin that have quite a rage of themes. One could dress as a pirate or a ninja or choose from a huge assortment of different styles of regular clothes and accessories. The other incentive for getting coins is so that you can buy a “puffle”. A puffle is a kind of pet that is basically a small round ball of fur that comes in various colors and follows you around. In order to buy anything however, one must be a paying member. Access to the world and playing the games are free but in order to buy an igloo, clothes, or a puffle Club Penguin requires a monthly fee of around six dollars. Between the bright colors and the cute graphics it is not surprising that this game is extremely popular with the preteen and younger age groups and was bought by Disney for 700 million dollars.
What seems to be Club Penguin’s biggest strength is the protection it claims to provide for the children using it. There are two kinds of chat that kids and parents can chose from “Standard Safe Chat” and “Ultimate Safe Chat”. According to the Club Penguin privacy site Standard Safe Chat “allows players to type their own messages to other users. Every message is filtered to allow only pre-approved words and phrases, and block attempts to communicate a phone number or other personally identifiable information” (Club Penguin Parent’s site). To go even safer there is Ultimate Safe Chat which “limits what users can say to a predefined menu of greetings, questions and statements, as well as emotes, actions and greeting cards. When it comes to chatting, these users can only see other Ultimate Safe Chat messages” (Club Penguin Parent’s site). There is also an area for parents to check on their children’s accounts and see what they are up to and even set up how many hours their children can play in one day. What we found strange was that when one member of our group signed up for an account Club Penguin never asked for age verification. The site states that Club Penguin was created for 6-14 year olds but is open to all ages. One would think that people over eightteen would be discouraged from playing.
Though Club Penguin at first glace may seem like a silly little game for children, it is in fact a pretty complete world. It has its own time zone, Penguin Standard Time, so that children playing around the world will have an uncomplicated way to figure out when to meet. There is a newspaper that is almost entirely based on user submissions of original poetry, comics and advice columns. There are events that take place throughout the day such as dance parties and sporting events. The penguins even have a place to live, their igloo, that they can decorate themselves. Do not be fooled by the colorful cartoonish world; twelve million children live in this world daily and some take it fairly seriously.
Discussion and Analysis
Gender
In just a matter of a few years, there has been a great change in entertainment available for children and young teenagers. The 1990s had Barbies for girls and Legos for boys as the main sources of entertainment. However, as the late 1990s came about, technology changed the types and expenses of entertainment that were available to the youth. Computers and technology went from being a “relatively hard to use, almost esoteric technology, to an everyday domesticated tool.” (Tufekci, 3)In the 90s, there were very limited options as to how one could engage with technology or the Internet . Nintendo, the square, gray box that connected to the TV set, was the game system of the 1990’s time. The graphics available on Nintendo, the sole gaming device, were nowhere near “high tech” as those that can be found today. AOL (America Online) and the instant messenger service were the only sources of communication, which quickly became the “must be on” website. What the 90’s offered was nothing fancy, but in those days, what was available was something incredible, and what we have available now was unthinkable back then. Slowly but surely, children have had access to a variety of new things to keep them entertained. New computer games, online social networking sites, and virtual worlds are far more popular than ever before. Children are now spending more time on computers playing games, socializing, and networking with others, rather than the old fashioned way of actually “playing” in the physical world.Although the activities that children are partaking in today are different from those from a few years ago, it is interesting to see that the hegemonic gender order ideology is still being structured and shaped by our society. It has been shown that “from early on, research found consistent differences in types of use, with girls being less represented in programming and game playing.” (Tufekci 2008:3). From our interviews and data, we were also able to see that most boys (that spent time on computers) enjoyed playing games (such as World of Warcraft) more than spending time on social networking sites. On the other hand, it was evident that girls spent more time on social networking sites (such as Myspace and Facebook) and virtual worlds (such as Club Penguin and Poptropica) than online games. It has been also been proven in other studies that “girls game less often than boys and may be less interested, knowledgeable, and comfortable with STEM than…boys.” (DiSalvo, 131) [STEM: Science, technology, engineering and math] True to their gender roles, the passivity of girls and aggressiveness of boys are reflected strongly in the uses of the Internet they partake in. Perhaps this is due to the purity of their gender characteristics in the early stages of their life. Social gender order is something that is learned, not something that is natural. Boys are taught to be tough and strong, while girls are taught to be gentle, and nurturing. Stereotypically, boys are the ones that are powerful, aggressive and adventurous; girls are the passive, emotional ones that enjoy talking, and sharing gossip. As one can see from the data that has been gathered from the study, boys and girls are still participating in activities that are “fit” for their gender. They are engaging in activities that are appropriate for their gender to identify themselves with what society defines as appropriate. This shows that technology has changed the activities that children participate in, but our society still teaches children the same lessons about gender order generation after generation.After analyzing data that has been gathered, we found that girls and boys used the web for different purposes. Though the differences in online activity was clearly evident between the genders, “most youth use online networks to extend the friendships that they navigate in the familiar contexts of school, religion, organizations, sports, and other activities.” (Ito 2008:1) Girls enjoyed using the sites as another means of socializing, as they liked to communicate (via comments and messages), share “gossip”, and look at pictures. Boys also used the Internet to form relationship with fellow boys, but they did this by bonding over the web and playing games. Today, “gaming has become a pervasive social activity” where boys can “casually share technical and media-related knowledge.” (Ito 2008:26) This shows that boys form this sort of “relationship” with one another, but do so in an acceptable manner because they are often performing acts that are considered acceptable. They use gaming as a means to form bonds with other boys without crossing boundaries, where they can have close relationships but avoid any sort of social labels.
It can be concluded that behaviors and gender norms are still the same as decades ago. The only real difference is the kind of activities the children are engaging in today. Culture still shapes these meanings and sets a concrete standard of what is considered suitable for both genders, but it is with the use of our modern day technology. There is no right way to act like a boy, or a right way to act like a girl, but media and culture plays such a big part in structuring what is considered normal, that it makes it seem to be almost natural. It is evident that there have been a lot of changes in children’s activities in the past few decades, but it is clear that the hegemonic ideologies have remained the same.
Race
In our research on children and the level of their interaction with cyberspace, we looked at two groups of children. One focus group was chosen from a mostly White middle class school. The other was a group of Asian children who regularly attended a church. We could not however look at children of other racial groups. After interviewing the children, we noticed some differences in the answers we received. We speculate that these differences rise out of the different socio-economic conditions of the children.
Most of the Asian children Jessica (one member of our group) interviewed, both boys and girls, expressed that their parents or guardians monitored their Internet usage very little. Their parents either did not know English and could not therefore understand what their children were doing on the Internet or, they understood what the Internet is about but trusted their children to be doing the right thing. Many of the parents enjoyed certain aspects of the Internet that enable them to stay connected with family and friends, but at the same time were unaware of their childrens’’ activities.
Most of the White children Kelly (one member of our group) interviewed, both boys and girls, mentioned that their parents ’didn’t stop them directly from using certain sites. They do have programs on their home computers that monitor Internet usage. All their parents know and use the Internet themselves. The father of one girl has a Myspace to protect her Myspace. Both girls and boys mentioned that their parents had warned them against sex offenders. Even the boys were extremely aware of the potential danger of an online predator.
Comparing the results from both focus groups, we find that the differences in the children’s usage of the Internet can be tied to their parents level of Internet awareness. The parents of the Asian children were less aware of their children’’s activities on the Internet. Most of them hail from another country and therefore their understanding of a lot of American popular media is minimal. Their major concerns are that their children are doing well in school and are not getting into trouble. While the parents of the White children are all English speaking, native born Americans. They have lived longer in America and know more about the potential dangers that are lurking about, and therefore are able to take more precautionary measures with their children.
Surprisingly, when the topic of talking to the opposite gender was brought up with both groups, it was Jessica’s group of Asian children that mentioned how they use the Internet to talk with the opposite gender. This may be due to the fact that ’Kelly’s group ranged from ages five to ten whereas Jessica’s group of children were thirteen or fourteen years of age. This might contribute to the awareness of how the Internet could be used to interact with the opposite gender. The boys mentioned how they use Facebook “to network with girls,” and that it is “easier to talk to girls on SNS sites because they are more willing to talk”, and that it is “sort of less personal than calling.” They use sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Gchat, MSN messenger, and AIM to scope out whether a girl likes them or not. One boy even mentioned that it was “very cheap” and that with the Internet there was “no need to go out and hang out” and that they could “talk for a long time without parental intervention.” When speaking with the girls, they mentioned how it was “easier to talk to boys here and get them to talk,” and that they think “it is because boys are shy.”
Across the board, however, both groups used social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace to network with people they already knew, either close friends or people they had seen at school or church and wanted to get to know more about. They have become closer friends with people they would not have talked to otherwise. “People already know many of the individuals they view on Facebook. More than 90% of Facebook users employ Facebook to stay in touch with or stay abreast of the activities of longtime acquaintances...” (Walther 2008:30). The children also use the Internet “to build friendships and romantic relationships as well as to hang out with each other as much and as often as possible” (Ito 2008:15). Social networking sites are an extension of the interactions that children engage in while at school.
Conclusion
The Internet has allowed children from all ages and a wide array of racial backgrounds to expand their social networks, to experiment with online gaming, and approach potential romantic interests. In an age where parents believe their children’s safety is continuously at a decline, more and more children are spending time at home, and not outside playing with the neighbors, as was common in the past. In times like these, children are turning to alternate methods of play and socializing. The Internet offers them a place where they can enhance their world experiences. However, the same dangers that faced children in the physical world also exist in cyberspace. Protecting our children requires knowledge, awareness, and open-mindedness. We want our children to capitalize on what the Internet has to offer while at the same time maintaining a safe space where they can grow and learn. It must be established that children’s experience of the Internet is vastly different from how the older generations experience it. Their early exposure to the Internet allows them to be increasingly complex in their usage of it. However, gender and racial influences still influence and create distinctions on how certain groups of children use the Internet. Almost stereotypically, girls and boys use the Internet for different purposes. How much of this is due to parental influence and personal preference is still up for debate. However, it is certain that regardless of how much has changed in children’s entertainment, the gender roles and race determine any child’s interactions with cyberspace.
Works Cited
"Club Penguin - Parents: Parent’s Guide." Club Penguin - Waddle around and meet new friends!
09 Mar. 2009.
DiSalvo, Betsey J., Kevin Crowley, and Roy Norwood. Learning in Context: Digital Games
and Young Black Men. Games and Culture 3(2):131–41, 2008.
"Interview with 6th Graders." Personal interview. 13 Feb. 2009.
“Interview with SSEC Youth Group.” Personal Interview. 10 Feb. 2009.
Mimi Ito et al. Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital
Youth Project, 2008.
Tufekci, Zeynep., Cotten, Shelia. and Flow-Delwiche, Elizabeth. "Internet Use and Gender, Race
and Class: The Digital Divide in the Era of Youtube and Facebook" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Sheraton Boston and the Boston Marriott Copley Place, Boston, MA, Jul 31, 2008. 2009-03-04
Joseph B. Walther, Brandon Van Der Heide, Sang-Yeon Kim, David Westerman, & Stephanie Tom Tong, The Role of Friends’ Appearance and Behavior on Evaluations of Individuals on Facebook: Are We Known by the Company We Keep? Human Communication Research 34(1):28-49, 2008.
Jessica Cha
Kelly Forster
Miko Hoshino
Merusha Nasoordeen
Introduction
Since its inception, the Internet has been a realm for those seeking possibilities. It was originally a space for wealthy adults, based mostly on text, but now has been transformed into the hip new place to be for the younger generations. For the past five years, there has been a large influx in the number of children and adolescents interacting with cyberspace as the graphics became better and a large number of services became available to the general public. This has made for a growing business market in developing online games, virtual worlds, and social networking sites. There has been a niche for online games for children as children as young as six are on the Internet playing games. In essence, the adolescents and children of this day and age are the “cyber-generation” as they are more savvy about online technology than many young adults.
This paper will seek to address the issue of how children and adolescents in the new “cyber-generation” use the Internet and for what purposes they use it for. The paper will proceed by explaining the methods used to obtain information on the usage of the Internet by the “cyber-generation.” It will then go into detail of one of the most popular children and pre-teen online spaces, Club Penguin. Then, in sum, a discussion will be held on how children’s and adolescents’ differing races and genders affect their use of the Internet.
Methods
To obtain information on children and adolescents on the Internet, personal and group interviews were used. In an effort to address issues of race and gender, children and adolescents from a minority church youth group and a predominately Caucasian San Diego middle school were interviewed. In an effort to protect all the children involved in the interviews, their names are changed for the purposes of this paper and all had parental consent to participate in the study.
Interviews: San Diego Middle School
In order to get a strong grasp of how pre-teens use the Internet a group of four girls and one group of five boys, all between the ages of eleven and twelve, were interviewed. The majority of the students were white and came from an upper-middle class background, which reflected the surrounding neighborhood. It came as a surprise that the children were willing to speak about the Internet and were enthusiastic about sharing their experiences of the Internet.
The girls started using the Internet around the age of seven or eight with their first website being Webkinz and Club Penguin. The two girls who had used these sites said they had out grown Webkins, which both girls described as a place only really little kids go, but continued to play Club Penguin. One of the girls described how, when she was using Webkinz, she had used Google to do research on what pet she might be able to own. In addition to using virtual worlds, some of the children used messaging systems. At least two of the girls said they used AIM (AOL Instant Messaging) on a regular basis. Normally, the girls chatted with people they already knew, but one of the girls mentioned that she once had a conversation with another girl from England.
When asked what they thought about their Internet activity, the girls gave extremely interesting and varied answers. One girl claimed to have “outgrown email.” And a few stated, quite dramatically, that they would “die without the Internet.” Universally, all of the girls were concerned with their safety when engaged with the interview. Each girl was terrified that if they chatted to an unknown person, the person may end up being a forty-year-old perverted man. They all brought up the possibility of abduction and rape if they engaged in dangerous behaviors on the Internet and, as a result, did not talk to strangers. When asked where they had acquired their fear of old, perverted men, they identified their parents as the source for the idea and saw these stalkers as serious threats.
How their relationships had changed with the Internet was harder to gauge because they themselves were not sure about how their relationships had changed at all. The Internet had been a part of their lives for a long time and it was hard for them to imagine a life without it. However, many of the children had mixed feelings about the Internet and how it affected their relationships with others. Some claimed that they had been able to form friendships with individuals from school that they would have never considered talking with in the physical world. However, some claimed that the Internet had exactly the opposite effect. She said that “there are people that I don’t know that I hate now because they were mean to me on the Internet” (Interview with Sixth Grader: 2009). It appears that the Internet is a place for children and teenagers to expand their social circles, break up cliques, make cliques, and bully.
However, because these children are minors, there was strong parental supervision of the girls on the Internet. The parents of these girls used interesting methods to regulate their child’s Internet use. One of the fathers worked with computers for a living and had set up a program that monitored what sites his daughter visited. Another parent made a MySpace account to regulate how their daughter used MySpace and who she could become friends with. Oddly enough, the parent had allowed their daughter to lie about her age in order to get an account in the first place. Still other parents refused to allow their children to engage with social networking sites, such as MySpace or Facebook, until they were sixteen. Furthermore, there was one extreme case where the father did not allow computers in the home at all.
The boys’ experiences of the Internet were different from the girls in distinct ways. All of the boys interviewed were between ages eleven and twelve and had started exploring the Internet from the ages of five to eight. In the beginning, all of them used “little kid games” that featured a prominent main character, such as Arthur or Barney. Only one of the boys interviewed said they played multiplayer online games, such as Poptropica and Runescape, and the rest played single player PC games, such as Legos and Indiana Jones. However, despite the differences in gaming, they all watched Youtube regularly. When asked how they had initially started exploring the Internet or games, many of them could not remember. They said that they felt as if they had always been on the Internet. Others identified a friend or brother that introduced the game or Internet to them, though it was more common in games than for the Internet.
When it came to social networking sites there was only one boy who had a MySpace profile. Though he had lied about his age to obtain one, his parents knew about his page and monitored it regularly. The other boys did not have one and mentioned that their parents found social networking sites inappropriate. It seemed, though that parents had given much of the control of viewing websites to the boys as their only stipulation to the boys’ use of the Internet was to not look up or look at porn. Every one of the boys stated that, at one point or another, their parents had made this a prerequisite for their continued perusal of the Internet.
However, despite the increased leniency given to boys, the boys were still preoccupied with their safety on the Internet. They worried about sex offenders finding them online and engaging in inappropriate behaviors. As such, they said that they never made friends with people that they did not know. Similar to the case with the girls, the main source for this behavior and anxiety was the parents. Because the boys did not talk to strangers or people that they did not normally converse with, boys did not find that the Internet changed their relationship with their peers or family members. They felt strongly that they would have been friends with the people they spoke with online, regardless of the online connection.
Interviews: A Church Youth Group in Torrance, California
The group of children and adolescents interviewed at a small church in Torrance was mainly comprised of ethnic minorities; more specifically, of first generation Asian-Americans. Many of the children interviewed live with a single parent, though not due to a divorce, and reside in a low socio-economic neighborhood. Conversely, many of them attend private schools due to student visa issues. The participants of this study were between the ages of eleven and fourteen.
Girls in this group were mainly preoccupied on the Internet with Club Penguin, if they were under thirteen, and social networking sites along with a chat service, usually ages thirteen to fourteen. All age groups visited Youtube, though they did not post up videos or comment on others’ videos. The girls felt that the Internet enhanced their relationships and enabled them to be social at a level that they deemed to be optimal. With the Internet, they could stay connected to their friends, make new friendships, and talk to their peers without using having their parents monitor their talk time. Since many of them had immigrated to America, they used the sites to stay in touch with friends that they had left in their previous country of residence. Girls used social networking sites mainly to discuss their social activities and look at pictures of each other that they posted.
