BACHELOR'S THESIS – DURHAM UNIVERSITY

Dissertation in Anthropology 2011/2012 for the Department of Anthropology. In completion of a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and Sociology – ll36.

-Supervised by Dr Tomas Yarrow

-

Youths on Facebook: An analytical investigation of mediated actions and public discourses

Abstract: The present dissertation investigates and analyses young people's (age 18-24) use of the egocentric social networking site Facebook. The aim is gaining a more nuanced and empirically grounded understanding of this relatively new social

phenomenon, its meaning, and what role it plays in the every-day social as well as individual lives of its users. Throughout I argue that, as a result of the way Facebook and SNSs are used among youths, there is an emerging need to fundamentally reconsider the meaning of central social institutions and concepts such as 'friendship', 'social presence', 'privacy', 'identity' and 'authenticity' in

every-day life. This is achieved, methodologically, through a nexus-analysis of young people's mediated actions and public discourses. In this way the youths’ own spoken words are placed at the centre of the investigation and are analysed and contrasted

with the relevant social scientific theories. The term “nexus of practice“ refers to the social field where humans, discourses and cultural artefacts intersect and result in social action. The study also sheds light on the problematic notion of electronic privacy on Facebook and will raise and discuss important questions about where and how we draw the boundaries of electronic privacy in the

age of Facebook and online social media. The findings have conclusively suggested that there is an emerging contradictory gap between the youths’ own local experiences with Facebook regarding risk and the over-sensationalised media-representations.

Keywords: social networking, youth, Facebook, identity, authenticity, social presence, moral panics, friendship ties, transformation/continuity, experience, Information Age, enabling technologies, electronic privacy and risk.

1

1. Introduction

The present study investigates young people's use of one of the biggest social phenomena of our time, Facebook, an egocentric online social networking site (SNS). With the emergence of these new forms of websites it became possible, to an extent never experienced before, to communicate and socialise with others across the previous limitations in time and space. The aim of this dissertation is to gain a nuanced understanding of this relatively new social phenomenon, to discover its meaning for its users, and to explore what role it plays in the individual everyday social as well as individual lives of its users. The main source of primary data for this study was collected over a 4 month period at various locations in Denmark, Luxembourg and England where I currently both live and study. Additional data have been collected via the social network Facebook, through informal online conversations as well as first-hand observations made on the social network. The study aims to merge two essential levels of analysis: the individual micro-perspectives of the social actors (current users of Facebook), as well as at the macro-level of discourse. It then seeks to illuminate, analyse and understand the most central aspects and implications of 'living life on the screen' as a youth in contemporary Western society (Turkle 2006).

The primary theoretical and methodological approach to this study is modelled after Scollon and Scollons' nexus-analysis (Scollon & Scollon 2004). The term “nexus of practice“ 'refers to the social field where humans, discourses and cultural artefacts intersect and result in social action' (Larsen 2010:iii). This type of approach is carried out through three distinct phases: the engaging, navigation and changing phase. Rather than focusing solely on the macro-level of discourse when it comes to social practice, a nexus-analysis firstly consists of ethnographic engagement within a target area of research in order to encompass the micro-level perspectives of the social actors (ibid.: 2010). The purpose of the navigation phase is to systematically organise, categorize and analyse the collected ethnographic data material. Finally, the changing phase reflects upon the presented categories of data and aims to establish a link to the existing social scientific discourses to determine if the results could contribute to changes within (or influence) the overall nexus of practice (ibid.: 2010). As a result of the ethnographic data collected in the engagement phase, the most relevant aspects and topics surrounding contemporary youth's use of Facebook and other SNSs were found to be: „Social Presence and the maintenance of friendship ties“, „Changes in the meanings of 'friendship', 'identity' and 'authenticity'“, „the obliteration of the online/offline-dichotomy“, and „Risk: Contradictions

2

between public discourses and local experiences“. In addition to the above stated main topics of interest that emerged from the ethnographic engagement phase, the study will also briefly shed light on the problematic notion of electronic privacy on Facebook, and the final chapter will raise and discuss important questions about where and how we draw the boundaries of electronic privacy in the age of Facebook and online social media. It is also discussed why - in the “Age of Experts” - it is particularly important having scientific studies that are grounded in empirical research in order to contribute to a more accurate and nuanced understanding of today's youths and their use of Facebook.

