HANGING OUT, MESSING AROUND AND GEEKING OUT;CHAPTER 2: FRIENDSHIP

BY: NICOLE LLOY (BROOKS)

OVERVIEW OF CHAPTER TWO: FRIENDSHIP

The following chapter documents how social

media(s) are incorporated into today’s teen

friendship practices in the context of their

everyday peer groups.

This chapter also focuses on the role that

technology plays in establishing, reinforcing,

complicating and damaging friendship-driven

social bonds.

This chapter also discusses how social media

intersects with four types of everyday peer

negotiations: making friends, performing

friendships, articulating friendship hierarchies and

navigating issues of status, attention as well as

drama.

“SOCIAL MEDIA ALLOWS TEENS TO EXTEND THEIR INTERACTIONS BEYOND PHYSICAL BOUNDARIES . CONVERSATIONS & INTERACTIONS DO NOT END WHEN FRIENDS ARE SEPARATED.”

• In the 1980’s the mall served as a key site for

teen sociability. Today social media platforms

are the new site for teen interaction.

• Just as teens flocked to the malls because of

social restrictions, many of today’s teens are

gathering online because of the variety of social

and cultural limitations that teens are dealt.

PEERS & FRIENDSHIP• Stanley Cohen writes “The young are consigned to

a self-contained world with their own

preoccupations, their entrance into adult status is

frustrated, and they are rewarded for dependency.”

• Peer relations of teens and children are structured

by a developmental logic supported by educational

institutions which are organized by firm age

boundaries.

• Children are brought into preschools, kindergartens

and elementary schools not only to learn but to be

immersed into social settings and learn how to

develop friendships with peers.

PEERS & FRIENDSHIP…• Milner suggests “that teen’s obsession with status

exists because they have so little real economic or

political power.” Milner also argues that dating,

hanging out and “mobilizing tokens” of pop culture

all play a vital role in the development as well as

maintenance of peer status.

• Teens have and continue to assemble to social

media because these outlets represent an arena for

them to play out these means of status negations.

Such negotiations begin as early as the playground

and continue even away from the school settings.

• Teens use any and all available outlets to display

their social identities and interact with their peers.

Kids use these outlets to display their personal

tastes including fashion as well as gossip, flirt and

even harass other peers. While not all teens are

subjected or experience bullying, most will

struggle with “fitting in, standing out, and trying to

keep up with what is cool.”

MAKING FRIENDS• Teens may select their friends, however their choice is

constructed by the social, cultural and economic conditions

surrounding them.

• Studies show that most American friendships are developed and

established between kids that are relatively close in age this is

because of how are school systems and other cultural forces

segregate kids by age.

• However, the chapter also indicates that most teens tend to

build friendships based on similar interests and values including

similar in age.

• Furthermore, social media theoretically allows teens to move

beyond geographically restrictions and allow teens to connect

with new people.

• Surveys of U.S. teens strongly indicate that teens use social

media sites to socialize with people they already know or are

“loosely connected with.”

• Teens often use social media to make or develop friendships,

however these friendships are developed solely because they are

friends of friends or acquaintances.

MAKING FRIENDS…

• While the dominant and normative social media usage pattern is to connect

with friends, family and acquaintances, there are however some teens who use

social media to develop connections with strangers.

• The desire to create connections with strangers is driven by specific interests

that are not supported by their schools. Or to gain social support by discussing

personal matters that would often be embarrassing to discuss with mutual

friends such as; going through puberty.

• Even though there are numerous teens who relish the opportunity to make new

connections through social media sites, this particular practice is stigmatized.

• Also, today the act of creating new friends online is criticized by cultural fears

that online interactions with strangers are dangerous and possibly provoke

sexual predators and risky online behavior.

• While social media has the potential to drastically alter the friendship making

process, most teens use these outlets to maintain preexisting connections, and

develop acquaintances into new friendships.

PERFORMING FRIENDSHIPS• “Small children often seek confirmation of friendships through

questions such as; we’re friends, right?”

• However, most youth friendships are never formalized or

verified except through unspoken social rituals.

• These rituals alter friendship practices through forced and often

public articulations of social connections.