Boys, on the other hand, used the Internet mainly to game, usually on massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs). They often visited and played World of Warcraft. Though a majority of them had profiles on a social networking site, they did not use it for their main social activities. In fact, they barely used it at all. W stated that he used them only because everyone else used them and he would feel like “a loser” if he didn’t have one. Like girls, the sites were mainly used to stay in touch with friends that they could not physically meet otherwise or talk to people, usually girls, that they could not normally speak with in the physical world.
In terms of social relationships, girls felt that the Internet did not impact their relationships detrimentally. If anything, it enhanced their social relationships. Because of the lack of gaming, the girls used social networking sites and chat services to gossip and talk to friends. With the improved ability to socialize, girls liked the fact that they could carry on multiple conversations at once and inform a large crowd of friends as to what they were doing or what they wanted to say without talking to each one individually. Though they did say that there was more drama because they gossip could spread quickly, some did admit to a sort of enjoyment of a constant, upbeat social world. Furthermore, they felt that boys were more willing to speak with them online because they could not actually “see” the person face to face.
Boys felt that the Internet impacted their social relationships in very specific ways, especially in regards to speaking with girls. Gaming allowed them to connect with their peers and set a common interest that they could talk about. A majority of the boys agreed that games allowed them to overcome language and cultural barriers when around their peers at school. This allowed them to make friends easier and fit in with the cultural norm. In terms of social networking, the boys acknowledged that it greatly uninhibited them around girls. Because they could premeditate what they wanted to say and play off bad comments or rejections, they felt that it made them bolder. They also felt that girls were more willing to talk to them online because they were able to keep their conversations separate. Furthermore, they felt that the Internet allowed them to keep up on the friendships that that they had left in their home country.
Parental control, for both genders in this study group, was relatively lax, possibly due to the technological and language barriers between the parents and the child or adolescent. A small minority of the participants, only about two, admitted that their parents knew about their online activities. There was a general feeling of consensus between the children and the parents that as long as their grades remained high and they were not partaking in dangerous activity, such as porn or chatting with strangers. Every single one of the participants had access to a computer and the Internet at home, though none of them had parental control software to limit their experience of the Internet. None of the participants expressed concern over online activities and when asked whether they worried about their safety on the Internet , they were puzzled. They felt that the Internet was a relatively safe place because they could be anonymous towards strangers. Furthermore, they did not believe that there was a high probability of being approached by a sexual predator on the Internet as long as they were not engaging in dangerous activities.
An Analysis of Virtual Spaces for Children: Club Penguin
Imagine the winter wonderland of Antarctica. The continent is frigid but beautiful, there are massive glaciers jutting up from the ocean, pristine snow, and, of course, all those multicolored penguins. Though Club Penguin never states that it is set in Antarctica, it is clear that this is were the virtual world takes place. That is where most penguins live after all. There are a few discrepancies between the icy country/continent and the world of Club Penguin. The whole world is covered in snow but there are trees, ski lifts, a pirate ship, as well as a downtown area. In this virtual world there are mini games to play against other penguins. By playing these games the penguins receive coins. The coins can then be used to buy an igloo to live in or clothing and there is no shortage of variety. There are clothing stores all over Club Penguin that have quite a rage of themes. One could dress as a pirate or a ninja or choose from a huge assortment of different styles of regular clothes and accessories. The other incentive for getting coins is so that you can buy a “puffle”. A puffle is a kind of pet that is basically a small round ball of fur that comes in various colors and follows you around. In order to buy anything however, one must be a paying member. Access to the world and playing the games are free but in order to buy an igloo, clothes, or a puffle Club Penguin requires a monthly fee of around six dollars. Between the bright colors and the cute graphics it is not surprising that this game is extremely popular with the preteen and younger age groups and was bought by Disney for 700 million dollars.
What seems to be Club Penguin’s biggest strength is the protection it claims to provide for the children using it. There are two kinds of chat that kids and parents can chose from “Standard Safe Chat” and “Ultimate Safe Chat”. According to the Club Penguin privacy site Standard Safe Chat “allows players to type their own messages to other users. Every message is filtered to allow only pre-approved words and phrases, and block attempts to communicate a phone number or other personally identifiable information” (Club Penguin Parent’s site). To go even safer there is Ultimate Safe Chat which “limits what users can say to a predefined menu of greetings, questions and statements, as well as emotes, actions and greeting cards. When it comes to chatting, these users can only see other Ultimate Safe Chat messages” (Club Penguin Parent’s site). There is also an area for parents to check on their children’s accounts and see what they are up to and even set up how many hours their children can play in one day. What we found strange was that when one member of our group signed up for an account Club Penguin never asked for age verification. The site states that Club Penguin was created for 6-14 year olds but is open to all ages. One would think that people over eightteen would be discouraged from playing.
Though Club Penguin at first glace may seem like a silly little game for children, it is in fact a pretty complete world. It has its own time zone, Penguin Standard Time, so that children playing around the world will have an uncomplicated way to figure out when to meet. There is a newspaper that is almost entirely based on user submissions of original poetry, comics and advice columns. There are events that take place throughout the day such as dance parties and sporting events. The penguins even have a place to live, their igloo, that they can decorate themselves. Do not be fooled by the colorful cartoonish world; twelve million children live in this world daily and some take it fairly seriously.
Discussion and Analysis
Gender
In just a matter of a few years, there has been a great change in entertainment available for children and young teenagers. The 1990s had Barbies for girls and Legos for boys as the main sources of entertainment. However, as the late 1990s came about, technology changed the types and expenses of entertainment that were available to the youth. Computers and technology went from being a “relatively hard to use, almost esoteric technology, to an everyday domesticated tool.” (Tufekci, 3)In the 90s, there were very limited options as to how one could engage with technology or the Internet . Nintendo, the square, gray box that connected to the TV set, was the game system of the 1990’s time. The graphics available on Nintendo, the sole gaming device, were nowhere near “high tech” as those that can be found today. AOL (America Online) and the instant messenger service were the only sources of communication, which quickly became the “must be on” website. What the 90’s offered was nothing fancy, but in those days, what was available was something incredible, and what we have available now was unthinkable back then. Slowly but surely, children have had access to a variety of new things to keep them entertained. New computer games, online social networking sites, and virtual worlds are far more popular than ever before. Children are now spending more time on computers playing games, socializing, and networking with others, rather than the old fashioned way of actually “playing” in the physical world.Although the activities that children are partaking in today are different from those from a few years ago, it is interesting to see that the hegemonic gender order ideology is still being structured and shaped by our society. It has been shown that “from early on, research found consistent differences in types of use, with girls being less represented in programming and game playing.” (Tufekci 2008:3). From our interviews and data, we were also able to see that most boys (that spent time on computers) enjoyed playing games (such as World of Warcraft) more than spending time on social networking sites. On the other hand, it was evident that girls spent more time on social networking sites (such as Myspace and Facebook) and virtual worlds (such as Club Penguin and Poptropica) than online games. It has been also been proven in other studies that “girls game less often than boys and may be less interested, knowledgeable, and comfortable with STEM than…boys.” (DiSalvo, 131) [STEM: Science, technology, engineering and math] True to their gender roles, the passivity of girls and aggressiveness of boys are reflected strongly in the uses of the Internet they partake in. Perhaps this is due to the purity of their gender characteristics in the early stages of their life. Social gender order is something that is learned, not something that is natural. Boys are taught to be tough and strong, while girls are taught to be gentle, and nurturing. Stereotypically, boys are the ones that are powerful, aggressive and adventurous; girls are the passive, emotional ones that enjoy talking, and sharing gossip. As one can see from the data that has been gathered from the study, boys and girls are still participating in activities that are “fit” for their gender. They are engaging in activities that are appropriate for their gender to identify themselves with what society defines as appropriate. This shows that technology has changed the activities that children participate in, but our society still teaches children the same lessons about gender order generation after generation.After analyzing data that has been gathered, we found that girls and boys used the web for different purposes. Though the differences in online activity was clearly evident between the genders, “most youth use online networks to extend the friendships that they navigate in the familiar contexts of school, religion, organizations, sports, and other activities.” (Ito 2008:1) Girls enjoyed using the sites as another means of socializing, as they liked to communicate (via comments and messages), share “gossip”, and look at pictures. Boys also used the Internet to form relationship with fellow boys, but they did this by bonding over the web and playing games. Today, “gaming has become a pervasive social activity” where boys can “casually share technical and media-related knowledge.” (Ito 2008:26) This shows that boys form this sort of “relationship” with one another, but do so in an acceptable manner because they are often performing acts that are considered acceptable. They use gaming as a means to form bonds with other boys without crossing boundaries, where they can have close relationships but avoid any sort of social labels.
It can be concluded that behaviors and gender norms are still the same as decades ago. The only real difference is the kind of activities the children are engaging in today. Culture still shapes these meanings and sets a concrete standard of what is considered suitable for both genders, but it is with the use of our modern day technology. There is no right way to act like a boy, or a right way to act like a girl, but media and culture plays such a big part in structuring what is considered normal, that it makes it seem to be almost natural. It is evident that there have been a lot of changes in children’s activities in the past few decades, but it is clear that the hegemonic ideologies have remained the same.
Race
In our research on children and the level of their interaction with cyberspace, we looked at two groups of children. One focus group was chosen from a mostly White middle class school. The other was a group of Asian children who regularly attended a church. We could not however look at children of other racial groups. After interviewing the children, we noticed some differences in the answers we received. We speculate that these differences rise out of the different socio-economic conditions of the children.
Most of the Asian children Jessica (one member of our group) interviewed, both boys and girls, expressed that their parents or guardians monitored their Internet usage very little. Their parents either did not know English and could not therefore understand what their children were doing on the Internet or, they understood what the Internet is about but trusted their children to be doing the right thing. Many of the parents enjoyed certain aspects of the Internet that enable them to stay connected with family and friends, but at the same time were unaware of their childrens’’ activities.
Most of the White children Kelly (one member of our group) interviewed, both boys and girls, mentioned that their parents ’didn’t stop them directly from using certain sites. They do have programs on their home computers that monitor Internet usage. All their parents know and use the Internet themselves. The father of one girl has a Myspace to protect her Myspace. Both girls and boys mentioned that their parents had warned them against sex offenders. Even the boys were extremely aware of the potential danger of an online predator.
Comparing the results from both focus groups, we find that the differences in the children’s usage of the Internet can be tied to their parents level of Internet awareness. The parents of the Asian children were less aware of their children’’s activities on the Internet. Most of them hail from another country and therefore their understanding of a lot of American popular media is minimal. Their major concerns are that their children are doing well in school and are not getting into trouble. While the parents of the White children are all English speaking, native born Americans. They have lived longer in America and know more about the potential dangers that are lurking about, and therefore are able to take more precautionary measures with their children.
Surprisingly, when the topic of talking to the opposite gender was brought up with both groups, it was Jessica’s group of Asian children that mentioned how they use the Internet to talk with the opposite gender. This may be due to the fact that ’Kelly’s group ranged from ages five to ten whereas Jessica’s group of children were thirteen or fourteen years of age. This might contribute to the awareness of how the Internet could be used to interact with the opposite gender. The boys mentioned how they use Facebook “to network with girls,” and that it is “easier to talk to girls on SNS sites because they are more willing to talk”, and that it is “sort of less personal than calling.” They use sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Gchat, MSN messenger, and AIM to scope out whether a girl likes them or not. One boy even mentioned that it was “very cheap” and that with the Internet there was “no need to go out and hang out” and that they could “talk for a long time without parental intervention.” When speaking with the girls, they mentioned how it was “easier to talk to boys here and get them to talk,” and that they think “it is because boys are shy.”
Across the board, however, both groups used social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace to network with people they already knew, either close friends or people they had seen at school or church and wanted to get to know more about. They have become closer friends with people they would not have talked to otherwise. “People already know many of the individuals they view on Facebook. More than 90% of Facebook users employ Facebook to stay in touch with or stay abreast of the activities of longtime acquaintances...” (Walther 2008:30). The children also use the Internet “to build friendships and romantic relationships as well as to hang out with each other as much and as often as possible” (Ito 2008:15). Social networking sites are an extension of the interactions that children engage in while at school.
Conclusion
The Internet has allowed children from all ages and a wide array of racial backgrounds to expand their social networks, to experiment with online gaming, and approach potential romantic interests. In an age where parents believe their children’s safety is continuously at a decline, more and more children are spending time at home, and not outside playing with the neighbors, as was common in the past. In times like these, children are turning to alternate methods of play and socializing. The Internet offers them a place where they can enhance their world experiences. However, the same dangers that faced children in the physical world also exist in cyberspace. Protecting our children requires knowledge, awareness, and open-mindedness. We want our children to capitalize on what the Internet has to offer while at the same time maintaining a safe space where they can grow and learn. It must be established that children’s experience of the Internet is vastly different from how the older generations experience it. Their early exposure to the Internet allows them to be increasingly complex in their usage of it. However, gender and racial influences still influence and create distinctions on how certain groups of children use the Internet. Almost stereotypically, girls and boys use the Internet for different purposes. How much of this is due to parental influence and personal preference is still up for debate. However, it is certain that regardless of how much has changed in children’s entertainment, the gender roles and race determine any child’s interactions with cyberspace.
Works Cited
"Club Penguin - Parents: Parent’s Guide." Club Penguin - Waddle around and meet new friends!
09 Mar. 2009
DiSalvo, Betsey J., Kevin Crowley, and Roy Norwood. Learning in Context: Digital Games
and Young Black Men. Games and Culture 3(2):131–41, 2008.
"Interview with 6th Graders." Personal interview. 13 Feb. 2009.
“Interview with SSEC Youth Group.” Personal Interview. 10 Feb. 2009.
Mimi Ito et al. Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital
Youth Project, 2008.
Tufekci, Zeynep., Cotten, Shelia. and Flow-Delwiche, Elizabeth. "Internet Use and Gender, Race
and Class: The Digital Divide in the Era of Youtube and Facebook" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Sheraton Boston and the Boston Marriott Copley Place, Boston, MA, Jul 31, 2008. 2009-03-04
Joseph B. Walther, Brandon Van Der Heide, Sang-Yeon Kim, David Westerman, & Stephanie Tom Tong, The Role of Friends’ Appearance and Behavior on Evaluations of Individuals on Facebook: Are We Known by the Company We Keep? Human Communication Research 34(1):28-49, 2008.
Family Intimacy on Facebook
Family Intimacy on Facebook
Ali Cresap
Melissa Flores
Stephanie Lewis
Cynthia Lopez
For many college students, the routine is the same when accessing the Internet. If checking your Facebook profile isn’t the first priority, it is safe to say it is the second priority next to email. However, as the popular social networking site continues to evolve, new issues arise for its users. Originally targeted toward college campuses, Facebook attracted thousands of students as a means to connect with their peers and create an online identity. Two years after its creation, Facebook opened its network to anyone over the age of thirteen with an email address. This greatly impacted the dynamics of Facebook; not only could a college peer ask to be your friend but so could your professor. An even more controversial friend request is one coming from your parent, a common phenomenon with the growth of older users. As Facebook evolved into an open social networking site, it has raised issues of identity and intimacy for users who have parents using Facebook.
Inspired by a book of headshots with basic biographical data distributed at Harvard every year, ambitious undergraduate Mark Zuckerberg created the social network site ““Facebook”” in his dorm room in February of 2004. Initially open to Harvard undergraduates, Facebook spread like wild fire: “within a day it had signed up 1,200 students; within a month half of the undergraduate population…by September 2005, Facebook was claiming that 85% of all students at the 882 colleges it supported had Facebook profiles, 60% of whom logged in daily” (Grimmelmann 2008:6). Facebook was an undeniable hit among college students. As students registered for a Facebook profile they uploaded heaps of personal information and pictures. In this way students created an online identity. In addition to creating their own identity, students were able to explore the identities of their friends or others in their school’s network. Facebook was the “way students found out what everyone around them was like and what he or she was doing” (Thompson 2006). In this way, through the database of online depictions of oneself Facebook began to form an intimate community of users. As Facebook evolved, the mini-feed was created in September of 2006. This altered Facebook in a way that allowed users more recent information about their friends without need to search for it as it was displayed on the user’s homepage. In his article, “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy,” author Clive Thompson illustrates how such immediate, personal, incessant online contact has created “ambient awareness.” Ambient awareness is described as the feeling of being physically near someone and the ability to pick up on their current mood, while not being physically near them at all. As the mini-feed altered the intimacy of the networking site, another change sparked who one could be intimate with on Facebook.
Simultaneous with the creation of the mini-feed was Facebook’s movement in September 2006: registration for anyone. This created the opportunity for parents and their college children to become friends on Facebook. As youth, members of the digital generation, join social networking sites they are “coming of age and struggling
for autonomy and identity as did their predecessors, but they are doing so amid reconfigured contexts for communication, friendship, play, and self-expression” (Mimi Ito et al. 2008:5). Social networking sites for younger generations create an opportunity to create an identity online and socialize with increased intimacy of ambient awareness. However, the tables turn with the possibility that your mother and father can view this online identity. Where do parents find their place within the social networking site? Why are they interested in it? And how do they feel about viewing their child’s personal information if allowed to? With 175 million users on Facebook and the fasting growing demographic being users over 30, issues of intimacy and identity within nuclear family members are continuing to occur. This paper will attempt to outline the way in which parents and children interact on Facebook. It will demonstrate how the expansion of Facebook to a network that allows anyone to register alters issues of identity and intimacy between children and their parents.
Within this research paper are the outlined methods we used to gather our data. These methods led us to results which could be categorized into three groups: parents who rejected their parent’s friendship request on Facebook, children who left their parent’s friend requests pending, and children who accepted their parent’s occasionally modifying their profile. It should be noted that within this research paper the term “child” or “children” does not refer to users in their adolescence rather users who are out of high school who have parents on the social networking site.