3

INDEX:

Chapter I: Introduction: Youths and their use of Facebook and SNSs

1. What is Facebook and how does it work?2. Perspectives on Youth and Early Adulthood

3. Youth, Style, and the Construction of Identity4. The [online] Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

Chapter II: Framework and Methodology of the Study

5. The Obliteration of the Online/Offline Dichotomy6. The Insider-problematic

Chapter III: The Analysis

7. In their own words: Why youths are on Facebook8. THEME I: Social Presence and the Maintenance of Friendship Ties9. THEME II: Changes in the Meaning of 'Friendship' and 'Authenticity'10. THEME III: Risk on Facebook: Contradictions between Public Discourses and Local Experiences

Chapter VI: Reflection and Discussion

11. Conclusion12. Bibliography

Chapter I: Introduction: Youths and their use of Facebook and SNSs

4

1. What is Facebook and how does it work?

The social network Facebook was created in February 2004 in a small Harvard University dormitory by then student Mark Zuckerberg (McCracken 2011). The initial use of Facebook took place only within the United States and initially it was only open to Zuckerberg's classmates. Shortly after, however, the social network opened up to other Ivy League students across the US, and eventually Facebook opened its doors to the world. Today, Facebook has more than 800 million active users worldwide, which currently makes it the world's largest social network (ibid.: 2011).

With the introduction of websites such as Facebook and MySpace an entirely new media-genre had been born (Larsen 2010:8). SNSs were fundamentally different from all other known media forms and furthermore did not seem to fit under the „virtual community“-discourse (Rheingold 1993), because these newly emerged sites seemed not just to be mainly about uploading and sharing information or content but rather the main purpose seemed to be: to communicate and socialise with others. Critics of the notion „virtual community“ as a description of Facebook, such as Baym, also added that the notion „virtual“ was both too abstract and inappropriate as a description of Facebook because of the meaning of „virtual“ as referring to something „unreal“ or „unauthentic“ (Baym 1998/2000).

Facebook was something fundamentally different from just a „virtual community“ and Boyd and Ellison (2007) have suggested that this „difference“ lies in the fact that these online social communities are 'egocentric', by having 'the individual at the centre of their own community' (Boyd & Ellison 2007). Boyd and Ellison have more accurately defined SNSs as follows and thereby created a critical distinction from „virtual communities“:

„We define social network sites as web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system“.(Boyd & Ellison 2007)

Facebook is, like other SNSs, fundamentally based upon the concept of a personalised user-profile [as of April 2012 this became known as the Timeline] (Tufekci 2008:545-546). The user-profile is the most central feature for each individual user, and multiple profiles can be linked together via

5

a so-called “friend-request”. If two or more users are “friends”, they will be listed as such publicly on each other‘s profiles, where they will now be able to fully access each other’s profiles and interact socially on the network. A profile is thus not just a representation of a single individual, but also of his or her entire social universe.

Upon having created a profile on Facebook, the user also has the option of browsing the network for friends, colleagues or family-members and of sending them a friend-request. Befriended users can post comments and share videos, pictures or various other kinds of material on each other‘s profiles (Timelines).

Of great significance is the fact that the dominating social practises on the social network of Facebook are public, and friendships are thus publicly articulated through the various kinds of applications and services which Facebook or Facebook-related applications and services within the Facebook “eco-system” have to offer (Boyd 2007:7).

