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Becoming more like friends: the significance of personal media in social networking processes

Article is intended to be part of my thesis:

Young people and the interplay of personal media. Identity, social networks and genre

The object of my phd-project is to explore user patterns of personal media among young people. Devices such as messenger, mobile phones/sms/mms, blogs/diaries, home-pages and e-mail have greatly expanded the potential for mediated communication and social interaction. The use of these devices among young people may have significant consequences for their sense of self and, apparently, their social networks. Moreover, by using these tools, users contribute in developing genre conventions.

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Research questions for the article

1. What network-building consequences does extensive use of mediated interaction have?

2. How does mediated interaction affect weak and strong ties?

3. And what can explain the different social consequences that are found?

Empirical material: 15 interviews/20 informants. Age: 15-19 year

Users with complex patterns of personal media use

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Structure of article

The significance of social interaction for individuals in a post-traditional societal context

Social networking through personal media use: first by analysing use of personal media for maintaining close social relationships, and second, by analysing how personal media may extend social networks.

How online relationships are taken offline/into ”the real world”.

Conclusion

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Social networking - contextual factors

Differences in the social functions of personal media can be related to:

(1) Social competence and personality

(2) Geographical and/or urban/rural location

(3) Specific needs and patterns of using personal media

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Online interactions as ’hyperpersonal’Andreas (18, outside Oslo): It’s easier to express oneself

accurately online, and hence online conversations are often profound and very open. You can write it down, and have a second look at what you’re intending to say. If you don’t like how you expressed something, you can just edit it again and again. Then it’s easier to be honest, and I think it’s easier to tell people what I really feel.

Daniel (17, Oslo): You don’t get immediate feedback on the

Internet. They can’t see how you… when you write something, nobody can see what feelings you have and how you react.

Linnea (18, Oslo): And you’re more anonymous even if your name is

there, or even if they know somebody who knows me and they might have read my diary. You can be a little bit diffe rent from who you are. And you start with clean sheets. Presenting your self as you see yourself, (…) It’s like starting a new school, moving to a new place. You can choose what you want to tell. (…) it’s all me, but it’s small parts of me. Maybe it’s the parts I’m more satisfied with that I write more about.

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Online interactions as ’hyperpersonal’

Joseph B. Walther: due to lack of visual cues, communicants put more effort into their mediated presentations of self, and are more liable to idealize their communication partners. Participants control the quantity and quality of personal information available to others.

Erving Goffman: presentations of self - according to company

Sherry Turkle, Annette Markham, Lori Kendall and a whole lot of articles on computer-mediated communication.

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Online interactions as ’hyperpersonal’

Hence: problem?I’m not exactly revolutionizing research on online communication with this part of the analysis - I’m rather confirming what appears to be obvious with certain types of mediated communication.

Still these aspects are rather important for my research questions, and there are differences between types of personal media (which perhaps has not been very clear in previous research).

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Types of friendships - types of media

’Friends only’ Live Journal users

http://www.livejournal.com/users/punknstrange/

Live Journal users can restrict access to their journal or to specific entries to defined users only (like Enjoy Diary, Flickr). LJ-users may also create several custom friends groups, and choose which of their friends-groups will have access to read their entries. Their very closest friends may have access to the most private entries.

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Types of friendships - types of media

We use more media, and more intimate media, to communicate with close friends.

”Different personal media support interactions of different intimacy levels: chatting (especially IRC, but also IM) and blogging occasionally initiate new and originally weak ties. These ties may evolve into stronger ties, but in such cases communication has typically migrated to other media, with the telephone as emblematic for close relationships.”

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Allure of strangers

Dina (15 Oslo): I’ve added people to my fr iends-list on ED

[Enjoy Diary], although I only know them from ED. It doesn’t really matter, because they know me only f rom ED. People I know of fline can confront me with stuff they’ve read, or they can tell others. However, if they live in the north of Norway, then it’s not very interesting to talk about someone in Oslo to someone who doesn’t know who I am.

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Allure of strangers

Like ”strangers on a train”: Strangers may be perceived as safe receivers for intimate self-disclosures, as there will be no real-life consequences

Therefore: people who are added to friends-lists might be really good offline friends or people with no real-life relations at all. An interesting paradox I might elaborate?

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Online and offline

The interesting paradox, which is still so easy to understand:

My informants often experience online interactions as more open and honest. Still: face-to-face interactions are considered to be of better quality: more authentic in-person: aspects of selves that are controlled in mediated interaction become visible.

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Online and offline

Thomas (17 Nesodden): It’s easier to become close fr iends

when you’ve met somebody. Like, then you know for sure that you’re not talking to a fat 50 year old paedophile man. (…) I’ve talked a lot to people on the Internet before meeting them and becoming friends with them for real.

Linnea (18, Oslo): I’d might like to, but it is often strange to

meet someone you’ve talked a lot with. Because e-mails are often very personal. It’s almost like writing a diary when I write her e-mails, and she knows everything that happens in my life and vice versa. What if we don’t connect if we meet face to face? Maybe she’s quite dif ferent from what I imagine.