Methods
The foundation for the methods was rooted in two Facebook groups called Facebook and family and Have your parents friended you on Facebook? Group invites were sent to all of our friends but specifically targeted those who we felt might be able to contribute to our research, i.e., friends who have accepted relatives. A message was sent with the group invite asking people politely not to delete or reject our invite without first reading it. In the basic info section of the group page we specified that we were UCI students conducting research on social networking sites, specifically Facebook, and the effects it had on family relationships. We also specified that all posts made on the group wall or discussion board could be used in our research project unless they specifically asked us not to use the information they provided. Group members were also encouraged to notify us if they had any questions or concerns.
To get a discussion going, we posted a set of questions on the wall of each group. The questions were straightforward and kept simple to encourage group members to participate:
Facebook and family
1. Have you been friend requested by relatives, e.g., mom, dad, child, grandparents, aunts, uncle, etc.? Did you add them? Why or why not?2. Was there any hesitation in adding relatives to your Facebook accounts?3. Have you modified your Facebook so that they only have access to certain things on your account?
Have your parents friended you on Facebook?
Student survey:
1) Have your parents/family members “friended” you on Facebook? Did you add them right away or are they still pending? Why?2) Did you block any part of your profile page in order to hide information from your parents? Why?3) Why do you think your parents have a Facebook page? Do you think they want to spy on you? Do you think they have it just to network and communicate with their friends?4) If they are still pending or you denied them, do you think it hurts their feelings?5) Do you think parents should be allowed to have a Facebook?
Parent Survey:
1) What motivated you to create a Facebook profile?2) Do you use it to keep in touch with your kids or to network and communicate with friends and co-workers?3) Do you feel you are spying on your kids/checking up on them? Why or why not?4) If you have not been accepted as a friend yet or your child denied you, did it hurt your feelings?5) Do you feel that you know your child better after seeing their profiles and pictures? Did you become closer?6) How do you think your children feel about you having a Facebook?
During our fieldwork, we found that we had to modify our methods for gaining information on more than one occasion. People were not as compliant as we had hoped, or expected them to be. Our strategy of forming a group that our friends could join was off to a great start. However, we found that although people were adding to the groups, many were not participating in the discussions, and the ones who were kept their answers pretty concise. We modified the questions a few times and sent out messages to our friends asking them to please help us out, reminding them that this was an actual assignment. Of course the majority said they would participate, but not many of them did. We did get a few great responses that contributed to our findings but we felt we needed to try a different strategy to obtain better results. We turned to interviews and online chatting. We found this method to be more useful, as people were more open and elaborated on their answers in a one on one conversation. In addition to the online groups and interviews, research through literature about social networking sites and family relations were found through article databases like Jstor, new websites, (specifically The Washington Post), and Facebook groups who protested parents accounts.
Results
As previously mentioned, the results our methods uncovered were placed into three categories: parents and children who decided not to be friends on Facebook, children who left their parents pending, and children who accepted the friend request and sometimes modified their profile while doing so. Through the results it became apparent that when asked to be a friend by their parent on Facebook the issue of their online identity was questioned. This is interesting given the fact that most often a parent is a relationship considered more intimate than some of the friends users add.
Parents and Children who are not friends on Facebook
This category of results describes parents and their children who both have Facebook accounts but have chosen not to be friends. Of the research we collected through our Facebook group there were two sets of parents and children who had chosen to not be friends. One set of participants in this category was a mom and a daughter, the daughter stating, “I wouldn’t want my mom to see my partying pictures, my account is personal, kind of like a diary, it’s for the world to see but not my mom.” The mom made no comment in response to her daughter rejecting the friend request. The daughters opinion of strangers being able to see her profile is illustrated by the fact that, “approximately 80% of one college’s Facebook using sample indicated that total strangers on their own campus view their Facebook profiles, and nearly 40% believe that total strangers from other universities view their profiles as well” (Walther et al. 2008:31). While the daughter was comfortable with strangers seeing her online identity, that relationship with her mother was unacceptable. The second set of participants in this category was a mother and a son. The son commented that, “I rejected my mom because I feel like she’s too old to be on Facebook…I told her she’s not allowed to add any of my friends either.” In response to her son’s rejected friend request the mom stated that, “I wasn’t sure if he would add me but I didn’t realize he would be so weirded out by it.” While both children were uncomfortable with the invasion of privacy, an interesting point can be made about the second participant’s desire for his mom not to add his friends. As illustrated in the article, “The Role of Friends’ Appearance and Behavior on Evaluations of Individuals on Facebook: Are We Known by the Company We Keep?“ users on Facebook can use other user’s profiles to seek information about a third party. Further information gained on another’s site is, “considered more reliable than self-disclosed claims of the same nature. Thus, in a Facebook profile, things that others say about a target may be more compelling than things an individual says about his- or herself.” Attempting to keep his online identity private from his mother, the son was smart in asking his mom not to add his friends, as they could lead to more valid information of the son’s online characteristics.
Further data on this category was collected through the news website Washington Post and Facebook groups protesting parent’s access. As demonstrated in a Washington Post article, “When Mom or Dad Asks To Be a Facebook Friend” many children who rejected their parent’s friend requests did so because they felt it was an invasion of privacy. However, Facebook groups banning parents were a bit more ruthless. Such group opinions varied from it being hilarious, to parents being too old, to it being nosy, intrusive and outrageous. As illustrated the main point within this results category was the fact that it was an invasion of privacy, users didn’t feel their parents needed to see the life they conducted online.
When Parents Were Left Pending
When someone is “friended” they must either accept the request or deny it, otherwise the request is left pending. In analyzing the relationship between parents and children on Facebook, we wanted to uncover how many students hesitated before adding or denying their parents, and the reasons for doing so. A few informants left their parents pending for a few days before deciding to add them, while another child left his mom pending indefinitely and with no intention of accepting her request. The majority had the same reason for hesitation: they needed to modify their profiles first. One informant elaborated on this fact in the student survey by stating, “Yes, my mom did friend me and no I did not accept it right away. There are a lot of pictures that I felt she would not like to see. I don’t hide anything from her and she knows that I’m a little bit of a wild child, but there’s a difference from knowing and then actually seeing. So I actually added her to my limited profile!” Another informant similarly mentioned that she “blocked any drunken pictures, etc.” from her mom. Surprisingly, one child did not have any embarrassing pictures to hide. His reasoning for leaving his mother pending was strictly a matter of privacy: “I’d rather her not view my pics/comments. She trusts me and all but I don’t like it when she asks me questions about my personal life; it kind of weirds me out.” He felt that leaving her pending was not as harsh or extreme as completely rejecting her friend request, but did not plan on ever accepting the request.
For the most part, children left their parents pending in order to hide pictures that might get them into trouble, but this decision also had to do with profile comments. Facebook allows users to control every aspect of their profiles in terms of what other users are allowed to see, but it is impossible to control what comments are written. These comments or “wall posts” as they are referred to on Facebook, can be just as incriminating as photos depending on what people write. “Postings by other people on one’s own profile reflect the character of the individuals who made the postings, [but] it is also possible that observers’ reactions of those others may affect perceptions of the target profile maker as well, even though the profile maker his- or herself did not initiate or condone the postings” (Walther et al. 2008:29). In other words, comments contribute to the overall image of the Facebook user. The male informant previously mentioned did not want his mother scrutinizing the comments posted on his profile for two reasons: he could not control their content and they could be easily misunderstood. Facebook does allow users to privatize the entire “wall,” but in his case it was easier to leave his mother pending, thereby keeping his profile unchanged and inaccessible. As members in this group also felt the need to protect their privacy they also unveiled the need to hide the way others create their online identity from the intimate real life relationship with their parent.
People Who Accepted and Sometimes Modified Profiles for Parents
Much to our surprise we found that the majority of people that had accepted relatives as friends didn’t modify their profiles. Of the 20 responses we used for this part of our research, 14 responded as having nothing to hide from their family. Some of the responses were:
“I’m not forced to put anything I don’t want to on Facebook or MySpace. I can choose to put whatever I want on my profile, if there was something I felt was better left unknown by certain people, I would leave it out all together. Why risk the chance of information you don’t want people to know getting out.”
“I didn’t find a need to modify. It’s a great way to keep in touch.”
“I keep no secrets from my mom, she’s my best friend. I have no problem giving her access to my college life. But she has mentioned that there are some things she wishes she hadn’t seen, like pictures of me wasted with a drawing of big cock on my face that my buddy drew. That was a crazy night.”
“I know my parents use Facebook to keep tabs on me and I am ok with that. I think it’s cute. I don’t restrict them from anything. I figure they might as well know what I’m doing…which sadly isn’t much.”
“None of my relatives on Facebook have limited access to my info. Most of them are cousins, around my age so we have this unwritten rule that we don’t rat each other out.”
The remaining six responses stated that they had modified their profiles a bit but gave different reasons why:
“Initially I had gave my mom open access to my profile so that she could feel as close to me as possible being that she’s in Chile. But that changed quickly after she began punishing me for things she would see on my Facebook profile, specifically my pictures. She would leave comments in caps followed by exclamation points under certain pictures. She was doing it so much that I became nervous when I’d log on. I put a stop to that quick style. I felt bad because my dad’s cool but I had to restrict him because my mom would over power him.”
“Haha yesss! I have her on my limited profile that way her and I can still chat amongst one another, but also so she doesn’t see my whole life at school.”
“I’m trying to get my sister to join Facebook; she lives in Honduras with my mom. Once she joins I will probably modify some things on my profile. Mainly my pictures just because I don’t want my mom to worry about me or the things I do.”
From our research we found that most of the students who had relatives on Facebook didn’t modify their profiles. A popular response among them was that they felt it was a great way to keep in touch with family. They saw Facebook as a great way to share their experiences with relatives who may be spread out across the globe. From the users who did modify, we found that the main feature they were keeping their relatives from was their photo albums. Most of these users felt that their pictures said more to their relatives than anything they could write on their profiles. A fundamental aspect of identity in a social networking site is, “the mutability of our self-representation in online environments” (Yee & Bailenson 2007:272). The ability to change your identity in an online environment and as a result change your behavior is described as the Proteus Effect. This is useful in understanding why children might modify their profile when allowing an intimate relative like a parent to view it. Since the parent knows their identity in the real world, the online identity might not match up and for this reason might create the need for modification. Some said they modified out of respect for their parents while others said that their parents didn’t need to know everything about them. As for who were the relatives who were restricted to limited access, in our small sample we found parents to be the ones who were the most restricted. Most of the users felt comfortable with aunts, uncles, cousins and siblings having unlimited access but not parents.
Conclusion
In the opinion of many undergraduates, it may seem unreal to imagine parents having any kind of social life. Some assume the reason behind a parent creating a Facebook account is simply for the spying privileges that they will receive. This fact may be true in some cases but does not seem to be proving true in all. Among the many that were interviewed, most parents admitted to liking Facebook as a social network and using it for the same reasons students stated. As is the slogan on the homepage of the Facebook network, “Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.” Parents can use Facebook as a great way to advertise for business, create awareness of a problem, and reconnect with old friends and classmates. Indeed Facebook has an eager and growing community in the 30-year-old and older user. One interviewee remarked, “Yea, my dad and his co-worker were having a bet to see who could have the most friends on here. My dad’s winning so far.” Overall it has become apparent that parents enjoy Facebook for the same reasons that their children are attracted to it: to connect socially. A contrast noticed within the research was the students desire to branch out to find new friends and acquaintances, especially within a college environment for which the site was originally created. It is important here to note that although the patterns of the parents and their kids may differ slightly, the idea is still the same, and both choose to utilize the site in similar ways.
A last detail to mention is the fact that a lot of parents do create Facebook accounts in order to become friends with their children, but it’s not for the reason many kids assume. With a lot of child-parent relationships now being separated and strained by the rigors of college life, Facebook provides a quick and easy way for parents and their children to stay connected. One parent wrote, “Sometimes seeing what pics or videos or quotes they choose to post helps me feel I know them better. Being able to post quick updates sometimes brings our far flung kids and me closer.” It is in this sense that we again see the reality of ‘ambient awareness’ in the fact that while parents may not necessarily be in physical proximity to their kids they can still keep updated and maintain close ties, as well as kids staying updated about what’s going on in their parent’s lives. However while parents seek to maintain this close relationship with their children, children are presented with the task to allow or reject their parents from their online identity.
In the end this study yielded many fascinating results and brings up even more questions for future studies. If this study were to be redone some things that may have been overlooked would be brought to light. One of the corrections we would choose to make is changing our methods of research, more importantly our interviewing techniques. While we found the Facebook groups that were created to be very helpful, one thing we would have changed was the fact that both parents and their kids were invited to the same group. A separate group for each would have been more helpful in getting honest answers from each party. The way in which the questions were set up allowed both the parents and kids to view each others’ answers. Also we would have liked to do more face-to-face interviews and collect a broader scope of both parents and their kids to interview. The results of our findings showed that there were many different responses to parents and kids “friending” each other. We found responses such as flat out rejection, holding an invitation as “pending”, the alteration or limitation of profiles, as well as genuine friend acceptance. Through all the varying responses we found that in some way or another, the relationship between a parent and child did play an important role, especially in relation to the child’s online identity created through their pictures, “about me” and wall. Further research has pointed out the different uses that parents and their kids have on social networking sites, but when it comes to Facebook, children and parents have a lot more in common than they think.
Bibliography
Digital Learning
2008 Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project. Electronic document, http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/files/report/digitalyouth-WhitePaper.pdf, accessed March 1, 2009.
Grimmelmann, James
2008 Facebook and the Social Dynamics of Privacy. Iowa Law Review 95(4).
New York Times
2008 Brave New World of Digital Intimacy. Electronic document, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07awareness-t.html?_r=3&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin, accessed March 3, 2009.
Walther, Joseph B., with Brandon Van Der Heide, Sang-Yeon Kim, David Westerman, and Stephanie Tom Tong
2008 The Role of Friends’ Appearance and Behavior on Evaluations of Individuals on Facebook: Are We Known by the Company We Keep? Human Communication Research 34(1):28-49.
Yee, Nick and Jeremy Bailenson
2007 The Proteus Effect: The Effect of Transformed Self-representation on Behavior. Human Communication Research 33(3):271–90.
Ali Cresap
Melissa Flores
Stephanie Lewis
Cynthia Lopez
For many college students, the routine is the same when accessing the Internet. If checking your Facebook profile isn’t the first priority, it is safe to say it is the second priority next to email. However, as the popular social networking site continues to evolve, new issues arise for its users. Originally targeted toward college campuses, Facebook attracted thousands of students as a means to connect with their peers and create an online identity. Two years after its creation, Facebook opened its network to anyone over the age of thirteen with an email address. This greatly impacted the dynamics of Facebook; not only could a college peer ask to be your friend but so could your professor. An even more controversial friend request is one coming from your parent, a common phenomenon with the growth of older users. As Facebook evolved into an open social networking site, it has raised issues of identity and intimacy for users who have parents using Facebook.
Inspired by a book of headshots with basic biographical data distributed at Harvard every year, ambitious undergraduate Mark Zuckerberg created the social network site ““Facebook”” in his dorm room in February of 2004. Initially open to Harvard undergraduates, Facebook spread like wild fire: “within a day it had signed up 1,200 students; within a month half of the undergraduate population…by September 2005, Facebook was claiming that 85% of all students at the 882 colleges it supported had Facebook profiles, 60% of whom logged in daily” (Grimmelmann 2008:6). Facebook was an undeniable hit among college students. As students registered for a Facebook profile they uploaded heaps of personal information and pictures. In this way students created an online identity. In addition to creating their own identity, students were able to explore the identities of their friends or others in their school’s network. Facebook was the “way students found out what everyone around them was like and what he or she was doing” (Thompson 2006). In this way, through the database of online depictions of oneself Facebook began to form an intimate community of users. As Facebook evolved, the mini-feed was created in September of 2006. This altered Facebook in a way that allowed users more recent information about their friends without need to search for it as it was displayed on the user’s homepage. In his article, “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy,” author Clive Thompson illustrates how such immediate, personal, incessant online contact has created “ambient awareness.” Ambient awareness is described as the feeling of being physically near someone and the ability to pick up on their current mood, while not being physically near them at all. As the mini-feed altered the intimacy of the networking site, another change sparked who one could be intimate with on Facebook.
Simultaneous with the creation of the mini-feed was Facebook’s movement in September 2006: registration for anyone. This created the opportunity for parents and their college children to become friends on Facebook. As youth, members of the digital generation, join social networking sites they are “coming of age and struggling
for autonomy and identity as did their predecessors, but they are doing so amid reconfigured contexts for communication, friendship, play, and self-expression” (Mimi Ito et al. 2008:5). Social networking sites for younger generations create an opportunity to create an identity online and socialize with increased intimacy of ambient awareness. However, the tables turn with the possibility that your mother and father can view this online identity. Where do parents find their place within the social networking site? Why are they interested in it? And how do they feel about viewing their child’s personal information if allowed to? With 175 million users on Facebook and the fasting growing demographic being users over 30, issues of intimacy and identity within nuclear family members are continuing to occur. This paper will attempt to outline the way in which parents and children interact on Facebook. It will demonstrate how the expansion of Facebook to a network that allows anyone to register alters issues of identity and intimacy between children and their parents.
Within this research paper are the outlined methods we used to gather our data. These methods led us to results which could be categorized into three groups: parents who rejected their parent’s friendship request on Facebook, children who left their parent’s friend requests pending, and children who accepted their parent’s occasionally modifying their profile. It should be noted that within this research paper the term “child” or “children” does not refer to users in their adolescence rather users who are out of high school who have parents on the social networking site.
Methods
The foundation for the methods was rooted in two Facebook groups called Facebook and family and Have your parents friended you on Facebook? Group invites were sent to all of our friends but specifically targeted those who we felt might be able to contribute to our research, i.e., friends who have accepted relatives. A message was sent with the group invite asking people politely not to delete or reject our invite without first reading it. In the basic info section of the group page we specified that we were UCI students conducting research on social networking sites, specifically Facebook, and the effects it had on family relationships. We also specified that all posts made on the group wall or discussion board could be used in our research project unless they specifically asked us not to use the information they provided. Group members were also encouraged to notify us if they had any questions or concerns.