2. Perspectives on Youths and early Adulthood

The target group under investigation in this study has been labelled as „youths“, and, within the social sciences, it is a widely accepted theory that the term is not covering a stable age group of individuals and that the term therefore cannot be properly understood without taking into account the specific socio-historical circumstances (see Bennett; 2007; Simonsen 2003; Ziehe). It is also regarded as a widely accepted idea that the notion of youth is a social and historical construction dependent upon a particular socio-historical “audience” who are experiencing particular social, historical and economic circumstances to construct its social existence (Piaget 2000). This study distinguishes itself from similar studies, as it does not involve the study of „children“ who are aged 12-18, but specifically targets individuals aged 18-24. However, according to German sociologist Tomas Ziehe the term „youth“ is not as clear cut and easy to define as some would like it to be. According to him there is a fundamental disambiguity between the conceptual understanding of 'youths' and 'actual youths' (Ziehe 1989:26 in Larsen 2012:16). For Ziehe there are three kinds of 'youth-definitions': the physical, psychological and cultural youth. As some, rightfully, have suggested (Larsen 2010; Ziehe 1989), in public debates about 'youths' there is often a widespread misconception about 'youths' as one homogeneous group of individuals.

6

Due to the fact that this study is focusing on contemporary 'youths' it is important to specify that no informant in this study was under the age of 18. However, as we have just established, the period from age 18-24 (even up to age 27 for Ziehe) is defined as the ' cultural youth' and it therefore legitimises my use of the term to describe the target group and thereby maintain an important distinction to the period of childhood – a period which according to Ziehe ranges from puberty to age 17. In this definition 'cultural youth' refers to all those who “act young” regardless of their physical age. Additionally, Ziehe convincingly argues that the age of 18-22 can also be understood as belonging to the group of 'psychological youth'.

3. Youth, Style, and the Construction of Identity

Despite the widespread conceptual confusion about the meaning of youth, it is a commonly accepted theory that this period is especially concerned with the construction of identity (Goffman 1959). Youth is widely regarded as a period where individuals experiment with different so-called identity markers in the form of different styles regarding popular-culture, music taste, looks or behaviour. Traditionally this process used to take place solely in an offline social environment; however, with the introduction of the internet as well as SNSs, this process of identity-formation is increasingly taking place in an online-environment. Instead of having to signal these “identity-markers” via clothing or similar physical tools, this process is now increasingly taking place in a non-physical environment and on SNSs such as Facebook. As a result, youths have to use a whole set of different tools, in the form of texts, pictures, messages, symbols, links, taggings or posts to, as Gefter calls it, 'write oneself into being' (Gefter 2006:1).

As Harris (1998) points out, peers and close friends play a particularly dominant as well as important role in the social process of identity-formation amongst youths. According to Harris, friends play an even far greater role than, for instance, the parents when it comes to forming an identity (Harris 1998). This idea has become particularly visible on SNSs such as Facebook, through observing the profiles and the general social practice between youths on Facebook.

"Friends" on Facebook provide our social networks with group structure, which further indicate meaningful identity markers in our everyday lives (Boyd 2007:14). The enormous popularity of Facebook and other SNSs among contemporary teenagers and youths therefore corresponds to the idea that this social group is particularly occupied with identity-formation and experimentation (Illeris et al, 2002 in Larsen 2010:42).

7

What quickly springs to mind when observing Facebook-profiles, is that there, on the one hand, are obvious social norms, guidelines and expectations regarding social behaviour, whilst on the other hand it seems equally obvious how individual social actors try their best to stand out and separate themselves from the masses, yet still within what is considered culturally and socially acceptable (Simmel 1950; Larsen 2010:16-17).

When observing the profiles of youths on Facebook many profile pictures equally appear to display a large amount of self-confidence. Many pose in confident positions, wearing the 'right' clothing, the 'right' brands and also appear to have the 'right' friends who post comments on their Timelines. As Dronter (1991), Beck (1997) and Ziehe (1989) have argued the period of youth is also widely known to be concerned with psychological and emotional turbulence and it is often accompanied by varying degrees of social insecurity.

