CMS 298 - Final Project -Chapter 2 - Chad Ward

1. Kids Living and Learning with New Media
-Chapter 2 Presentation –
*Friendship*
Chad Ward – CMS 298 – Final Presentation

2. Social networking tools, like
MySpace, Facebook, and
others are not new features for
teens to utilize when
socializing with one another;
they are the features to utilize
if you want to have a social
life. Friendship is brought
about by acquiring
interpersonal relationships
with people, and the only way
to acquire these relationships is
by presenting developing
yourself in this new digital
medium.

3. Social networking sites allow people
to socialize with one another at all
times, and allows the youth of
America to “develop and maintain
broader communities of peers”,
albeit a bit impersonally. This allows
them to flourish (or falter) in a world
that caters to the digital realm, and
gives them numbers to base their
social progress with (i.e. number of
friends on Facebook, or number of
messages received, or number of
photos they are tagged in, etc.).

4. Teen socialization has shifted with each generation. From going to a drive in Movie Theater,
to gathering in a parking lot or shopping mall, and now to the digital world; teens seem to be
the go-to generation to find out where social mediums are flourishing. “Teens gather in
networked public spaces for a variety of purposes, including to negotiate identity, gossip,
support one another, jockey for status, collaborate, share information, flirt, joke, and goof
off” (p.79). With the dawn of the digital age, social media tools now allow teens to interact
with their peers beyond the „physical realm‟, and so allows them to not only broaden their
social circles, but to separate from it and expand outward to other social circles that would
otherwise have been out of reach.

7. Over the last 50 years, teens have really been the same,
socially, from each generation to the next. They have the
same „struggles‟ now that they did decades ago. Teens
are associated with a history of “intergenerational
struggle over parental authority, youth culture, and the
peer relations fostered in high schools” (p.82).
Struggling to fit in is not a new trend, and as the world
(especially American culture) rapidly accelerates
towards the future, where the speed at which we evolve
technologically is cumulative as our technology
enhances, teens today are having a much more difficult
time in the social world. „Fitting in‟ requires many to
embrace technology, and social media sites are a means
to an end in that regard.

8. Although it does appear that the friendships and social schemata that teens live with in the „physical‟ world takes
precedents in terms of how teens view their social lives, the online-sensation of digital communities is making a large
impact (an impact that continues to grow with each new generation). The internet has become an “arena to play out these a
means of status negotiations even when they are away from the school yard”, allowing social development to continue
outside of the structured, parent-supervised system, and allowing teens to identify themselves more fully. In this arena of
self-discovery, teens utilize all the technology available to them in order to “craft and display their social identities and
interact with their peers” (p.84).

9. Teens do not distinguish between the
virtual worlds and the physical one, in
terms of socialization. The virtual
realm is a tool, much like a voice or a
chalk-board, where one can connect
with their peers. Theses tools feel
“seamless with their everyday lives”,
and with the rapid development of
technology, allows teens to socialize at
a pace that is no slower than their face-
to-face interactions are. These digital
realms have in fact altered the
socialization standards in a way that
has never been seen before, as it allows
for teens to network in a social world
that is „always-on‟, meaning that they
have access to their peers at all-times.

10. “Social media mirror, magnify, and extend
everyday social worlds,” and so
conversations and interactions that start in
one form (either in person, or through some
digital medium) can continue seamlessly
through other forms throughout its life-span.
A conversation can begin at school, then
transition to phone texting, and end as a
Facebook status or instant message on the
computer (or smartphone), without „missing
a beat‟; this allows socialization to occur
constantly and consistently, altering existing
social patterns and enabling a constant
stream of interaction with the social world.

11. Teens, in most cultures, select their friends from a pool
of possibilities that is encompassed by societal
restrictions. The „pool‟ of possible candidates generally
consist of people the same age as the teen in question;
from people in your same grade or near their place of
residence (which again encompasses people of the
same socio-economic status, among other
characteristics). Although the pool is limited, generally,
by geographic location, and again by cultural
restrictions, children have very little outlier options
when it comes to choosing friends. That being said, the
specific selection as to who, from the given pool, they
choose to be friends with, is a choice they are able to
make.

12. Now, with the advent and evolution of social media, the
pool of „options‟ that teenagers were once able to select
friends from has grown exponentially, and is no longer
limited by physical barriers. Studies done with U.S.
children found that, although social media is utilized to
support and develop pre-existing friendships; it is not
commonplace for American children to search for new
friendships in the digital realm. This is interesting
because, although the pool has widened a great deal in
terms of whom teens are able to socialize with, American
teens tend to stick with what is available to them in the
physical world, and expand upon the relationships they
already have, rather than seek out new friends online.