To get a discussion going, we posted a set of questions on the wall of each group. The questions were straightforward and kept simple to encourage group members to participate:
Facebook and family
1. Have you been friend requested by relatives, e.g., mom, dad, child, grandparents, aunts, uncle, etc.? Did you add them? Why or why not?2. Was there any hesitation in adding relatives to your Facebook accounts?3. Have you modified your Facebook so that they only have access to certain things on your account?
Have your parents friended you on Facebook?
Student survey:
1) Have your parents/family members “friended” you on Facebook? Did you add them right away or are they still pending? Why?2) Did you block any part of your profile page in order to hide information from your parents? Why?3) Why do you think your parents have a Facebook page? Do you think they want to spy on you? Do you think they have it just to network and communicate with their friends?4) If they are still pending or you denied them, do you think it hurts their feelings?5) Do you think parents should be allowed to have a Facebook?
Parent Survey:
1) What motivated you to create a Facebook profile?2) Do you use it to keep in touch with your kids or to network and communicate with friends and co-workers?3) Do you feel you are spying on your kids/checking up on them? Why or why not?4) If you have not been accepted as a friend yet or your child denied you, did it hurt your feelings?5) Do you feel that you know your child better after seeing their profiles and pictures? Did you become closer?6) How do you think your children feel about you having a Facebook?
During our fieldwork, we found that we had to modify our methods for gaining information on more than one occasion. People were not as compliant as we had hoped, or expected them to be. Our strategy of forming a group that our friends could join was off to a great start. However, we found that although people were adding to the groups, many were not participating in the discussions, and the ones who were kept their answers pretty concise. We modified the questions a few times and sent out messages to our friends asking them to please help us out, reminding them that this was an actual assignment. Of course the majority said they would participate, but not many of them did. We did get a few great responses that contributed to our findings but we felt we needed to try a different strategy to obtain better results. We turned to interviews and online chatting. We found this method to be more useful, as people were more open and elaborated on their answers in a one on one conversation. In addition to the online groups and interviews, research through literature about social networking sites and family relations were found through article databases like Jstor, new websites, (specifically The Washington Post), and Facebook groups who protested parents accounts.
Results
As previously mentioned, the results our methods uncovered were placed into three categories: parents and children who decided not to be friends on Facebook, children who left their parents pending, and children who accepted the friend request and sometimes modified their profile while doing so. Through the results it became apparent that when asked to be a friend by their parent on Facebook the issue of their online identity was questioned. This is interesting given the fact that most often a parent is a relationship considered more intimate than some of the friends users add.
Parents and Children who are not friends on Facebook
This category of results describes parents and their children who both have Facebook accounts but have chosen not to be friends. Of the research we collected through our Facebook group there were two sets of parents and children who had chosen to not be friends. One set of participants in this category was a mom and a daughter, the daughter stating, “I wouldn’t want my mom to see my partying pictures, my account is personal, kind of like a diary, it’s for the world to see but not my mom.” The mom made no comment in response to her daughter rejecting the friend request. The daughters opinion of strangers being able to see her profile is illustrated by the fact that, “approximately 80% of one college’s Facebook using sample indicated that total strangers on their own campus view their Facebook profiles, and nearly 40% believe that total strangers from other universities view their profiles as well” (Walther et al. 2008:31). While the daughter was comfortable with strangers seeing her online identity, that relationship with her mother was unacceptable. The second set of participants in this category was a mother and a son. The son commented that, “I rejected my mom because I feel like she’s too old to be on Facebook…I told her she’s not allowed to add any of my friends either.” In response to her son’s rejected friend request the mom stated that, “I wasn’t sure if he would add me but I didn’t realize he would be so weirded out by it.” While both children were uncomfortable with the invasion of privacy, an interesting point can be made about the second participant’s desire for his mom not to add his friends. As illustrated in the article, “The Role of Friends’ Appearance and Behavior on Evaluations of Individuals on Facebook: Are We Known by the Company We Keep?“ users on Facebook can use other user’s profiles to seek information about a third party. Further information gained on another’s site is, “considered more reliable than self-disclosed claims of the same nature. Thus, in a Facebook profile, things that others say about a target may be more compelling than things an individual says about his- or herself.” Attempting to keep his online identity private from his mother, the son was smart in asking his mom not to add his friends, as they could lead to more valid information of the son’s online characteristics.
Further data on this category was collected through the news website Washington Post and Facebook groups protesting parent’s access. As demonstrated in a Washington Post article, “When Mom or Dad Asks To Be a Facebook Friend” many children who rejected their parent’s friend requests did so because they felt it was an invasion of privacy. However, Facebook groups banning parents were a bit more ruthless. Such group opinions varied from it being hilarious, to parents being too old, to it being nosy, intrusive and outrageous. As illustrated the main point within this results category was the fact that it was an invasion of privacy, users didn’t feel their parents needed to see the life they conducted online.
When Parents Were Left Pending
When someone is “friended” they must either accept the request or deny it, otherwise the request is left pending. In analyzing the relationship between parents and children on Facebook, we wanted to uncover how many students hesitated before adding or denying their parents, and the reasons for doing so. A few informants left their parents pending for a few days before deciding to add them, while another child left his mom pending indefinitely and with no intention of accepting her request. The majority had the same reason for hesitation: they needed to modify their profiles first. One informant elaborated on this fact in the student survey by stating, “Yes, my mom did friend me and no I did not accept it right away. There are a lot of pictures that I felt she would not like to see. I don’t hide anything from her and she knows that I’m a little bit of a wild child, but there’s a difference from knowing and then actually seeing. So I actually added her to my limited profile!” Another informant similarly mentioned that she “blocked any drunken pictures, etc.” from her mom. Surprisingly, one child did not have any embarrassing pictures to hide. His reasoning for leaving his mother pending was strictly a matter of privacy: “I’d rather her not view my pics/comments. She trusts me and all but I don’t like it when she asks me questions about my personal life; it kind of weirds me out.” He felt that leaving her pending was not as harsh or extreme as completely rejecting her friend request, but did not plan on ever accepting the request.
For the most part, children left their parents pending in order to hide pictures that might get them into trouble, but this decision also had to do with profile comments. Facebook allows users to control every aspect of their profiles in terms of what other users are allowed to see, but it is impossible to control what comments are written. These comments or “wall posts” as they are referred to on Facebook, can be just as incriminating as photos depending on what people write. “Postings by other people on one’s own profile reflect the character of the individuals who made the postings, [but] it is also possible that observers’ reactions of those others may affect perceptions of the target profile maker as well, even though the profile maker his- or herself did not initiate or condone the postings” (Walther et al. 2008:29). In other words, comments contribute to the overall image of the Facebook user. The male informant previously mentioned did not want his mother scrutinizing the comments posted on his profile for two reasons: he could not control their content and they could be easily misunderstood. Facebook does allow users to privatize the entire “wall,” but in his case it was easier to leave his mother pending, thereby keeping his profile unchanged and inaccessible. As members in this group also felt the need to protect their privacy they also unveiled the need to hide the way others create their online identity from the intimate real life relationship with their parent.
People Who Accepted and Sometimes Modified Profiles for Parents
Much to our surprise we found that the majority of people that had accepted relatives as friends didn’t modify their profiles. Of the 20 responses we used for this part of our research, 14 responded as having nothing to hide from their family. Some of the responses were:
“I’m not forced to put anything I don’t want to on Facebook or MySpace. I can choose to put whatever I want on my profile, if there was something I felt was better left unknown by certain people, I would leave it out all together. Why risk the chance of information you don’t want people to know getting out.”
“I didn’t find a need to modify. It’s a great way to keep in touch.”
“I keep no secrets from my mom, she’s my best friend. I have no problem giving her access to my college life. But she has mentioned that there are some things she wishes she hadn’t seen, like pictures of me wasted with a drawing of big cock on my face that my buddy drew. That was a crazy night.”
“I know my parents use Facebook to keep tabs on me and I am ok with that. I think it’s cute. I don’t restrict them from anything. I figure they might as well know what I’m doing…which sadly isn’t much.”
“None of my relatives on Facebook have limited access to my info. Most of them are cousins, around my age so we have this unwritten rule that we don’t rat each other out.”
The remaining six responses stated that they had modified their profiles a bit but gave different reasons why:
“Initially I had gave my mom open access to my profile so that she could feel as close to me as possible being that she’s in Chile. But that changed quickly after she began punishing me for things she would see on my Facebook profile, specifically my pictures. She would leave comments in caps followed by exclamation points under certain pictures. She was doing it so much that I became nervous when I’d log on. I put a stop to that quick style. I felt bad because my dad’s cool but I had to restrict him because my mom would over power him.”
“Haha yesss! I have her on my limited profile that way her and I can still chat amongst one another, but also so she doesn’t see my whole life at school.”
“I’m trying to get my sister to join Facebook; she lives in Honduras with my mom. Once she joins I will probably modify some things on my profile. Mainly my pictures just because I don’t want my mom to worry about me or the things I do.”
From our research we found that most of the students who had relatives on Facebook didn’t modify their profiles. A popular response among them was that they felt it was a great way to keep in touch with family. They saw Facebook as a great way to share their experiences with relatives who may be spread out across the globe. From the users who did modify, we found that the main feature they were keeping their relatives from was their photo albums. Most of these users felt that their pictures said more to their relatives than anything they could write on their profiles. A fundamental aspect of identity in a social networking site is, “the mutability of our self-representation in online environments” (Yee & Bailenson 2007:272). The ability to change your identity in an online environment and as a result change your behavior is described as the Proteus Effect. This is useful in understanding why children might modify their profile when allowing an intimate relative like a parent to view it. Since the parent knows their identity in the real world, the online identity might not match up and for this reason might create the need for modification. Some said they modified out of respect for their parents while others said that their parents didn’t need to know everything about them. As for who were the relatives who were restricted to limited access, in our small sample we found parents to be the ones who were the most restricted. Most of the users felt comfortable with aunts, uncles, cousins and siblings having unlimited access but not parents.
Conclusion
In the opinion of many undergraduates, it may seem unreal to imagine parents having any kind of social life. Some assume the reason behind a parent creating a Facebook account is simply for the spying privileges that they will receive. This fact may be true in some cases but does not seem to be proving true in all. Among the many that were interviewed, most parents admitted to liking Facebook as a social network and using it for the same reasons students stated. As is the slogan on the homepage of the Facebook network, “Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.” Parents can use Facebook as a great way to advertise for business, create awareness of a problem, and reconnect with old friends and classmates. Indeed Facebook has an eager and growing community in the 30-year-old and older user. One interviewee remarked, “Yea, my dad and his co-worker were having a bet to see who could have the most friends on here. My dad’s winning so far.” Overall it has become apparent that parents enjoy Facebook for the same reasons that their children are attracted to it: to connect socially. A contrast noticed within the research was the students desire to branch out to find new friends and acquaintances, especially within a college environment for which the site was originally created. It is important here to note that although the patterns of the parents and their kids may differ slightly, the idea is still the same, and both choose to utilize the site in similar ways.
A last detail to mention is the fact that a lot of parents do create Facebook accounts in order to become friends with their children, but it’s not for the reason many kids assume. With a lot of child-parent relationships now being separated and strained by the rigors of college life, Facebook provides a quick and easy way for parents and their children to stay connected. One parent wrote, “Sometimes seeing what pics or videos or quotes they choose to post helps me feel I know them better. Being able to post quick updates sometimes brings our far flung kids and me closer.” It is in this sense that we again see the reality of ‘ambient awareness’ in the fact that while parents may not necessarily be in physical proximity to their kids they can still keep updated and maintain close ties, as well as kids staying updated about what’s going on in their parent’s lives. However while parents seek to maintain this close relationship with their children, children are presented with the task to allow or reject their parents from their online identity.
In the end this study yielded many fascinating results and brings up even more questions for future studies. If this study were to be redone some things that may have been overlooked would be brought to light. One of the corrections we would choose to make is changing our methods of research, more importantly our interviewing techniques. While we found the Facebook groups that were created to be very helpful, one thing we would have changed was the fact that both parents and their kids were invited to the same group. A separate group for each would have been more helpful in getting honest answers from each party. The way in which the questions were set up allowed both the parents and kids to view each others’ answers. Also we would have liked to do more face-to-face interviews and collect a broader scope of both parents and their kids to interview. The results of our findings showed that there were many different responses to parents and kids “friending” each other. We found responses such as flat out rejection, holding an invitation as “pending”, the alteration or limitation of profiles, as well as genuine friend acceptance. Through all the varying responses we found that in some way or another, the relationship between a parent and child did play an important role, especially in relation to the child’s online identity created through their pictures, “about me” and wall. Further research has pointed out the different uses that parents and their kids have on social networking sites, but when it comes to Facebook, children and parents have a lot more in common than they think.
Bibliography
Digital Learning
2008 Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project. Electronic document, http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/files/report/digitalyouth-WhitePaper.pdf, accessed March 1, 2009.
Grimmelmann, James
2008 Facebook and the Social Dynamics of Privacy. Iowa Law Review 95(4).
New York Times
2008 Brave New World of Digital Intimacy. Electronic document, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07awareness-t.html?_r=3&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin, accessed March 3, 2009.
Walther, Joseph B., with Brandon Van Der Heide, Sang-Yeon Kim, David Westerman, and Stephanie Tom Tong
2008 The Role of Friends’ Appearance and Behavior on Evaluations of Individuals on Facebook: Are We Known by the Company We Keep? Human Communication Research 34(1):28-49.
Yee, Nick and Jeremy Bailenson
2007 The Proteus Effect: The Effect of Transformed Self-representation on Behavior. Human Communication Research 33(3):271–90.
Facebook.relationships
Facebook.relationships
A research article for Anthropology 128C: Cyberspace, Power, and Culture
Introduction 2-3
(The Abstract. AEMEA formation, research background, data methods)
Broad Relationships 3-5
(presented by Ms. Ej Cruz)
Professional Relationships 5-7
(presented by Mr. Emmanuel Arreola)
Friendships 7-8
(presented by Ms. Avi Jayasekara)
Family Relationships 8-10
(presented by Mr. Anton Sisante)
Romantic Relationships 10-12
(presented by Ms. Melissa Obregon)
Citations 13
Data 14-24
(some of the ethnographic data attached)
INTRODUCTION
Unlike the days of the telegraph, as described in The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage, Facebook allows a means of extension to the individual’s network so that it spans out to far regions of the world. With the telegraph, individuals were only able to express their communication through beeps, dots, and dashes1. The relationships that stemmed between individuals during these days were only familial, professional, or romantic. There wasn’t much room to expand to a network of relationships. Now that we have Facebook, individuals have the ability to network with people on the other side of the world using many different forms of communication, and create a vast array of relationships.
Facebook is an online social-networking medium developed by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and his classmates in 20042. These people made it possible for internet-users from any part of the world to rekindle and connect with old friends and/or family, find love/continue love through an online medium, get a fresh update on a co-worker, or randomly meet people in and/or out of a network. The user of Facebook is represented through a user profile and the individual may choose to “add a friend” from anywhere they wish on Facebook…so long as the other individual accepts the friend request. This commutation is of great importance; because of this distinctive feature, individuals now have a mode of classification as to what type of relationship has been developed between one individual to another. In a sense, the “Facebook relationship” has emerged.
The AEMEA group chose to conduct research specifically on these distinguished “Facebook relationships.” The group rigorously researched, conducted work, and theorized upon whether these Facebook relationships contribute to the strengthening or weakening of the relationship because of the usage of the Facebook platform. AEMEA’s strategy to collect data consisted of the utilization of their individual Facebook networks. Interviews were sent to many individuals from their array of Facebook relationships as well as joining groups that have had conducted Facebook research in the past. Personal face-to-face interviews were also sought out. “Survey Monkey” was the model for statistical data, and some members of the group exploited synchronous forms of online communication such as AIM to gather information. A Facebook Group was created between members to share data with one another.
AEMEA decided that Facebook relationships can be sliced into five categories: broad relationships, professional relationships, friendships, family relationships, and romantic relationships. From this point on, it can be understood that the relationships mentioned in this article are part of the observed Facebook platform3. The regional range of the Facebook users that AEMEA observed consisted of networks such as: Orange County, Saddleback College, and UC Irvine. The people observed were between 11 to 60 years of age. We shall start with broad relationships as the first topic, since it is the most general and branches off to more localized relationships.
BROAD RELATIONSHIPS
The AEMEA group based broad relationships upon the following characteristics:
Individuals have no ongoing communication history of friendship
Individuals aren’t particularly self-disclosed with one another, but share a mutual network
Individuals have shared a past friendship, but have lost touch
Individuals may have met once or have never met the other in the corporeal world
There are two ways these broad relationships can be strengthened or weakened. The first way is through a mode of observable preconceptions between the mutual friends. These preconceptions are the public information the individual chooses to disclose to their public, their network of mutual friends. Through this, the mutual friend has the ability to do a “background check” on their broad relationship networks. These observable preconceptions are quantified by the amount of activity the individual spends on Facebook. The most ubiquitous of these preconceptions is the Facebook status updates. The choice of this feature was obtained through the Facebook research group portal4 and a YouTube video called “Facebook Fever,” through a user known as Zippy5. Through this exclusive feature, the mutual friend can view preliminary sketches of their broad relationships and form an implicit bias in the broad relationship.
The status updates feature on Facebook are simple sentence boxes where users constantly express their thoughts or what they’re feeling to their public at a certain point in time. The AEMEA group researched the effects of status updates on broad relationships. An interview that was conducted by one AEMEA member through AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) group chat questioned three of their friends who used Facebook often and kept a numerous network of broad relationships. The three individuals had a total of at least fifty added friends to their account. They expressed mixed emotions when asked about status updates. “Some [status updates] end up being funny, so funny that I laugh my pants off… but most of the time—these people’s updates are all about fml, fml, FML!6 It just gets played out, I don’t need to know if your life sucks. Tell me something I don’t know already, like…who’s your new boo!7”
These findings show the impact an individual can create without initially speaking with their mutual friend beforehand. When the mutual friend updates their status, mutual peers can become turned off with their personality just by reading the sentence box. This is especially true when the individual updates their status in a negative notion. One of the three peers who were interviewed on AIM group chat added, “You really get a feel of what the person is like through their status updates. From the news feed, I’ve received status updates every hour by one person updating things like ‘text me,’ ‘I’m bored,’ ‘who wants to hang out tonight,’ My reaction?...l0ner!8” The mutual friend who views these status updates internalizes an etic perspective about their mutual friend due to these Facebook status updates. What is fascinating about the status updates feature is the underlying biases that can lead to the strengthening or weakening of the relationship before actual interaction!