British sociologist Anthony Giddens has argued that youth, in what historically is often referred to as 'late-modernity', is characterised by the unprecedented plethora of choice. For Giddens the key words to defining this turbulent phase consequently are reflexivity and self-reflexivity. He captures this tension very well in the statement: „What to do? How to act? Who to be? These are focal questions for everyone living in circumstances of late modernity – and ones which, on some level or another, all of us answer, either discursively or through day-to-day social behaviour.“ (Giddens 1996:88)

Networked individualism

Due to the fact that, increasingly, practising friendships (an important part of the process of identity-formation) is taking place in an online-environment on SNSs such as Facebook, a whole new form of egocentric social structure appears to have emerged as a result of communication technology. In „The Network Society“, Manuel Castells describes how the structure of modern society now has put the individual at its centre. Castells strongly emphasises that this is not to say that individuals have become more socially isolated, but that, quite on the contrary, individuals have become far more connected than ever before. However, it is a new form of sociability that is fundamentally based upon individualism.

8

„...the most important role of the Internet in structuring social relationships is its contribution to the new pattern of sociability based on individualism […] Increasingly, people are organized not just in social networks, but in supercommunicated social networks. So, it is not the Internet that creates a pattern of networked individualism, but the development of the Internet provides an appropriate material support for the diffusion of networked individualism as the dominant form of sociability.“ (Castells 2001:130-131)

As Larsen (2010:22) has indeed rightfully pointed out the significance of the notion of 'networked individualism' is central in order to gain an understanding of youths and their use of new communication media such as Facebook and other SNSs. However, the term is also overshadowed by an inherent contradiction. On the one hand, contemporary youths appear to become more individualised, yet on the other they are increasingly becoming more connected and dependent on each other. The author goes on to convincingly argue that this is as a likely result of the collapse of the time/space-dimension that is usually very clear cut in offline social environments. Or as Barry Wellman famously has put it: „We are now experiencing another transition, from place-to-place to person-to-person connectivity. Moving around with a mobile phone, pager, or wireless Internet makes people less dependent on place. Because connections are to people and not places, the technology affords shifting of work and community ties from linking people-in places to linking people wherever they are. It is I-alone that is reachable wherever I am […] People remain connected, but as individuals rather than being rooted in the home bases of work unit and household. Individuals switch rapidly between their social networks. Each person separately operates his networks to obtain information, collaboration, orders, support sociability, and a sense of belonging“. (Wellman 2002:15-16)

4. The [online] Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

In „The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life“, celebrated sociologist and symbolic interactionlist Erving Goffman (1959) pioneered in illuminating central aspects of identity formation and social practices from the micro-level perspectives of individual social actors. Today, Goffman's dramaturgical metaphor can be used to shed light on the functionality of SNSs like Facebook as well as their revolutionary implications for the realm of social interaction and the formation of identity among contemporary youths. This section will focus on how the presentation of self is managed in an online environment, as opposed to in a traditional offline environment, and explore the theoretical micro-level implications for individual social actors.

9

According to Goffman, human life is like a theatre or a drama, and human beings are performing social actors playing their roles to the best of their ability (Goffman 1959). Central for Goffman's dramaturgy is the idea that we do not possess an innate nature or are born with a “core-self”, but that we are indeed social constructs of the society, culture and the socio-historical cirumstances that we happened to grow up in. It is throughout a turbulent life of social interaction accompanied with constant reflexivity that we eventually develop an identity (Mead 2007). Our sense of self, according to Mead, arises entirely out of our social environment, and a “self” is therefore never a finished product—or stable entity—but rather a dynamic and continuous social process. Our social behaviour, in this view, is dividable in two central categories according to whether anybody is watching or not. If there are two - or more - people physically present, the acting subject is conscious of the fact that he/she has to perform in front of an audience. If there is no visible audience present, the actor can “drop the mask” and freely engage in so-called backstage behaviour, without having to worry about the social implications of his or her actions.

It is on the front stage (in front of an audience) that the actor is forced to put on a show to convince the audience of his/her competence as an actor playing his/her particular social role. In doing so, the actor will employ all possible rhetorical means in order to live up to the social and cultural expectations of the watching audience. The actor has to manage and manipulate his/her performance and appearance to correspond to the ideal. Implicit in the logic of dramaturgy is the notion that we are always at risk of the social consequences of delivering an unconvincing social performance in the physical presence of others, and this tension inevitably leads to a subtle, yet constant sense of social anxiety. The innate urge for social validation that is often observable among contemporary youths on Facebook is thus a manifestation of their general desire for social validation among their peers (Boyd 2007:13).