13. Again, this reinforces the notion that the digital natives of today do not see the digital world as a separate
entity, but rather as a tool to further develop the reality that is limited by geographic location. In some
cases, specifically in the situations where a teen feels isolated by people in their „physical world‟, they
utilize social media technologies to find others like themselves, or find others that share their same plights,
and thus online friendships are borne that are counter to the normalcies seen with other teens.
In addition, heavy stigma surrounds this outlier socialization, as the notion of meeting people and making
friends online is regarding as weird, with practitioners being labeled as “freaks”. This stigma is exacerbated
by the “stranger danger rhetoric and terror talk” that is emphasized more as safety practices, as it is well
known that much of the public spaces in which people can interact online go „unmediated‟.

14. The formalization of friendships has never
been a common occurrence in American
culture, especially in the teenage years.
Instead, friendships have always been
„ensured‟ through “implicit social rituals”
(p.93). We hang out, we ride bikes, we
make plans, and so we know that we are
friends without ever formally agreeing on
engaging in an interpersonal relationship.
However, with the new wave of social
media technologies, friendship verification
has become a great deal more formal,
especially with new social tools like
Facebook or MySpace. “One of the ways in
which social media altered friendship
practices is through the forced – and often
public – articulation of social connections”
(p.94).

15. Buddy lists, friends lists, tags, „likes‟ and „dislikes‟,
followers, and other public labels have shifted
interpersonal relationships into the public‟s eye. In
order to participate in the digital medium, one must
be willing to have an open book in terms of their
social „prowess‟, capabilities, dedication. This open
concept that has been employed in the social media
world serves multiple purposes, from allowing
people to maintain a „contact list‟ to assist with
keeping track of their friends, to regulating who has
access to what information about you (thus
reinforcing the publicly articulated social network
we employ), to also acting as a representation of an
“individual‟s social identity and status” (p.94). This
transparency in social relationships has also shifted
the very meaning of „friends‟, as a friend on a social
networking site can be as trivial as just a person
whom you know and get along with, to something
much more substantial as in a „best‟ friend with
whom you share a deep personal connection with

16. The dialectic tensions that prevail when
deciding whether or not to publicly
„accept‟ someone as a friend or not is a
powerful entity prevalent in this digital
social realm, especially when
considering the social impact that these
networking sites have on the personal
lives of the teens who utilize them. In
summary, these tools can indicate who
is being „included‟ and also who is
being „excluded‟ in each social group,
which has a doubled effect as indicating
who is being „included‟ or „excluded‟ in
the physical world.

17. Since social identity, in the public realm of digital social media, is newly
highlighted by how many „friends‟ you have, the goal of teens and adults alike
seems to be simple: acquire more. Having a large number of “friends” on your
social websites like MySpace or Facebook must mean that you are in fact more
popular, and thus more „fit’ in terms of social abilities. However, there are
different positions on this „numbers‟ phenomenon. Some view it as a way for
“people to seem more popular to themselves”, while others may view it more as a
way to network and maintain a list, without giving it the aesthetic social
application that teenagers seem to do. Others still seem to take this at face value,
and try to acquire as many „friends‟ as they can in order to boost their social
status; which in certain social circles, may actually occur. Teens do find some
value in this “mass friending” activity, but others see it as more of a “popularity
contest” (p.96).

18. Friendship Hierarchies are also quite prevalent in
the digital realm, just as they exist in the physical-
social world of teenage life. „Cliques‟ are prevalent
everywhere, and the “Top Friends” status is a
surefire way to signify (publicly, of course) who is
in your clique. Many teens, and users of sites like
MySpace where friends lists are organized both
publicly and numerically, note that this listing and
hierarchy is often a source of drama, while
supposedly adding “nuance” to a user‟s „friends
list‟. This list can cause strife when people are on or
are not on a list; or when people are not in a number
slot that they feel is reflective of their relationship
with the „user‟. A common method for avoiding the
„drama‟ associated with this hierarchical list is for
users to simply add irrelevant relationships (like
bands or celebrities) or family members.

19. Pre-digital media, the practice of numerically listing
friends in a hierarchy (even within one‟s own mind) was
not only irrelevant, it was unpracticed. Now, with the
listing schemata present in one of the most popular
social media tools around, users are somewhat forced to
play into this top-friends „game‟, where the articulation
and ranking of friends is imperative in maintaining an
active social life. “The problem with explicit ranking,
however, is that it creates or accentuates hierarchies
where they did not exist offline, or were deliberately
and strategically ambiguous, thus forcing a new set of
social status negotiations” (p.104).