The second way a broad relationship can determine strength or weakness is through the asynchronous communication features between mutual friends on Facebook. Data was derived from Facebook groups that had already done Facebook research in the past through questionnaires and surveys. AEMEA found that the most common type of communication used in Facebook was the wall post.
Wall posts are sentence boxes that enable the mutual friend to write a message to the other while it is viewable to the public. Through wall posts, individuals that share a broad relationship can write a quick, “hello” to each other. Eighty percent of the interviewees from a Facebook note questionnaire have stated that their relationship with a mutual friend had strengthened through the continuous use of the wall post. They also informed AEMEA that although they had initial preconceptions about their mutual friend, it was the actual interaction that declared a strong or weak relationship. Sometimes, with frequent asynchronous communications, the broad relationship can be developed further if mutual attraction is present. As stated in Mimi Ito’s article, Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Finding from the Digital Youth Project, these little hellos and emoticons can escalate into further relationships such as romantic relationships or close friendships 9. The remaining twenty percent suggested that Facebook neither strengthened nor weakened their relationship but acted as a supplement to their broad relationship. These twenty percent of users shied away from disclosing too much information on Facebook’s public portal. Users stated that they’d either use the Facebook platform for their mutual network if they had a question about school or if they were also going to an event that will be attended by their same network of peers. Facebook users asserted that the only way they would be bothered by their mutual friends on Facebook is if they constantly kept posting messages onto their wall and replied on the features through their Facebook even when they wouldn’t respond back. A Facebook user coined the term, “Facebook creeper,” for these types of friends.
AEMEA was able to define how to strengthen, weaken or keep a neutral basis between mutual friends on Facebook. We find that it is through observable preconceptions and asynchronous interaction. We will now move onto a more defined relationship on Facebook: Professionalism.
PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIPS
An interesting aspect of the social networking site known as Facebook has been its ability to attract users from different social networks and settings. Interestingly enough, it has found its way into the workplace as mode of communication between co-workers and supervisors. As stated in the Facebook’s press release, “Facebook is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers”11. In regards to this statement, the AEMEA group questioned how has Facebook improved or strengthened the working relationship of others? Or has it had the very opposite effect and instead has negatively impacted these relationships?
AEMEA conducted personal interviews consisting of two past co-workers, a current co-worker, and a past and current supervisor of one of AEMEA’s group members. Each interviewee was “friends” on Facebook with their co-workers and supervisors. In discussing whether or not Facebook had improved the way they communicated and interacted, all had the general consensus that Facebook had a positive but not significant impact on their working relationship.
As Interviewer A stated, “it’s nice knowing and keeping in touch with what is going on in their personal lives, but I don’t think it changes our working relationship at all.” Interviewer D went further on to say that “what goes on in people’s personal lives online (i.e. status updates, wall posts, picture albums, etc.) really never becomes a topic of conversation at work.” When interviewing person C, interviewer C commented that Facebook “in my opinion, helps the working relationship because it’s another way to connect personally outside of the workplace.” In hindsight, there was a general conclusion that Facebook was positive on working relationships as it provided a venue into personal lives but all of them agreed that it did not significantly change the work setting. As Interviewer B elaborated, “it’s just nice seeing another side to my supervisor outside of work.”
An aspect where Facebook has had an impact on professional working relationships is the topic of privacy. How does ambient awareness and privacy affect the professional relationships in the work environment? It was interesting to note that though the interviewees appreciated the fact that they were able to communicate on another level through Facebook, many chose not to. As suggested by the data from the surveys, 75% of them agreed that a working relationship on Facebook differed significantly from other social networks seen. Respondent 1 commented further that “I’m not as active on my supervisor and co-workers profile as I am with my other friends where I comment on photos, make wall posts, etc.” An interesting note from the data collected was that 83% of those that agreed that working relationships on Facebook differed from other social networks also agreed that privacy was the major reason why. Respondent 4 said that “it’s awkward being friends with your boss on Facebook because you don’t know how it will affect your job.” The data collected and answers showed that while having access to one’s profile was one way to connect on a personal level outside of work, it did not significantly improve or weaken the working relationship.
So with this ambient awareness of co-workers and supervisors and the risk of no privacy, I posed the question to my survey respondents and interviewees: does having a working relationship on Facebook prove to be beneficial? The general consensus from my interviewees responded yes and surprisingly so did my survey respondents. Ambient awareness was found to be a positive outcome from Facebook because it helped gain a better understanding of those at the work place. Interviewer E provided more insight as she commented that “I understand why people are having bad days at the office or why they looked so stressed; Facebook sometimes helps me know how to act around them.” This comment is reminiscent of the Clive Thompson article in which he described ambient awareness as having an “omnipresent knowledge.12”
Though many of the interviewees agreed that Facebook has had no significant impact, the benefit of ambient awareness has had positive effect on the relationships seen at work. Thus, with data collected, Facebook has indeed helped improve the communication in the work environment as suggested by its press release statement.
FRIENDSHIP
While both broad and professional relationships have been affected through Facebook, a more personal relationship that has been impacted both negatively and positively is friendships. It is clear that as a social networking site, Facebook has opened many new avenues for new friendships to form and foster. Merriam-Webster defines a friend as “one attached to another by affection or esteem13”. With this definition of a friend, Facebook opened up a new world of opportunities for people to keep in touch with friends and make new ones. However, with all these changes and ways to make new friends, how has Facebook changed the way that we, as a society, interact with our pre-existing friends? Has our communication with these friends deteriorated or strengthened through Facebook?
AEMEA questioned interviewees if they felt facebook made a difference in the way their friendships are viewed. All 4 responded yes, they did in fact feel as if facebook had made a difference in this. One interviewee responded, “I have a broader definition of the term friends. Without Facebook I probably would only consistently speak with my family and one or two people on occasion. With Facebook I speak to people the same sparse amount but with a much larger base so it seems like a lot more. Basically Facebook allows me to have the ideal friend spread out through many people”14. From Survey Monkey, 70% of the respondents felt that Facebook had changed their relationships with their friends.
However, when AEMEA changed the question slightly and questioned interviewees as to whether Facebook has strengthened their friendships, only 40% said yes, 50% said sometimes, and the other 10% said no. One survey respondent says “If anything, I think that Facebook has weakened relationships. Sometimes it feels as though you reply to wall posts or messages simply to reciprocate, as if it were to ensure equal exchange rather than a message with an inherent purpose”15. Another suggests, “I am not naturally outgoing, so I do not keep friends that easily. Facebook allows me to keep in touch with people without all of the hassle that a phone or face-to-face conversation would require”16. In one of our class readings the authors suggest that “online social networking systems can help individuals to maintain a larger number of close ties than people can typically maintain without such technology, as the systems allow people to check one another’s sites for updates, reflect new activities, as well as to facilitate brief verbal exchanges through asynchronous wall postings”17. The ability to communicate so easily has both positive and negative outcomes. Like the author says its more than typically possible, so one has to think when does this kind of communication become too much.
AEMEA questioned Facebook users whether or not they preferred Facebook communication over physical gatherings and telecommunication devices. 40% of the respondents said yes, 50% said sometimes, while only 10% said no. From these findings, it is clear that Facebook has made face to face interactions a rare occasion. Interviewees responded “Phone calls and personal meetings in general are becoming obsolete in this generation, as there are many passive ways of communicating nowadays”18. When AEMEA surveyed the Facebook users as to whether they think this bothers their friends, 80% responded ’no,’ they do not tell me that they do it just as often, and so they probably prefer it [Facebook communication] themselves.”
While communication between friends is rising, face to face communication is falling dramatically. Staying in touch has become easier, but only through the words that appear on the computer screen. The survey respondents do not seem to feel, that this is a deterioration of their friendships; rather, they express that Facebook has created avenues for some to express themselves more due to shyness, personality trails or time constraints in real life. One respondent commented, “Asian's are not that open. They're very insecure. They will be much more comfortable when they don't see the face of the person”19. This ability to express themselves more openly crosses into other relationships, such as those with family, as will be further explained.
FAMILIAL RELATIONSHIPS
The easy accessibility of Facebook allows users an alternative approach to keeping in touch with family. In particular, there appears to be a significant increase in the amount of kinships maintaining interfamilial connections through Facebook. This has been revolutionizing the way communication between family members is established to build potentially stronger relationships.
To demonstrate this, one of AEMEA’s group members obtained opinions on the idea of familial relationships on Facebook from several family members within his own kinship and compared this to the consensus held by a group of Facebook users who are not part of his own lineage. Using the participant-observation method, the AEMEA member was able to conduct seven open-ended interviews with various family members who have profiles on Facebook. Such members ranged from those that he regularly keeps in contact with to those that he has never even met in person. The open-ended questions were created on a Facebook Note that tagged 25 family members whose ages ranged anywhere from 14 to 68. Answers from this sample group represent this age range. Since the type and strength of familial bond he shared among those of interviewed family members on Facebook greatly varied, the information obtained can be used as a model for one type of kinship found in Facebook. For future reference, all family members cited will be given aliases to protect their identities.
For Facebook users that did not belong to his family, a survey was posted on a note that everyone within his Facebook networks would be able to view and access. The survey listed the same questions sent to family members albeit with pre-determined answer choices that survey takers would chose from. From this data, 16 anonymous surveys were collected whose collective answers represent a random population.
When asked whether Facebook was a useful tool in improving relationships between family members, 84% of his familial respondents believed that Facebook has generally strengthened such relationships. The other 16% believed that no significant change occurred between their relationships. Among those that felt Facebook has improved relations cite that the website acts as a convenient medium to keep in touch with family overseas. In particular, one family member, Teresa, explains that with Facebook, “You don’t have to pay for long-distance phone calls to know what is going on with your family members living far away from you.” Compared to the random group, 93% reported no significant change between them and their own family members while the other 7% reported a significant improvement.
A follow-up question asked whether there were significant communication differences between different networks (friends, family, coworkers, etc.) on Facebook. 84% of the interviewees explained that depending on the family member, communication can either be comparable to that seen among their own friends or conducted more respectfully if directed towards an older member. The remaining 16% felt there was no significant difference in communication between networks. Additionally, every member felt that in general, communication among kin did not differ between cyberspaces and physically in person. Similarly, 70% of survey participants thought communication among family members compared to other networks depended upon both age and closeness to that family member. On the other hand, 30% cited there is less intimacy with family members on Facebook compared to friends on other networks.
Another question that was asked considered the effect of ‘ambient awareness’ on familial relationships. Ambient awareness in this context is defined as the information a Facebook user indirectly obtains about another user – i.e. status updates, pictures, notes, etc.20 In this case, 71% of the interviewees as well as the general consensus among survey-takers believed that ambient awareness provides an opportunity to learn more interesting, intimate details about family members that may not have been learned otherwise. However, a couple of family members found the concept of ambient awareness creepy and voyeuristic to a certain extent. One respondent, Roger, reported, “To me ambient awareness is almost like stalking because people get to know everything that’s going on with me!! It’s almost scary.”
Despite this, Facebook is still highly regarded as a useful tool for maintaining and even strengthening familial relationships. 81% of survey respondents claim that the benefits for having family members as ‘Facebook-friends’ outweigh any negatives. Even censorship does not seem to be much of an issue affecting the decision to befriend any particular family member. 100% of family correspondents do not enable privacy restrictions for photos or profile content. Similarly, 50% of the survey takers leave their profile as is, free for any family member to view. Although it seems “young people tend to avoid their parents and other adults while using social network sites”21, such a generational gap seems to be closing as more people are starting to use Facebook to maintain a large multitude of contacts. Given enough time, it would be interesting to see whether having family connections in social networking sites becomes an expected norm. In the meantime, the trend of having romantic relationships on Facebook may even be closer to achieving that social norm.
ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS
Facebook has had a large impact on various facets of our society. Not only has it impacted friendships, familial relationships, and relationships between employees but it has also played a large role in romantic relationships. Some of the roles it has played are enhancing long distance relationships, creating jealousy, and affecting the status of a relationship. The first area that it has impacted is the quality of a relationship. According to the survey, 85% of people in a long distance relationship believed that facebook had a positive influence on their relationship. During an interview, Boyfriend A stated “Facebook has enhanced my relationship with my girlfriend of 2 years and is part of the reason we are still together.” Throughout his interview, he explained that being able to see his girlfriend through pictures she had posted on her Facebook gave him a feeling of closeness. He stated, “I felt like I was able to be there with her through the past year because she would constantly update her photos of events that she had gone to and places she had visited.” In addition, Girlfriend K explained that being away from her boyfriend was made a little easier through Facebook because she was able to make posts throughout the day and see what he was doing during his year away at school through pictures. Overall, Facebook has been able to strengthen long distance relationships by providing another form of communication for individuals through wall posts and picture sharing.
However, not all participants in the survey and interviews agreed with Boyfriend A. Compared to those not in a long distance relationship, 60% believed that it did not enhance their relationship. In addition, 55% reported that Facebook had promoted distrust and jealousy. Girlfriend P explained throughout her interview that she monitored her boyfriend’s Facebook daily and would check what types of comments and private messages he was receiving and from whom he was receiving messages. 45% of females in a relationship accessed their boyfriends’ Facebook account at least twice a month. In addition, there were 15% of individuals in long distance relationships that felt like Facebook did not enhance their relationships. According to Boyfriend T, he felt that Facebook enhanced mistrust between his girlfriend and him. When asked about the effect facebook had on their relationship he stated, “it has made me paranoid and worried…I find myself constantly looking at her page, status changes and pictures to see if there is anything she may be lying about.” He went on to discuss that the distance between them has created problems within the relationship because he is able to see all the pictures that are posted from different parties and he questions some of the pictures where there are other men. Thus, data regarding whether or not facebook has strengthened or weakened romantic relationships reveals that it mostly strengthens long distance relationships and tends to create jealousy and mistrust among romantic relationships that are close in distance.
Facebook has also affected the status of one’s relationship. According to the survey, 62% of individuals reported that their relationship status on their Facebook accounts was changed within 48 hours of becoming an official couple. This reveals that in a way, people view Facebook as making a relationship official. Girlfriend C explained in her interview that her official anniversary with her boyfriend was the day he changed his status on facebook. In addition, 73% of surveyed individuals reported that they changed their profile pictures when they were in fights with their boyfriends and 50% reported changing their relationship status within 48 hours of breaking up. The status one has on Facebook is thus extremely important and defines, in many cases, one’s relationship.
Facebook has also created deception within relationships. According to the survey, 38% of individuals had multiple Facebook accounts. One individual in the interview stated that he had one account for his friends and another for his girlfriend and their mutual friends. Throughout this interview subject M revealed a very in depth scheme that he had going on. At the time of the interview he was in a relationship with two other girls and in order to keep them from finding out about each other he created multiple accounts. In one account he had girlfriend #1 and their mutual friends, and on another account he had girlfriend #2. Each account was set to private which disabled others from viewing their comments. When girlfriend #1 became suspicious he reassured her that nothing was going on and gave her the password to the account he had made specifically for her. Thus when she would check his account she never found anything suspicious because it was all on the other account she did not have access to. Although Facebook has strengthened relationships by creating new forms of communication, it has also increased jealously, distrust and deception within other relationships.
CONCLUSION
While each relationship within facebook has been impacted in its own unique way, it is safe to say that Facebook has had the ability to reach all social spheres. Thus, AEMEA’s findings have shown that relationships on Facebook find a strengthening and/or weakening of their relationship through the extent to which it is used. The Facebook platform can strengthen, weaken or have no significant effect on a relationship. Much of the effect that Facebook has had on relationships depended on the individuals themselves, and how they interacted with one another through facebook. While it is true that new technologies like facebook has opened new paths of communication, in the end it is how we as a society utilize these opportunities that make a difference in current standing of our daily relationships.
Footnotes:
Tom Standage, The Victorian Internet, Preface and Chapters 1–8 (pages vii–144).
Lev Grossman, Why Facebook Is for Old Fogies, Thursday February 12 , 2009. Time. www.time.com.
Consider in the Facebook platform only. Corporeal relationships can be defined in a multitude of ways.
Mutual Friends in this article are not to be mistaken for the “mutual friends in common” feature on Facebook.
Facebook.Com, Groups: “Facebook Status Research!” Stephen Pihlaja.
Christine Gambito, HappySlip, Youtube, January 15, 2009, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV4PNwpqsCc .
“FML” is the equivalence of “fxck my life” or “for my love.”
“Boo” is the equivalence of lover, sweetheart, boyfriend/girlfriend.
“l0ner” is the equivalence of outcast.
Mimi Ito et al, Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project, 2008.
Facebook Press Release. http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?factsheet.
Clive Thompson, Brave New World of Digital Intimacy. New York Times, Sept. 7, 2008.
Merriam-Webster.com, Definition for “friend,” http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/friend).
Avi Jayasekara, Personal Interview, AOL Instant Messenger, Chat, (February 27, 2009)
Survey Respondent, Survey Monkey, www.surveymonkey.com, (February 23, 2009
Survey Respondent, Survey Monkey, www.surveymonkey.com, (February 24, 2009)
Stephanie Tom Tong, Brandon Van Der Heide, Lindsey Langwell, Joseph B. Walther, Too Much of a Good Thing? The Relationship Between Number of Friends and Interpersonal Impressions on Facebook. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13(3):531–49, 2008.