As pointed out in the previous chapter, social interaction online takes place in the comfort of privacy (back-stage) and is therefore fundamentally different from traditional face-to-face interaction, found on the traditional front-stage in Goffman's theatrical metaphor of human life and society. Facebook can thus be argued to have managed to twist the unwritten rules of social protocol and instead facilitate new ways of socialising without having to act under pressure and constant social anxiety. Central to dramaturgy is the theoretical concept of an audience. The audience is a metaphor for the social actor(s) that an individual has to perform in front of, and in face-to-face interaction the audience is visible to the actor, and it is therefore possible to situate oneself in the social situation and adjust one's performance accordingly (Boyd 2007:14). In virtual communities

10

and on SNSs, the audience is invisible to the actor and he is therefore forced to “guess” who could be watching in the audience.

On Facebook, one's identity is largely portrayed through the egocentric concept of a 'profile' (Timeline). This means that the observable social practise on Facebook, such as carefully selecting your profile picture, 'liking' your friends’ status update, uploading a particular song or image to your own or others‘ profile or commenting on other people's posts and comments, are important ways of forming an identity (Larsen 2010:16-17). Facebook offers an unprecedented plethora of ways for people to express themselves and interact socially through symbolic interactionalism via a 'digital body' (Boyd 2007:13). It thus gives contemporary youths the ability to shape and experiment with their identities by providing them with the tools to display their own edited histories to the world. Following Goffman's theatrical metaphor, SNSs like Facebook provide social actors with the power of the film-editor who can decide what to show—and what to leave out from the performance. It thus has the potential to turn simple social actors into impressive Hollywood-stars in the sense that youths on Facebook are now able to constantly deliver a flawless social performance, regardless of time, place and audience.

Chapter II: Framework and Methodology of the Study

5. The Obliteration of the Online/Offline Dichotomy

As Wellman (2002:15-16) described earlier, we are increasingly moving from 'place-to-place' to 'person-to-person' connectivity, with the implication that the previously so clear cut dimensions of the 'online' and 'offline' has melted together and become effectively both indistinguishable and irrelevant in social interaction. As such, it would be erroneous to assume that the 'virtual' is qualitatively different or perhaps, - less 'real' than the offline (Baym 1998/2000). I would argue, along with Kendall (1999) and Jones (2004), that one simply cannot ignore what goes on in the 'offline' lives of the informants, nor would it be correct to limit the scope of the study to the social interaction that takes place on Facebook or other online environments. As Bakardjieva (2005), Livingstone (2008) and Silverstone (2006) have argued, Facebook is, as a social networking technology, a revolutionary 'enabling' social technology (Silverstone 2005:20) that has recently become society's 'digital nervous system' (Van Dijk 1999:2). The mass-domestication of social networking has become an integral part of the daily lives of contemporary youths so that the simplistic distinction between “online” and “offline” therefore

11

simply is no longer applicable nor relevant (Gefter 2006). However, this raises important questions about the methodology of internet based research because it suggests that a complete picture cannot be obtained by limiting the study's scope to what happens 'on the screen' (Turkle 2006).

„Would offline data reveal something significant about the context being studied that could not be obtained from online data? In what ways might the offline data enhance the interpretation of the online data? “ (Orgad 2009:51)

This could potentially create a “methodological conundrum” that would be difficult to overcome, as experienced internet-researcher Larsen (2010) jokes, 'does that mean that we have to follow our informants home to their rooms in order to capture the full image?' (ibid. 2010:32). However, as Orgad points out, this conundrum is easily resolvable, methodologically, by regarding the distinction between the online and the offline as both inherently dynamic and effectively indistinguishable concerning the collection and coding of empirical data (Orgad 2009:51).

6. The Insider-problematic

The role and person of the researcher(s) is always of particular importance when conducting qualitative research. It is critical to the research that the researcher is able to balance a theoretical and social sensitivity and maintain an analytical distance whilst simultaneously drawing upon past experience and theoretical knowledge (Strauss & Corbin 1990:18).