• The articulation of connections in social media provide three

purposes; An address book, allowing participants to keep a

record of all the people they know. Second, allow participants to

control who can access and view their content. Finally, the

display of connections that occur on social network sites

represent an individuals social identity and status.

• However, diverse challenges are involved in choosing and

selecting friends because friends are displayed on social

networking sites.

• Teens may choose to accept friend requests from peers they

know but are not close to only to avoid offending the individual.

Teens may also exclude people they know such as; parents,

siblings and teachers.

PERFORMING FRIENDSHIPS…

• Teens also use social media sites to collect excessive number of friends.

Teens who participate in this act are referred to as attention seekers.

• Teens also use social media as a form of entertainment or competition

among friends. These teens are not interested in developing friends but

are interested in collecting friends because it is something to do.

• Mass friend collecting is just one practice of connecting with strangers.

Teens typically send friend requests to celebrities as well as popular

bands not in hopes of actually creating real friendships but because

Celebrities and Bands send frequent messages and VIP opportunities to

their fans/Facebook friends.

• Teens often send friend requests to everyone they know or recognized

however, no addition contact is made after the friend request is approved.

This act only adds to the awkwardness of the “friend request.”

• Typically, it is socially unacceptable to delete a friend that one knows.

When this act occurs, it is commonly right after a fight or breakup. This

act of deletion is done with intention to hurt the other person. However,

malicious deletions are common thought to be socially inappropriate.

FRIENDSHIP HIERARCHIES

• “A friend connection alone says nothing about its strength.

By accepting all acquaintances as friends, teens can avoid

offending peers who might believe there to be a stronger

connection.”

• However, social media sites complicate this connection by

adding features like MySpaces “Top Friends” forcing Teens to

indicate whom they are closest with among friends.

• Typically, most friendship declarations occur verbally between

friends . However, girls tend to use symbolic accessories such

as; friendship bracelets and “BFF” charms and necklaces. This

symbolic practices are seen with elementary-school and

middle-school aged children rather than with teenagers.

• The process of articulating and ranking friends is one of the

ways social media sites take what is normally implied and

make it obvious. Causing rather turbulent situations in social

settings. When teens are already exposed and immersed in

drama relating to cliques and popularity. The problem and

main concern for these hierarchies is that they did not exist

offline but these features of ranking friends created them.

STATUS, ATTENTION & DRAMA

• “The issue of whom one is friends with, and whom

one is best friends with, is embedded in a broader set

of struggles over status among peers at school.”

• Teens definitely use social media to develop and

maintain friendships, but they also use social media to

seek attention and often times create drama.

• Social media provides another platform for dramas to

be played out. These platforms also provide a stage

for rumors and gossip to spread and can sometimes

escalate to bullying.

• However, while drama is an inevitable part of teen

life. Social media can fuel drama and complicate

interactions that are commonly already heated.

STATUS, ATTENTION AND DRAMA…• Social media’s are also used to negotiate attention. Teens

use these channels to reassure their friends that they are

still thinking of them. So while, drama is common, teens

actually spend more time trying to preserve harmony and

reaffirm relationships.

• However, achieving status primarily through social

networking sites may not be viable, but participating and

being popular online can complement offline popularity.

• Gossip, drama, bullying and posing are completely

unavoidable aspects of teen’s everyday social practices

and peer statuses. However social media channels only

seem to heighten and alter the social dynamics

surrounding today’s teens. However, even though there is

a dark side to what takes place online, teens still seem to

relish the friendship opportunities that social media

provides.

CONCLUSION• “Social media, and especially social network sites, allow

teens to be more carefully attuned, in an ongoing way, to the

lives of their friends and peers. Social media are integrally

tied to the processes of building, performing, articulating and

developing friendships and status in teen peer networks.”

• Teens value social media mainly because social media helps

them to build and maintain friendships with peers. Social

media also plays a vital role in teens ability to share ideas and

emotions with one another. Also to mirror and magnify teen

friendship practices. For example positive interactions are

enhanced whereas negative interactions are intensified.

• The youth will continue to experience their teen years as a

time to immerse themselves into peer-based status negations

as well as develop their social and cultural identities in ways

that are independent from their parents. However, today’s

youth is expressing these identities and practices with new

set of communication tools.