Avi Jayasekara, Personal Interview, AOL Instant Messenger, Chat, (February 23, 2009)
Survey Respondent, Survey Monkey, www.surveymonkey.com, (February 27, 2009)
Clive Thompson, Brave New World of Digital Intimacy. New York Times, Sept. 7, 2008.
Mimi Ito et al, Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project, 2008.
Enthnographic Data:
Answers from Facebook Users via Notes Questionnaire: (names have been changed)
Has the social network of facebook strengthen or improved your relationship? Has it weakened it? Give a brief story.2. Are there certain communication differences between how you communicate with the different networks (your relationships between people) you have within facebook? (ie: how do you communicate bff vs. friend vs. coworker vs. family vs. schoolmate)3. How does you communication change from facebook to the way you communicate with them in real world (ie are you more open, closed...)4. How does ambient awareness affect your relationships (ie status updates, pictures, wall posts, notes...)5. Do you have different types of censorship/restrictions for different people and what determines it?6. what kind of communication do you utilize the most within facebook (wall posts, msgs, graffiti, picture comments, status...) and how does that differ from real world?7. How do you feel when people you aren't as acquainted with (mutual friend, distant friend) leave you wall posts, respond to your status, and all forms of communication media on your Facebook? Why do you feel this way?8. What is your reaction when you add a family member (nuclear family, relatives) to your Facebook? Does it cause any conflicts?9. Can romantic relationships be strengthened through Facebook? Can it be weakened through Facebook? How and why?10. Why do you have a Facebook?
Lyle Forgenburger:
Facebook has yet to do anything towards my status in life. I haven't use it to it's full potential and I am sure it would have some rewards and consequences.2. I communicate to everyone on Facebook equally which is for fun. 3. I tried to synchronize my behavior exactly on the internet with real life: Cheezy easy!4. My relationship seems to be improving as I am using ambient awareness at a minimum level. I wonder what happens if I go max?5. You know the "Give happiness to others, and happiness is given back"?6. The Instant Message Feature, Inbox, and the Status Change.7. Depends what they leave me.8. No. They respect my privacy. We have the if you see it, "Don't ask, don't tell" policy.9. I have no idea. Never been in a romantic relationship online, so I really do not have a say here.10. Better than MySpace, and I can find my buds relatively easy.
Surge Smith:
1.I feel like I'm more in the loop with FB. People use it more often and give it a lot of input. Also, the Birthday function is pretty useful.2. Not so much. I type to them the same way that I would speak to them.3. Just about the same--if at all, less closed as there are some things that I wouldn't want everyone to read.4. Once again, I just feel like I'm more in the loop and know more about others.5. Nope--I should, but I don't have sensitive material on my FB, or at least I don't think I do.6. Wall posts definitely. It's less personal, not in real time, but just as convenient as a text message. It's like having a pause button for a conversation.7. It gives me a false sense that others are interested in the mundane things that I do. But it is appreciated that people take the time to comment. All in all, it feels good--seriously, like a drug.8. Haven't had an issue at all as it doesn't seem any different from adding friends.9. One phrase: Facebook stalking.
Riley Whittier:
If anything it's given me an easy way to communicate to other friends of mine in a widespread fashion. Such as the Apac mixer event is much easier to invite everybody to through creating an event. And many of the apac'ers use their facebook often. Definitely helps. Although the electronic nature of facebook weakens friendships and relationships; Through normal activity the relationships still build. Overall it strengthens more than weakens because I can reach people in a quick manner. leaving them comments and posting pictures giving us more conversation and things to talk about.
No there is not. I communicate the same amount through facebook that I would normally with the person. I could see why this question is of concern. The boundaries for me, because I'm an open person are disregarded.
I am not more open; but I may be more wordy than How i normally speak and I may type things wrong which I would not say that way. (internet slang) Otherwise there is no significant difference.
it keeps me updated on whats going on and shows me what people want to share with others via status updates. fills me in on what i can talk about with people next time I see them. etc. I can understand that it may have negative effects as well; for me Its strictly informational to conversational.
no
6. It used to be graffiti but its mostly just wall posts. Nothing different than in the real world. I.e. i just said happy b-day to Nate bone on facebook. but i also called him friday and will greet him to lunch when we go to eat.7. basically it's saying they'd like to know me better. no harm in that. It's filled with positive vibe and I encourage it.8. It could have conflicts if there are things people want to hide from family members. On my personal level with family members I do not mind. I may not want my mom to add me but luckily she doesn't have one. Then she'd know if I was really studying or was doing something she would not approve of.9. This is an extremely subjective question and they can do either. in my opinion it depends on outside of facebook interaction more than in facebook interaction that determines the strength of the relationship. Facebook is merely a minor factor in this equation.10. To do these sorts of things. converse; communicate, express and share.
Taylor Freeman:
1. Facebook hasn’t made too big of an impact on my life yet, only because I don’t use it often enough. However, because of the birthday reminders on the side I now don’t’ forget to greet my friends on their birthdays, if that counts as improving my relationship with the social network.2. yes, I think there is a big difference between how I communicate with the different networks. I think that I put more of my time and attention onto my best friends through facebook, rather than just a schoolmate. For example; a birthday, my best friends get A LONG comment but my schoolmate’s just get a simple “happy birthday! (:” or something small like that.3. I am more closed when it comes to communicating on facebook, because it gets broadcasted to at least a hundred people.4. My relationships improve when I use ambient awareness.5. I don’t have different types of censorship or restrictions for different people.6. I use wall posts and statuses most within facebook. I’m not really sure how it differs from the real world.7. I mean, I guess I feel somewhat good when people I’m not as acquainted with leave me stuff because that means that they go on my facebook and it shows that they somewhat care.8. Haha, adding family is really awkward. More than half of my friends on facebook ARE my family, including my mother and grandma. But it causes a little bit of conflict because that just means I can’t post some things I’d like to post afraid that they will read it. But other than that it’s fine.9. I’m not sure if romantic relationships can be strengthened through Facebook. It can be weakened if one of the people sees a tagged picture or a wall post that they do not approve of and it causes conflict. 10. I have a facebook because it gives me a way to communicate to everyone. Such as, my family in the Philippines, my friends that have moved away for college, and so on. It makes things a lot easier.sorry my answers are so long(: i hope this helps.
Alex Lipschitz:
1 It has strengthened the ones that I started it for. Most of my high school buddies are going to college out of state, and since no one writes letters anymore this is the only way to keep in touch.2. absolutely3. its hard to really communicate with them since body language and tone has so much to do with communication4. It does nothing for me.5. No6. whatever i feel like. I don't use one too much over another7. They leave. people come and go you just have to take what you get.8. I have like only two family members on facebook, and it has brought us a lot closer9. Can't really say. I don't think any of my relationships have be affected. 10. To keep in touch with close friends who have moved away.
Andre Von Swerve:
Facebook has definitely improved some of my friendships, mainly the long distance friends that I have lost touch with since high school or earlier. For example, my friend Simon has been stationed in Kuwait and Iraq for the past year and a half. I lost contact with him since graduating high school and through facebook I was able to keep tabs with him. I eventually met up with him and some friends during his holiday leave this past December.2. I communicate with different networks somewhat differently I would say. The only difference is I may be more rude or blunt to my closer friends just because they can take it and understand my intentions. However with someone I am just acquainted with I usually am a little more polite. For family members, it depends on age and generation. For example, I can talk to my 28 year old cousin Bill like he's my homeboy, but not with my 35 yr old brother.3. I communicate very similarly on facebook and in real life since it is a casual interface for social networks. One difference might be that I might sound more intelligent because every word typed online is just a rough draft of your brain... the words don't come out of your mouth until you click "POST"4. I think all the ambient awareness can have a positive effect on relationships. These are just additional ways to relate with one another. It's basically like a huge public yet private bulletin. My friend Warren and I, who I haven't kept in touch with for a few years, are now more connected all because of his status update saying "plays poker". Just like that I saw him the next week at a home poker game with 8 other people. Also, I never would have gotten into street art (wheatpasting, poster/sticker art) if it weren't for seeing my cousin's work on facebook. I rarely see him since he lives in Glendale, but through facebook I was inspired right away and am now closer to him because of it.5. I have censorships with different people, mainly people who are older than I that require more respect when spoken to. Not to say I don't speak respectfully to my normal peers, it's just that I speak more casually with slang. Some people may get offended but more commonly misunderstand what I am trying to convey. 6. The method of communication I use most on facebook is through private messages and wall posts. This differs from the real world because you can have a million different conversations at once without spending 3 hours on the phone with everyone. It is also different because you can comment about anything from anytime, but in real life comments may seem "random" or people may not relate right away because there is no photo or written record to base off of. It seems to me that it is just another form of digital communication which is prevalent in todays younger generation7. I may feel somewhat surprised only because I don't communicate with the person on a regular basis. However, I do take it kindly as an attempt to open or build a friendship in a way. It also depends if I see the person regularly or not. If someone doesn't say a word to me in the real world and they do on facebook, I figure they may just be shy or intimidated to speak with me directly. If it's someone that I have not met but have seen before, I would definitely feel surprised. There are a lot people in this generation that will have 1500 friends on myspace, and they won't even know half of them!8. My reaction is the same as adding anyone else. There are no conflicts because I don't post inebriated pictures of myself online.... not that I'm a party animal or anything, but I don't think some of my devout Christian/Catholic family members would appreciate a photo of me with a red face that isn't a sunburn!9. Romantic relationships can be strengthened through facebook in some ways because it is another method of communicating to your partner/spouse. Just like flowers and candy, text messaging sweet nothings, posting e-cards and personally edited photos are all different ways in communicating and showing affection to your loved one. Isn't communication supposedly the most important thing in a romantic relationship? However on the flip-side, depending on varying personality types, facebook can be a negative thing for a relationship. The main reason is obviously jealousy and insecurity. Because everything on facebook is public to your network of friends, every little word and detail is recorded and magnified since it can be read over and over. With this information available, some may feel inclined to play "detective" and question everything.10. I have a facebook so I can keep in touch with friends and family that I do not see nor come in contact with throughout the week. I'm more efficient in communicating through the computer since my schedule is pretty busy throughout the week. Facebook allows me to network with distant friends and relate with them in ways I never would have if I had done so through text and phone.
Estelle Rydorn:
2. Are there certain communication differences between how you communicate with the different networks (your relationships between people) you have within facebook? (ie: how do you communicate bff vs. friend vs. coworker vs. family vs. schoolmate)
Older family will call.
Younger relatives will email.
Some friends/family have stopped emailing me and just communicated through facebook.
They will still call.
3. How does you communication change from facebook to the way you communicate with them in real world (ie are you more open, closed...)
In FB, I will be vague.
5. Do you have different types of censorship/restrictions for different people and what determines it?
I opened an account for Micaela with the strictest privacy settings. Her account is through my email so I see who communicates with her.
7. How do you feel when people you aren't as acquainted with (mutual friend, distant friend) leave you wall posts, respond to your status, and all forms of communication media on your Facebook? Why do you feel this way?
That they’re actually paying attention.
I have a separate account for my real estate network. I decided to do that since I didn’t want them tohave access to my friends and family’s info and pictures.8. What is your reaction when you add a family member (nuclear family, relatives) to your Facebook? Does it cause any conflicts?
We’re still trying to get my daughter on [facebook]. 9. Can romantic relationships be strengthened through Facebook? Can it be weakened through Facebook? How and why? I don’t really communicate with my spouse through fb. He’ll use the instant messenger if he wants to catch me on.
10. Why do you have a Facebook?
I was invited. Now I am glad to be in touch with friends I haven’t seen in decades.
Drake Johnston:
Has the social network of facebook strengthen or improved yourrelationship? Has it weakened it? Give a brief story.--Yes; it allows me to quickly communicate with people whose personalcontact information (phone number, email, address) I do not have and withpeople whom I don't normally have the chance to talk to (relatives wholive in a different state/country). Also, when there's a group project,it's friendlier and easier to plan out a meeting or event because of the"Groups" and "Calendar" features. I've recently been invited to ababyshower through Facebook. (lol)2. Are there certain communication differences between how you communicatewith the different networks (your relationships between people) you havewithin facebook? (ie: how do you communicate bff vs. friend vs. coworkervs. family vs. schoolmate)--Yes. Generally, I post a lot of (dirty and stupid) inside jokes on thewalls of close friends more often than people I meet through organizationsand classes. The information and comments that are posted on walls arethings which I wouldn't mind other people knowing. For family events, weall usually call or text each other instead of Facebook because it's alittle more private. I use messages and the chat feature for moreintimate, one-on-one conversations because there are certain informationwhich I'd like to keep between just me and the other person (usuallybecause I just want to get to know them better).3. How does you communication change from facebook to the way youcommunicate with them in real world (ie are you more open, closed...)--Facebook allows me to openly tease close friends while knowing that ourgroup of friends would probably see, comment and play along with theteasing, similar to when we tease each other in person. Honestly, I alsouse it as a tool to flirt with people I meet from class and it allows meto be a little bit more cautious; I have more time to think about what tosay so that I don't embarrass myself too badly.4. How does ambient awareness affect your relationships (ie statusupdates, pictures, wall posts, notes...)--It's an interesting and easy way to keep up with people's past, presentand future lives. The pictures are like puzzle pieces that lets me knowwhat a person's hobbies and interests are. Through the Status Updates, Ican figure out who would be available and willing to hang out overstudying. Through notes, I am able to experience the wisdom orridiculousness of a person's thoughts.5. Do you have different types of censorship/restrictions for differentpeople and what determines it?--Yes; it depends on how creepy the person is (seriously.. LOL). I set my"limited" profile for people (who really take on stalker status) I meet atrandom places (clubs, parties, etc.) whom I really wouldn't want to know.Also, there are family members and religious friends whose eyes I don'twant to taint and/or offend with my "party" side, so I limit the things Ipost (i.e. pictures, notes).6. what kind of communication do you utilize the most within facebook(wall posts, msgs, graffiti, picture comments, status...) and how doesthat differ from real world?--In order: wall posts, status update comments, picture comments andmessages. But it also varies depending on the person I'm communicatingwith. As mentioned, I often post lots of unnecessary jokes on walls anddo the same for pictures and status updates of close friends; I wouldprobably verbally communicate the same messages if we were in person. Icommunicate more on facebook with family members who are still in the PIthan email and the phone calls, but it's generally the same messages. When flirting, it's more strategic when using Facebook than in person;there's less of a need to improvise corny jokes or pick up lines or thingsto talk about.7. How do you feel when people you aren't as acquainted with (mutualfriend, distant friend) leave you wall posts, respond to your status, andall forms of communication media on your Facebook? Why do you feel thisway?--If it's just a mutual friend, I'd think it'd be a little weird butnothing more than that; I would probably just think of the person being ina friendly mood. If it were someone I met recently who seems to begetting too friendly, I'd get a bit creeped out (especially if the personis trying to flirt with me while I'm not).8. What is your reaction when you add a family member (nuclear family,relatives) to your Facebook? Does it cause any conflicts?--It doesn't start any familial conflicts or anything, but it puts a bitof a strain on me. I try to un-tag any scandalous pictures that would getmy parents or any other elder family member to lecture me about how I leadmy life during college.9. Can romantic relationships be strengthened through Facebook? Can it beweakened through Facebook? How and why?--Without a doubt, it's a great way to flirt and easily strengthensbudding romantic relationships. But it can also tear unstable romanticrelationships (by "unstable", I mean relationships which lack trust andcommunication). Any updates can evoke so much emotions, particularlyjealousy and anger, especially if the romantic relationship is longdistance and one significant other is socially active compared to theirpartner.10. Why do you have a Facebook?-- I have a facebook to communicate. lol. But specifically:(1) To keep up with old friends and family(2) To get to know new friends and acquaintances(3) To flirt (Hahaha... lame but true)(4) To be part of the social, virtual conformity/trend(5) To procrastinate on studying (like now)(6) To help friends out by doing surveys like these! =)
A research article for Anthropology 128C: Cyberspace, Power, and Culture
Introduction 2-3
(The Abstract. AEMEA formation, research background, data methods)
Broad Relationships 3-5
(presented by Ms. Ej Cruz)
Professional Relationships 5-7
(presented by Mr. Emmanuel Arreola)
Friendships 7-8
(presented by Ms. Avi Jayasekara)
Family Relationships 8-10
(presented by Mr. Anton Sisante)
Romantic Relationships 10-12
(presented by Ms. Melissa Obregon)
Citations 13
Data 14-24
(some of the ethnographic data attached)
INTRODUCTION
Unlike the days of the telegraph, as described in The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage, Facebook allows a means of extension to the individual’s network so that it spans out to far regions of the world. With the telegraph, individuals were only able to express their communication through beeps, dots, and dashes1. The relationships that stemmed between individuals during these days were only familial, professional, or romantic. There wasn’t much room to expand to a network of relationships. Now that we have Facebook, individuals have the ability to network with people on the other side of the world using many different forms of communication, and create a vast array of relationships.
Facebook is an online social-networking medium developed by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and his classmates in 20042. These people made it possible for internet-users from any part of the world to rekindle and connect with old friends and/or family, find love/continue love through an online medium, get a fresh update on a co-worker, or randomly meet people in and/or out of a network. The user of Facebook is represented through a user profile and the individual may choose to “add a friend” from anywhere they wish on Facebook…so long as the other individual accepts the friend request. This commutation is of great importance; because of this distinctive feature, individuals now have a mode of classification as to what type of relationship has been developed between one individual to another. In a sense, the “Facebook relationship” has emerged.
The AEMEA group chose to conduct research specifically on these distinguished “Facebook relationships.” The group rigorously researched, conducted work, and theorized upon whether these Facebook relationships contribute to the strengthening or weakening of the relationship because of the usage of the Facebook platform. AEMEA’s strategy to collect data consisted of the utilization of their individual Facebook networks. Interviews were sent to many individuals from their array of Facebook relationships as well as joining groups that have had conducted Facebook research in the past. Personal face-to-face interviews were also sought out. “Survey Monkey” was the model for statistical data, and some members of the group exploited synchronous forms of online communication such as AIM to gather information. A Facebook Group was created between members to share data with one another.