As a habitual user of Facebook and other SNS myself, my personal role as researcher can be argued to be affected by a form of bias as a result of my own experiences and knowledge about Facebook and SNSs. Yet, to the extent that bias can be seen as a major disadvantage in qualitative research, it can also be regarded as an advantage, or as some would argue—a distinct necessity—in order to be able to gain a complete understanding of the nature and functionality of the phenomenon under investigation (Larsen 2007:41). In fact, this type of ' insider-perspective' could easily be regarded as the optimal way of conducting this particular type of research (regarding Facebook and SNSs) as it allows the researcher to relate to the accounts given by the informants and thus facilitates a better understanding and easier “flow” of the qualitative interviews (Ibid. 2007:43). However, the key is to acknowledge that one's own personal use of social media merely is a 'supplement to—but not part of the data collection' (Ibid. 2007:43).

12

Chapter III: The Analysis

The primary source of data for this study comes from a series of 22 in-depth semi-structured interviews of current users of Facebook, all aged 18 to 24 (each interview lasting anywhere from 40 minutes to 1 hour). The method of in-depth qualitative interviewing as the selected approach to the collection of primary data in the engagement phase was chosen because of its natural suitability for this type of research involving the nature of the experiences and perspectives of individual social actors (Strauss & Corbin 1990).

It is important to note that the approach for this study was that of not beginning with a theory to be proved or disproved, but rather to begin with an area of study and then let what is naturally deemed relevant by the informants themselves on that area emerge (Marshall & Rossman 1995). Just a few general topics were presented in the course of the interviews to help uncover the participants' own perspectives and experiences regarding the role of Facebook and social networking in their lives, and hence the structure of the interviews was aimed at letting the informants speak as freely and openly as possible (Strauss & Corbin 1990). The “structure” of the semi-structured interviews could therefore, more accurately, be described as 'a conversation with a purpose' (Kahn & Cannell 1957 cited in Marshall & Rossman 1995:149).

Despite the fact that there was no strict formal structure governing the “flow” of the interviews, I did start out by asking the informants when and why they decided to join Facebook, partly as a relevant conversation starter, but also to 'break the ice' and direct the thoughts of my informants away from the interview-situation to their own experiences with Facebook. In the process of coding, in the study's navigation phase, I went through each interview and systematically categorized the most common topics that were highlighted by the informants themselves. A total of 5 overall themes were thereby discovered, each addressed with its own separate section in this chapter. In cases where an informant gave two answers both have been added into separate matching categories.

7. In Their Own Words: Why Youths are on Facebook

Regarding motives to join Facebook a total of 6 motive-categories were established based on the answers by the informants, and in cases where an answer could potentially fit into more than one category, the answer was added to the most relevant category.

13

Scene-arguments:

Not surprisingly, the single most prominent reason for youths to join Facebook was to communicate with friends and peers (19).

„Early 2007 as everyone else had it“ (21 year old male)

„I joined because I got invitations on my hotmail, it was in 2007“ (18 year old female)

„At the coercion of my then girlfriend, and it was 2007 I think“ (20 year old male)

„Facebook means a lot, because everyone uses it all the time so I'm forced to use it too be able to keep up. Without Facebook I would feel like I am missing out on many events, news, gossips“ (18 year old female)

According to Scollon and Scollon, when an informant uses a reason that 'lies outside or prior to his or her interests', this is seen as a scene-argument (Scollon & Scollon 2004:175). As stated above, this was, by far, the most prominent category of answer to this question.

„In 2008, because lots of my friends had it and were telling me to join. New people I was meeting were asking for my Facebook so they could add me“ (20 year old female)

„I can speak to my friends, make jokes and know when I'm supposed to meet them for a party, for dinner, breakfast, lunch and basketball“ (22 year old male)

The findings therefore suggest that Facebook has become an important part for friends to plan and organise their IRL (“In Real Life”) social activities. According to Lenhart and Madden (2007), SNSs have increasingly assumed the same functional role as a mobile phone in as much as they let the users plan and structure their offline social activities.