AEMEA decided that Facebook relationships can be sliced into five categories: broad relationships, professional relationships, friendships, family relationships, and romantic relationships. From this point on, it can be understood that the relationships mentioned in this article are part of the observed Facebook platform3. The regional range of the Facebook users that AEMEA observed consisted of networks such as: Orange County, Saddleback College, and UC Irvine. The people observed were between 11 to 60 years of age. We shall start with broad relationships as the first topic, since it is the most general and branches off to more localized relationships.
BROAD RELATIONSHIPS
The AEMEA group based broad relationships upon the following characteristics:
Individuals have no ongoing communication history of friendship
Individuals aren’t particularly self-disclosed with one another, but share a mutual network
Individuals have shared a past friendship, but have lost touch
Individuals may have met once or have never met the other in the corporeal world
There are two ways these broad relationships can be strengthened or weakened. The first way is through a mode of observable preconceptions between the mutual friends. These preconceptions are the public information the individual chooses to disclose to their public, their network of mutual friends. Through this, the mutual friend has the ability to do a “background check” on their broad relationship networks. These observable preconceptions are quantified by the amount of activity the individual spends on Facebook. The most ubiquitous of these preconceptions is the Facebook status updates. The choice of this feature was obtained through the Facebook research group portal4 and a YouTube video called “Facebook Fever,” through a user known as Zippy5. Through this exclusive feature, the mutual friend can view preliminary sketches of their broad relationships and form an implicit bias in the broad relationship.
The status updates feature on Facebook are simple sentence boxes where users constantly express their thoughts or what they’re feeling to their public at a certain point in time. The AEMEA group researched the effects of status updates on broad relationships. An interview that was conducted by one AEMEA member through AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) group chat questioned three of their friends who used Facebook often and kept a numerous network of broad relationships. The three individuals had a total of at least fifty added friends to their account. They expressed mixed emotions when asked about status updates. “Some [status updates] end up being funny, so funny that I laugh my pants off… but most of the time—these people’s updates are all about fml, fml, FML!6 It just gets played out, I don’t need to know if your life sucks. Tell me something I don’t know already, like…who’s your new boo!7”
These findings show the impact an individual can create without initially speaking with their mutual friend beforehand. When the mutual friend updates their status, mutual peers can become turned off with their personality just by reading the sentence box. This is especially true when the individual updates their status in a negative notion. One of the three peers who were interviewed on AIM group chat added, “You really get a feel of what the person is like through their status updates. From the news feed, I’ve received status updates every hour by one person updating things like ‘text me,’ ‘I’m bored,’ ‘who wants to hang out tonight,’ My reaction?...l0ner!8” The mutual friend who views these status updates internalizes an etic perspective about their mutual friend due to these Facebook status updates. What is fascinating about the status updates feature is the underlying biases that can lead to the strengthening or weakening of the relationship before actual interaction!
The second way a broad relationship can determine strength or weakness is through the asynchronous communication features between mutual friends on Facebook. Data was derived from Facebook groups that had already done Facebook research in the past through questionnaires and surveys. AEMEA found that the most common type of communication used in Facebook was the wall post.
Wall posts are sentence boxes that enable the mutual friend to write a message to the other while it is viewable to the public. Through wall posts, individuals that share a broad relationship can write a quick, “hello” to each other. Eighty percent of the interviewees from a Facebook note questionnaire have stated that their relationship with a mutual friend had strengthened through the continuous use of the wall post. They also informed AEMEA that although they had initial preconceptions about their mutual friend, it was the actual interaction that declared a strong or weak relationship. Sometimes, with frequent asynchronous communications, the broad relationship can be developed further if mutual attraction is present. As stated in Mimi Ito’s article, Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Finding from the Digital Youth Project, these little hellos and emoticons can escalate into further relationships such as romantic relationships or close friendships 9. The remaining twenty percent suggested that Facebook neither strengthened nor weakened their relationship but acted as a supplement to their broad relationship. These twenty percent of users shied away from disclosing too much information on Facebook’s public portal. Users stated that they’d either use the Facebook platform for their mutual network if they had a question about school or if they were also going to an event that will be attended by their same network of peers. Facebook users asserted that the only way they would be bothered by their mutual friends on Facebook is if they constantly kept posting messages onto their wall and replied on the features through their Facebook even when they wouldn’t respond back. A Facebook user coined the term, “Facebook creeper,” for these types of friends.
AEMEA was able to define how to strengthen, weaken or keep a neutral basis between mutual friends on Facebook. We find that it is through observable preconceptions and asynchronous interaction. We will now move onto a more defined relationship on Facebook: Professionalism.
PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIPS
An interesting aspect of the social networking site known as Facebook has been its ability to attract users from different social networks and settings. Interestingly enough, it has found its way into the workplace as mode of communication between co-workers and supervisors. As stated in the Facebook’s press release, “Facebook is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers”11. In regards to this statement, the AEMEA group questioned how has Facebook improved or strengthened the working relationship of others? Or has it had the very opposite effect and instead has negatively impacted these relationships?
AEMEA conducted personal interviews consisting of two past co-workers, a current co-worker, and a past and current supervisor of one of AEMEA’s group members. Each interviewee was “friends” on Facebook with their co-workers and supervisors. In discussing whether or not Facebook had improved the way they communicated and interacted, all had the general consensus that Facebook had a positive but not significant impact on their working relationship.
As Interviewer A stated, “it’s nice knowing and keeping in touch with what is going on in their personal lives, but I don’t think it changes our working relationship at all.” Interviewer D went further on to say that “what goes on in people’s personal lives online (i.e. status updates, wall posts, picture albums, etc.) really never becomes a topic of conversation at work.” When interviewing person C, interviewer C commented that Facebook “in my opinion, helps the working relationship because it’s another way to connect personally outside of the workplace.” In hindsight, there was a general conclusion that Facebook was positive on working relationships as it provided a venue into personal lives but all of them agreed that it did not significantly change the work setting. As Interviewer B elaborated, “it’s just nice seeing another side to my supervisor outside of work.”
An aspect where Facebook has had an impact on professional working relationships is the topic of privacy. How does ambient awareness and privacy affect the professional relationships in the work environment? It was interesting to note that though the interviewees appreciated the fact that they were able to communicate on another level through Facebook, many chose not to. As suggested by the data from the surveys, 75% of them agreed that a working relationship on Facebook differed significantly from other social networks seen. Respondent 1 commented further that “I’m not as active on my supervisor and co-workers profile as I am with my other friends where I comment on photos, make wall posts, etc.” An interesting note from the data collected was that 83% of those that agreed that working relationships on Facebook differed from other social networks also agreed that privacy was the major reason why. Respondent 4 said that “it’s awkward being friends with your boss on Facebook because you don’t know how it will affect your job.” The data collected and answers showed that while having access to one’s profile was one way to connect on a personal level outside of work, it did not significantly improve or weaken the working relationship.
So with this ambient awareness of co-workers and supervisors and the risk of no privacy, I posed the question to my survey respondents and interviewees: does having a working relationship on Facebook prove to be beneficial? The general consensus from my interviewees responded yes and surprisingly so did my survey respondents. Ambient awareness was found to be a positive outcome from Facebook because it helped gain a better understanding of those at the work place. Interviewer E provided more insight as she commented that “I understand why people are having bad days at the office or why they looked so stressed; Facebook sometimes helps me know how to act around them.” This comment is reminiscent of the Clive Thompson article in which he described ambient awareness as having an “omnipresent knowledge.12”
Though many of the interviewees agreed that Facebook has had no significant impact, the benefit of ambient awareness has had positive effect on the relationships seen at work. Thus, with data collected, Facebook has indeed helped improve the communication in the work environment as suggested by its press release statement.
FRIENDSHIP
While both broad and professional relationships have been affected through Facebook, a more personal relationship that has been impacted both negatively and positively is friendships. It is clear that as a social networking site, Facebook has opened many new avenues for new friendships to form and foster. Merriam-Webster defines a friend as “one attached to another by affection or esteem13”. With this definition of a friend, Facebook opened up a new world of opportunities for people to keep in touch with friends and make new ones. However, with all these changes and ways to make new friends, how has Facebook changed the way that we, as a society, interact with our pre-existing friends? Has our communication with these friends deteriorated or strengthened through Facebook?
AEMEA questioned interviewees if they felt facebook made a difference in the way their friendships are viewed. All 4 responded yes, they did in fact feel as if facebook had made a difference in this. One interviewee responded, “I have a broader definition of the term friends. Without Facebook I probably would only consistently speak with my family and one or two people on occasion. With Facebook I speak to people the same sparse amount but with a much larger base so it seems like a lot more. Basically Facebook allows me to have the ideal friend spread out through many people”14. From Survey Monkey, 70% of the respondents felt that Facebook had changed their relationships with their friends.
However, when AEMEA changed the question slightly and questioned interviewees as to whether Facebook has strengthened their friendships, only 40% said yes, 50% said sometimes, and the other 10% said no. One survey respondent says “If anything, I think that Facebook has weakened relationships. Sometimes it feels as though you reply to wall posts or messages simply to reciprocate, as if it were to ensure equal exchange rather than a message with an inherent purpose”15. Another suggests, “I am not naturally outgoing, so I do not keep friends that easily. Facebook allows me to keep in touch with people without all of the hassle that a phone or face-to-face conversation would require”16. In one of our class readings the authors suggest that “online social networking systems can help individuals to maintain a larger number of close ties than people can typically maintain without such technology, as the systems allow people to check one another’s sites for updates, reflect new activities, as well as to facilitate brief verbal exchanges through asynchronous wall postings”17. The ability to communicate so easily has both positive and negative outcomes. Like the author says its more than typically possible, so one has to think when does this kind of communication become too much.
AEMEA questioned Facebook users whether or not they preferred Facebook communication over physical gatherings and telecommunication devices. 40% of the respondents said yes, 50% said sometimes, while only 10% said no. From these findings, it is clear that Facebook has made face to face interactions a rare occasion. Interviewees responded “Phone calls and personal meetings in general are becoming obsolete in this generation, as there are many passive ways of communicating nowadays”18. When AEMEA surveyed the Facebook users as to whether they think this bothers their friends, 80% responded ’no,’ they do not tell me that they do it just as often, and so they probably prefer it [Facebook communication] themselves.”
While communication between friends is rising, face to face communication is falling dramatically. Staying in touch has become easier, but only through the words that appear on the computer screen. The survey respondents do not seem to feel, that this is a deterioration of their friendships; rather, they express that Facebook has created avenues for some to express themselves more due to shyness, personality trails or time constraints in real life. One respondent commented, “Asian's are not that open. They're very insecure. They will be much more comfortable when they don't see the face of the person”19. This ability to express themselves more openly crosses into other relationships, such as those with family, as will be further explained.
FAMILIAL RELATIONSHIPS
The easy accessibility of Facebook allows users an alternative approach to keeping in touch with family. In particular, there appears to be a significant increase in the amount of kinships maintaining interfamilial connections through Facebook. This has been revolutionizing the way communication between family members is established to build potentially stronger relationships.
To demonstrate this, one of AEMEA’s group members obtained opinions on the idea of familial relationships on Facebook from several family members within his own kinship and compared this to the consensus held by a group of Facebook users who are not part of his own lineage. Using the participant-observation method, the AEMEA member was able to conduct seven open-ended interviews with various family members who have profiles on Facebook. Such members ranged from those that he regularly keeps in contact with to those that he has never even met in person. The open-ended questions were created on a Facebook Note that tagged 25 family members whose ages ranged anywhere from 14 to 68. Answers from this sample group represent this age range. Since the type and strength of familial bond he shared among those of interviewed family members on Facebook greatly varied, the information obtained can be used as a model for one type of kinship found in Facebook. For future reference, all family members cited will be given aliases to protect their identities.
For Facebook users that did not belong to his family, a survey was posted on a note that everyone within his Facebook networks would be able to view and access. The survey listed the same questions sent to family members albeit with pre-determined answer choices that survey takers would chose from. From this data, 16 anonymous surveys were collected whose collective answers represent a random population.
When asked whether Facebook was a useful tool in improving relationships between family members, 84% of his familial respondents believed that Facebook has generally strengthened such relationships. The other 16% believed that no significant change occurred between their relationships. Among those that felt Facebook has improved relations cite that the website acts as a convenient medium to keep in touch with family overseas. In particular, one family member, Teresa, explains that with Facebook, “You don’t have to pay for long-distance phone calls to know what is going on with your family members living far away from you.” Compared to the random group, 93% reported no significant change between them and their own family members while the other 7% reported a significant improvement.
A follow-up question asked whether there were significant communication differences between different networks (friends, family, coworkers, etc.) on Facebook. 84% of the interviewees explained that depending on the family member, communication can either be comparable to that seen among their own friends or conducted more respectfully if directed towards an older member. The remaining 16% felt there was no significant difference in communication between networks. Additionally, every member felt that in general, communication among kin did not differ between cyberspaces and physically in person. Similarly, 70% of survey participants thought communication among family members compared to other networks depended upon both age and closeness to that family member. On the other hand, 30% cited there is less intimacy with family members on Facebook compared to friends on other networks.
Another question that was asked considered the effect of ‘ambient awareness’ on familial relationships. Ambient awareness in this context is defined as the information a Facebook user indirectly obtains about another user – i.e. status updates, pictures, notes, etc.20 In this case, 71% of the interviewees as well as the general consensus among survey-takers believed that ambient awareness provides an opportunity to learn more interesting, intimate details about family members that may not have been learned otherwise. However, a couple of family members found the concept of ambient awareness creepy and voyeuristic to a certain extent. One respondent, Roger, reported, “To me ambient awareness is almost like stalking because people get to know everything that’s going on with me!! It’s almost scary.”
Despite this, Facebook is still highly regarded as a useful tool for maintaining and even strengthening familial relationships. 81% of survey respondents claim that the benefits for having family members as ‘Facebook-friends’ outweigh any negatives. Even censorship does not seem to be much of an issue affecting the decision to befriend any particular family member. 100% of family correspondents do not enable privacy restrictions for photos or profile content. Similarly, 50% of the survey takers leave their profile as is, free for any family member to view. Although it seems “young people tend to avoid their parents and other adults while using social network sites”21, such a generational gap seems to be closing as more people are starting to use Facebook to maintain a large multitude of contacts. Given enough time, it would be interesting to see whether having family connections in social networking sites becomes an expected norm. In the meantime, the trend of having romantic relationships on Facebook may even be closer to achieving that social norm.
ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS
Facebook has had a large impact on various facets of our society. Not only has it impacted friendships, familial relationships, and relationships between employees but it has also played a large role in romantic relationships. Some of the roles it has played are enhancing long distance relationships, creating jealousy, and affecting the status of a relationship. The first area that it has impacted is the quality of a relationship. According to the survey, 85% of people in a long distance relationship believed that facebook had a positive influence on their relationship. During an interview, Boyfriend A stated “Facebook has enhanced my relationship with my girlfriend of 2 years and is part of the reason we are still together.” Throughout his interview, he explained that being able to see his girlfriend through pictures she had posted on her Facebook gave him a feeling of closeness. He stated, “I felt like I was able to be there with her through the past year because she would constantly update her photos of events that she had gone to and places she had visited.” In addition, Girlfriend K explained that being away from her boyfriend was made a little easier through Facebook because she was able to make posts throughout the day and see what he was doing during his year away at school through pictures. Overall, Facebook has been able to strengthen long distance relationships by providing another form of communication for individuals through wall posts and picture sharing.
However, not all participants in the survey and interviews agreed with Boyfriend A. Compared to those not in a long distance relationship, 60% believed that it did not enhance their relationship. In addition, 55% reported that Facebook had promoted distrust and jealousy. Girlfriend P explained throughout her interview that she monitored her boyfriend’s Facebook daily and would check what types of comments and private messages he was receiving and from whom he was receiving messages. 45% of females in a relationship accessed their boyfriends’ Facebook account at least twice a month. In addition, there were 15% of individuals in long distance relationships that felt like Facebook did not enhance their relationships. According to Boyfriend T, he felt that Facebook enhanced mistrust between his girlfriend and him. When asked about the effect facebook had on their relationship he stated, “it has made me paranoid and worried…I find myself constantly looking at her page, status changes and pictures to see if there is anything she may be lying about.” He went on to discuss that the distance between them has created problems within the relationship because he is able to see all the pictures that are posted from different parties and he questions some of the pictures where there are other men. Thus, data regarding whether or not facebook has strengthened or weakened romantic relationships reveals that it mostly strengthens long distance relationships and tends to create jealousy and mistrust among romantic relationships that are close in distance.
Facebook has also affected the status of one’s relationship. According to the survey, 62% of individuals reported that their relationship status on their Facebook accounts was changed within 48 hours of becoming an official couple. This reveals that in a way, people view Facebook as making a relationship official. Girlfriend C explained in her interview that her official anniversary with her boyfriend was the day he changed his status on facebook. In addition, 73% of surveyed individuals reported that they changed their profile pictures when they were in fights with their boyfriends and 50% reported changing their relationship status within 48 hours of breaking up. The status one has on Facebook is thus extremely important and defines, in many cases, one’s relationship.
Facebook has also created deception within relationships. According to the survey, 38% of individuals had multiple Facebook accounts. One individual in the interview stated that he had one account for his friends and another for his girlfriend and their mutual friends. Throughout this interview subject M revealed a very in depth scheme that he had going on. At the time of the interview he was in a relationship with two other girls and in order to keep them from finding out about each other he created multiple accounts. In one account he had girlfriend #1 and their mutual friends, and on another account he had girlfriend #2. Each account was set to private which disabled others from viewing their comments. When girlfriend #1 became suspicious he reassured her that nothing was going on and gave her the password to the account he had made specifically for her. Thus when she would check his account she never found anything suspicious because it was all on the other account she did not have access to. Although Facebook has strengthened relationships by creating new forms of communication, it has also increased jealously, distrust and deception within other relationships.