Boredom-arguments

A few informants also added boredom to one of the reasons why they decided to join Facebook.

14

„I joined in 2007 during my junior year of high school. Originally as a solution to boredom in the office“ (24 year old male)

„2008 I think... Because I was bored after school and I used to play a lot of games on Facebook“ (21 year old male)

Another prominent category that emerged—with a total of 10 answers—was boredom. According to Livingstone and Boville (1999), boredom arises for young people in the absence of their friends. They do stress, however, that youths do not seem to become 'addicted' to Facebook for this reason, but the fact that they spend so much time on Facebook rather suggests that they are 'addicted' to their friends (Livingstone 2009; Boyd 2010). Holloway and Valentine (2003) similarly point out that Facebook has become the best alternative to socialising with their friends in real life and that they would not hesitate a moment to go out and socialise in real life if they had the opportunity to do so.

User friendliness-arguments

Another less common category of answers was the convenience or technical functionality of Facebook, as opposed to other, similar SNSs.

„2008 and to see what it was like and if it was better than Bebo and MSN“ (21 year old male)

„I joined in 2010 because I had heard it was a lot better than MSN“ (19 year old female)

Staying in touch-arguments

Another particularly prominent category of answers, with a total of 17 responses, turned out to emerge within the “Staying in touch”-category.

„I joined, I think in 2007, and kept it as a means of communication with friends who were mostly abroad“ (23 year old male)

„It is a distraction but it also amuses me to see what my friends are up to and it's a way of staying in touch “ (20 year old Female)

15

„Keeps me up to date with the lives of friends I don't see very often“ (21 year old male)

„I use it to contact family and friends that live far away“ (19 year old female)

„Facebook makes it much easier to keep in touch with people“ (18 year old female)

In accordance with my expectations, this category appeared to be very important for many of the informants interviewed, particularly because of the age-group of the informants in this study (between 18-24). This is often a time in the lives of youths where they move away from home to begin studying or working elsewhere. A considerable portion of the contacts found on the friends-lists of virtually all my informants were either school-contacts or people they knew from their time at school, but who now lived geographically too far away to keep in touch with in person.

The two remaining categories that emerged were noted to be particularly infrequent: „Meeting new people-argument“ and „Love and Relationship-arguments“.

Meeting new people-argument

This section has overall yielded rather contradictive and inconclusive results. It seems that different people have very different motivations when it comes to the idea of meeting new people through Facebook. On the one hand, a few explained how they had found new friends via Facebook and then subsequently met up with them IRL.

„Yes! I met many new friends through Facebook, and then afterwards [met up with them] in real life “ (18 year old female)

Others, on the other hand, did not actively pursue new friendships through Facebook and mainly used the social network to communicate and socialise with already existing friends.

As one informant explained, „as a rule do not add people on Facebook if I don't know them beforehand“ (24 year old male)

Out of all 22 interviews only three individuals mentioned the idea of meeting new people on Facebook as a reason for having joined the social network. According to Amanda Gefter, this can

16

be explained by the fact that youths generally use Facebook to communicate with already existing social relations, rather than as a means to obtain new ones.

„Despite the media hype, young people on social networking sites are interacting for the most part not with strangers, but with friends from their real life. Thus their online social life doesn't detract from their real one, as the two are simply different manifestations of the same network of friends“. (Gefter 2006:46)

Love and Relationship-argument

Slightly surprising, however, was the almost complete absence of „Love and Relationship-arguments“ from the existing data pool as to the reasons for having decided to join Facebook. According to another study investigating 13-24 year old users of SNSs, similar research findings had emerged (Klastrup & Stald 2009). This suggests that the motivation for finding a boyfriend or girlfriend as well as using Facebook as a “date-finder tool” is secondary to the way youths use Facebook to communicate with their already existing social circles. As Larsen points out, although it is not the primary objective to look for potential partners on Facebook, this does not mean that this does not happen, rather 'it is just regarded as a positive side bonus' (Larsen 2010:157). Out of the 22 interviews only one informant brought “love/relationships” up as an argument for having decided to join Facebook.