CONCLUSION
While each relationship within facebook has been impacted in its own unique way, it is safe to say that Facebook has had the ability to reach all social spheres. Thus, AEMEA’s findings have shown that relationships on Facebook find a strengthening and/or weakening of their relationship through the extent to which it is used. The Facebook platform can strengthen, weaken or have no significant effect on a relationship. Much of the effect that Facebook has had on relationships depended on the individuals themselves, and how they interacted with one another through facebook. While it is true that new technologies like facebook has opened new paths of communication, in the end it is how we as a society utilize these opportunities that make a difference in current standing of our daily relationships.
Footnotes:
Tom Standage, The Victorian Internet, Preface and Chapters 1–8 (pages vii–144).
Lev Grossman, Why Facebook Is for Old Fogies, Thursday February 12 , 2009. Time. www.time.com.
Consider in the Facebook platform only. Corporeal relationships can be defined in a multitude of ways.
Mutual Friends in this article are not to be mistaken for the “mutual friends in common” feature on Facebook.
Facebook.Com, Groups: “Facebook Status Research!” Stephen Pihlaja.
Christine Gambito, HappySlip, Youtube, January 15, 2009, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV4PNwpqsCc .
“FML” is the equivalence of “fxck my life” or “for my love.”
“Boo” is the equivalence of lover, sweetheart, boyfriend/girlfriend.
“l0ner” is the equivalence of outcast.
Mimi Ito et al, Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project, 2008.
Facebook Press Release. http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?factsheet.
Clive Thompson, Brave New World of Digital Intimacy. New York Times, Sept. 7, 2008.
Merriam-Webster.com, Definition for “friend,” http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/friend).
Avi Jayasekara, Personal Interview, AOL Instant Messenger, Chat, (February 27, 2009)
Survey Respondent, Survey Monkey, www.surveymonkey.com, (February 23, 2009
Survey Respondent, Survey Monkey, www.surveymonkey.com, (February 24, 2009)
Stephanie Tom Tong, Brandon Van Der Heide, Lindsey Langwell, Joseph B. Walther, Too Much of a Good Thing? The Relationship Between Number of Friends and Interpersonal Impressions on Facebook. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13(3):531–49, 2008.
Avi Jayasekara, Personal Interview, AOL Instant Messenger, Chat, (February 23, 2009)
Survey Respondent, Survey Monkey, www.surveymonkey.com, (February 27, 2009)
Clive Thompson, Brave New World of Digital Intimacy. New York Times, Sept. 7, 2008.
Mimi Ito et al, Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project, 2008.
Enthnographic Data:
Answers from Facebook Users via Notes Questionnaire: (names have been changed)
Has the social network of facebook strengthen or improved your relationship? Has it weakened it? Give a brief story.2. Are there certain communication differences between how you communicate with the different networks (your relationships between people) you have within facebook? (ie: how do you communicate bff vs. friend vs. coworker vs. family vs. schoolmate)3. How does you communication change from facebook to the way you communicate with them in real world (ie are you more open, closed...)4. How does ambient awareness affect your relationships (ie status updates, pictures, wall posts, notes...)5. Do you have different types of censorship/restrictions for different people and what determines it?6. what kind of communication do you utilize the most within facebook (wall posts, msgs, graffiti, picture comments, status...) and how does that differ from real world?7. How do you feel when people you aren't as acquainted with (mutual friend, distant friend) leave you wall posts, respond to your status, and all forms of communication media on your Facebook? Why do you feel this way?8. What is your reaction when you add a family member (nuclear family, relatives) to your Facebook? Does it cause any conflicts?9. Can romantic relationships be strengthened through Facebook? Can it be weakened through Facebook? How and why?10. Why do you have a Facebook?
Lyle Forgenburger:
Facebook has yet to do anything towards my status in life. I haven't use it to it's full potential and I am sure it would have some rewards and consequences.2. I communicate to everyone on Facebook equally which is for fun. 3. I tried to synchronize my behavior exactly on the internet with real life: Cheezy easy!4. My relationship seems to be improving as I am using ambient awareness at a minimum level. I wonder what happens if I go max?5. You know the "Give happiness to others, and happiness is given back"?6. The Instant Message Feature, Inbox, and the Status Change.7. Depends what they leave me.8. No. They respect my privacy. We have the if you see it, "Don't ask, don't tell" policy.9. I have no idea. Never been in a romantic relationship online, so I really do not have a say here.10. Better than MySpace, and I can find my buds relatively easy.
Surge Smith:
1.I feel like I'm more in the loop with FB. People use it more often and give it a lot of input. Also, the Birthday function is pretty useful.2. Not so much. I type to them the same way that I would speak to them.3. Just about the same--if at all, less closed as there are some things that I wouldn't want everyone to read.4. Once again, I just feel like I'm more in the loop and know more about others.5. Nope--I should, but I don't have sensitive material on my FB, or at least I don't think I do.6. Wall posts definitely. It's less personal, not in real time, but just as convenient as a text message. It's like having a pause button for a conversation.7. It gives me a false sense that others are interested in the mundane things that I do. But it is appreciated that people take the time to comment. All in all, it feels good--seriously, like a drug.8. Haven't had an issue at all as it doesn't seem any different from adding friends.9. One phrase: Facebook stalking.
Riley Whittier:
If anything it's given me an easy way to communicate to other friends of mine in a widespread fashion. Such as the Apac mixer event is much easier to invite everybody to through creating an event. And many of the apac'ers use their facebook often. Definitely helps. Although the electronic nature of facebook weakens friendships and relationships; Through normal activity the relationships still build. Overall it strengthens more than weakens because I can reach people in a quick manner. leaving them comments and posting pictures giving us more conversation and things to talk about.
No there is not. I communicate the same amount through facebook that I would normally with the person. I could see why this question is of concern. The boundaries for me, because I'm an open person are disregarded.
I am not more open; but I may be more wordy than How i normally speak and I may type things wrong which I would not say that way. (internet slang) Otherwise there is no significant difference.
it keeps me updated on whats going on and shows me what people want to share with others via status updates. fills me in on what i can talk about with people next time I see them. etc. I can understand that it may have negative effects as well; for me Its strictly informational to conversational.
no
6. It used to be graffiti but its mostly just wall posts. Nothing different than in the real world. I.e. i just said happy b-day to Nate bone on facebook. but i also called him friday and will greet him to lunch when we go to eat.7. basically it's saying they'd like to know me better. no harm in that. It's filled with positive vibe and I encourage it.8. It could have conflicts if there are things people want to hide from family members. On my personal level with family members I do not mind. I may not want my mom to add me but luckily she doesn't have one. Then she'd know if I was really studying or was doing something she would not approve of.9. This is an extremely subjective question and they can do either. in my opinion it depends on outside of facebook interaction more than in facebook interaction that determines the strength of the relationship. Facebook is merely a minor factor in this equation.10. To do these sorts of things. converse; communicate, express and share.
Taylor Freeman:
1. Facebook hasn’t made too big of an impact on my life yet, only because I don’t use it often enough. However, because of the birthday reminders on the side I now don’t’ forget to greet my friends on their birthdays, if that counts as improving my relationship with the social network.2. yes, I think there is a big difference between how I communicate with the different networks. I think that I put more of my time and attention onto my best friends through facebook, rather than just a schoolmate. For example; a birthday, my best friends get A LONG comment but my schoolmate’s just get a simple “happy birthday! (:” or something small like that.3. I am more closed when it comes to communicating on facebook, because it gets broadcasted to at least a hundred people.4. My relationships improve when I use ambient awareness.5. I don’t have different types of censorship or restrictions for different people.6. I use wall posts and statuses most within facebook. I’m not really sure how it differs from the real world.7. I mean, I guess I feel somewhat good when people I’m not as acquainted with leave me stuff because that means that they go on my facebook and it shows that they somewhat care.8. Haha, adding family is really awkward. More than half of my friends on facebook ARE my family, including my mother and grandma. But it causes a little bit of conflict because that just means I can’t post some things I’d like to post afraid that they will read it. But other than that it’s fine.9. I’m not sure if romantic relationships can be strengthened through Facebook. It can be weakened if one of the people sees a tagged picture or a wall post that they do not approve of and it causes conflict. 10. I have a facebook because it gives me a way to communicate to everyone. Such as, my family in the Philippines, my friends that have moved away for college, and so on. It makes things a lot easier.sorry my answers are so long(: i hope this helps.
Alex Lipschitz:
1 It has strengthened the ones that I started it for. Most of my high school buddies are going to college out of state, and since no one writes letters anymore this is the only way to keep in touch.2. absolutely3. its hard to really communicate with them since body language and tone has so much to do with communication4. It does nothing for me.5. No6. whatever i feel like. I don't use one too much over another7. They leave. people come and go you just have to take what you get.8. I have like only two family members on facebook, and it has brought us a lot closer9. Can't really say. I don't think any of my relationships have be affected. 10. To keep in touch with close friends who have moved away.
Andre Von Swerve:
Facebook has definitely improved some of my friendships, mainly the long distance friends that I have lost touch with since high school or earlier. For example, my friend Simon has been stationed in Kuwait and Iraq for the past year and a half. I lost contact with him since graduating high school and through facebook I was able to keep tabs with him. I eventually met up with him and some friends during his holiday leave this past December.2. I communicate with different networks somewhat differently I would say. The only difference is I may be more rude or blunt to my closer friends just because they can take it and understand my intentions. However with someone I am just acquainted with I usually am a little more polite. For family members, it depends on age and generation. For example, I can talk to my 28 year old cousin Bill like he's my homeboy, but not with my 35 yr old brother.3. I communicate very similarly on facebook and in real life since it is a casual interface for social networks. One difference might be that I might sound more intelligent because every word typed online is just a rough draft of your brain... the words don't come out of your mouth until you click "POST"4. I think all the ambient awareness can have a positive effect on relationships. These are just additional ways to relate with one another. It's basically like a huge public yet private bulletin. My friend Warren and I, who I haven't kept in touch with for a few years, are now more connected all because of his status update saying "plays poker". Just like that I saw him the next week at a home poker game with 8 other people. Also, I never would have gotten into street art (wheatpasting, poster/sticker art) if it weren't for seeing my cousin's work on facebook. I rarely see him since he lives in Glendale, but through facebook I was inspired right away and am now closer to him because of it.5. I have censorships with different people, mainly people who are older than I that require more respect when spoken to. Not to say I don't speak respectfully to my normal peers, it's just that I speak more casually with slang. Some people may get offended but more commonly misunderstand what I am trying to convey. 6. The method of communication I use most on facebook is through private messages and wall posts. This differs from the real world because you can have a million different conversations at once without spending 3 hours on the phone with everyone. It is also different because you can comment about anything from anytime, but in real life comments may seem "random" or people may not relate right away because there is no photo or written record to base off of. It seems to me that it is just another form of digital communication which is prevalent in todays younger generation7. I may feel somewhat surprised only because I don't communicate with the person on a regular basis. However, I do take it kindly as an attempt to open or build a friendship in a way. It also depends if I see the person regularly or not. If someone doesn't say a word to me in the real world and they do on facebook, I figure they may just be shy or intimidated to speak with me directly. If it's someone that I have not met but have seen before, I would definitely feel surprised. There are a lot people in this generation that will have 1500 friends on myspace, and they won't even know half of them!8. My reaction is the same as adding anyone else. There are no conflicts because I don't post inebriated pictures of myself online.... not that I'm a party animal or anything, but I don't think some of my devout Christian/Catholic family members would appreciate a photo of me with a red face that isn't a sunburn!9. Romantic relationships can be strengthened through facebook in some ways because it is another method of communicating to your partner/spouse. Just like flowers and candy, text messaging sweet nothings, posting e-cards and personally edited photos are all different ways in communicating and showing affection to your loved one. Isn't communication supposedly the most important thing in a romantic relationship? However on the flip-side, depending on varying personality types, facebook can be a negative thing for a relationship. The main reason is obviously jealousy and insecurity. Because everything on facebook is public to your network of friends, every little word and detail is recorded and magnified since it can be read over and over. With this information available, some may feel inclined to play "detective" and question everything.10. I have a facebook so I can keep in touch with friends and family that I do not see nor come in contact with throughout the week. I'm more efficient in communicating through the computer since my schedule is pretty busy throughout the week. Facebook allows me to network with distant friends and relate with them in ways I never would have if I had done so through text and phone.
Estelle Rydorn:
2. Are there certain communication differences between how you communicate with the different networks (your relationships between people) you have within facebook? (ie: how do you communicate bff vs. friend vs. coworker vs. family vs. schoolmate)
Older family will call.
Younger relatives will email.
Some friends/family have stopped emailing me and just communicated through facebook.
They will still call.
3. How does you communication change from facebook to the way you communicate with them in real world (ie are you more open, closed...)
In FB, I will be vague.
5. Do you have different types of censorship/restrictions for different people and what determines it?
I opened an account for Micaela with the strictest privacy settings. Her account is through my email so I see who communicates with her.
7. How do you feel when people you aren't as acquainted with (mutual friend, distant friend) leave you wall posts, respond to your status, and all forms of communication media on your Facebook? Why do you feel this way?
That they’re actually paying attention.
I have a separate account for my real estate network. I decided to do that since I didn’t want them tohave access to my friends and family’s info and pictures.8. What is your reaction when you add a family member (nuclear family, relatives) to your Facebook? Does it cause any conflicts?
We’re still trying to get my daughter on [facebook]. 9. Can romantic relationships be strengthened through Facebook? Can it be weakened through Facebook? How and why? I don’t really communicate with my spouse through fb. He’ll use the instant messenger if he wants to catch me on.
10. Why do you have a Facebook?
I was invited. Now I am glad to be in touch with friends I haven’t seen in decades.
Drake Johnston:
Has the social network of facebook strengthen or improved yourrelationship? Has it weakened it? Give a brief story.--Yes; it allows me to quickly communicate with people whose personalcontact information (phone number, email, address) I do not have and withpeople whom I don't normally have the chance to talk to (relatives wholive in a different state/country). Also, when there's a group project,it's friendlier and easier to plan out a meeting or event because of the"Groups" and "Calendar" features. I've recently been invited to ababyshower through Facebook. (lol)2. Are there certain communication differences between how you communicatewith the different networks (your relationships between people) you havewithin facebook? (ie: how do you communicate bff vs. friend vs. coworkervs. family vs. schoolmate)--Yes. Generally, I post a lot of (dirty and stupid) inside jokes on thewalls of close friends more often than people I meet through organizationsand classes. The information and comments that are posted on walls arethings which I wouldn't mind other people knowing. For family events, weall usually call or text each other instead of Facebook because it's alittle more private. I use messages and the chat feature for moreintimate, one-on-one conversations because there are certain informationwhich I'd like to keep between just me and the other person (usuallybecause I just want to get to know them better).3. How does you communication change from facebook to the way youcommunicate with them in real world (ie are you more open, closed...)--Facebook allows me to openly tease close friends while knowing that ourgroup of friends would probably see, comment and play along with theteasing, similar to when we tease each other in person. Honestly, I alsouse it as a tool to flirt with people I meet from class and it allows meto be a little bit more cautious; I have more time to think about what tosay so that I don't embarrass myself too badly.4. How does ambient awareness affect your relationships (ie statusupdates, pictures, wall posts, notes...)--It's an interesting and easy way to keep up with people's past, presentand future lives. The pictures are like puzzle pieces that lets me knowwhat a person's hobbies and interests are. Through the Status Updates, Ican figure out who would be available and willing to hang out overstudying. Through notes, I am able to experience the wisdom orridiculousness of a person's thoughts.5. Do you have different types of censorship/restrictions for differentpeople and what determines it?--Yes; it depends on how creepy the person is (seriously.. LOL). I set my"limited" profile for people (who really take on stalker status) I meet atrandom places (clubs, parties, etc.) whom I really wouldn't want to know.Also, there are family members and religious friends whose eyes I don'twant to taint and/or offend with my "party" side, so I limit the things Ipost (i.e. pictures, notes).6. what kind of communication do you utilize the most within facebook(wall posts, msgs, graffiti, picture comments, status...) and how doesthat differ from real world?--In order: wall posts, status update comments, picture comments andmessages. But it also varies depending on the person I'm communicatingwith. As mentioned, I often post lots of unnecessary jokes on walls anddo the same for pictures and status updates of close friends; I wouldprobably verbally communicate the same messages if we were in person. Icommunicate more on facebook with family members who are still in the PIthan email and the phone calls, but it's generally the same messages. When flirting, it's more strategic when using Facebook than in person;there's less of a need to improvise corny jokes or pick up lines or thingsto talk about.7. How do you feel when people you aren't as acquainted with (mutualfriend, distant friend) leave you wall posts, respond to your status, andall forms of communication media on your Facebook? Why do you feel thisway?--If it's just a mutual friend, I'd think it'd be a little weird butnothing more than that; I would probably just think of the person being ina friendly mood. If it were someone I met recently who seems to begetting too friendly, I'd get a bit creeped out (especially if the personis trying to flirt with me while I'm not).8. What is your reaction when you add a family member (nuclear family,relatives) to your Facebook? Does it cause any conflicts?--It doesn't start any familial conflicts or anything, but it puts a bitof a strain on me. I try to un-tag any scandalous pictures that would getmy parents or any other elder family member to lecture me about how I leadmy life during college.9. Can romantic relationships be strengthened through Facebook? Can it beweakened through Facebook? How and why?--Without a doubt, it's a great way to flirt and easily strengthensbudding romantic relationships. But it can also tear unstable romanticrelationships (by "unstable", I mean relationships which lack trust andcommunication). Any updates can evoke so much emotions, particularlyjealousy and anger, especially if the romantic relationship is longdistance and one significant other is socially active compared to theirpartner.10. Why do you have a Facebook?-- I have a facebook to communicate. lol. But specifically:(1) To keep up with old friends and family(2) To get to know new friends and acquaintances(3) To flirt (Hahaha... lame but true)(4) To be part of the social, virtual conformity/trend(5) To procrastinate on studying (like now)(6) To help friends out by doing surveys like these! =)
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