8. THEME I: Social Presence and the Maintenance of Friendship Ties

After having asked my informants why and when they had decided to join Facebook as a conversation starter, the conversations could take many directions. As previously stated, I did not deliberately try to “force” an informant to talk about something that he or she did not bring up on his or her own initiative. However, 3 overall categories of topics gradually emerged as a result of the findings in the study's navigation phase. These are described as „Themes“ and are explored and analysed below.

The idea that friends and the maintenance of friendship ties are amongst the most prominent reasons why teenagers and contemporary youths in particular flock to SNSs like Facebook is not new as several previous studies have shown (Gefter 2006; Boyd 2007/2008; Bakadjiva 2003; Tufekci 2008). The aim of this study is to move further beyond this idea and explore the role of Facebook in the day-to-day practising and maintenance of friendship ties among contemporary youths.

17

On Facebook the main “mode of communication” is directly via the Timeline feature. Here, for instance, texts, messages, links, applications or various kinds of photographic material (such as pictures or video-clips) are posted and shared between befriended users on the network. Whilst discussing how an informant prefers to communicate with her friends and why she did not use the “send private message”-option to send and receive messages, she answered that this option mostly was intended for invitations to events or things that were not intended to be publicly viewable.

„I think the most normal way of communicating here is through posting messages on someone's wall“. (18 year old female)

According to my own observations, a lot of messages posted on people's Timelines were ultra-short messages or texts such as:

„sup bro“ (22 year old male)

„yoyo what's up? “ (22 year old male)

„heya what u up 2, bored... xxx“ (20 year old female)

A typical way of communicating with “friends” on Facebook among youths is in the form of short and seemingly rather mundane texts such as in the above examples, but there are other instances of communication where no words at all are used, and instead a music-track, picture (often a so-called 'meme' which has recently become very popular on Facebook) or short video clips are posted instead.

18

1.a

The above picture is taken directly from Facebook and it is a typical form of social practice observable among youths on the social network. Often, one user posts such a picture on his/her own Timeline or on someone else's Timeline and subsequently other users within their respective networks are able to comment or “Like” the picture – which they often do. The above picture 1.a was posted by a 22 year old female who added the comment „Bahahaaaaa!!! “ to the picture.

1.b

Picture 1.b was posted by another user and, unlike picture 1.a, this picture has a direct connection with the offline everyday-life of the user. The user, a 21 year old female, added the

19

comment „YESSSSSS“ to the picture (presumably uploaded directly from her Iphone). Subsequently, a number of people have “Liked” the picture, and a friend commented „Too bad you have classes during the week days eh? “. Somewhat later the girl who posted the picture answered „Hehehe I finished at 10 today!-D“.

Whether it is just a simple comment on a friend’s Timeline, such as in the examples above, or a “meme”, such as the examples 1.a and 1.b, the communication often appears both simplistic and superficial, even sometimes downright 'boring' as some have noted (Larsen 2005:400). So why has the vast majority of social practices and communications on Facebook taken this form? According to Boyd (2007/2008), the answer is to be found in the communication itself – rather than in the content. Short, simplistic and seemingly superficial pictures, texts or messages, are simply a way of showing interest in others or a way of staying in touch despite being separated physically or geographically. Even the simple text „sup bro“ is a way of showing interest in another person and can be an important way for youths on Facebook to stay in touch and maintain a 'strong tie' with friends whom they do not see on a regular basis.

„...the topic is merely the indispensable medium through which the lively exchange of speech itself unfolds its attractions. […] It thus is the fulfilment of a relation that wants to be nothing but relation – in which, that is, what usually is the mere form of interactions becomes its self-sufficient content.“ (Simmel 1950:52-53)

The German sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel describes social networking as a form of 'sociability' (Simmel & Hughes 1949). I would agree that Facebook, as a result of the kind of predominant social practice that takes place on Facebook, can be described as a form of 'sociable technology' (Hjarvard 2005).

A transformation of 'privacy' and of the meaning of 'being alone'

As explained above Facebook can be an important way for youths to „stay in touch“ and get a sense of being social, even when there is no one physically around. In one instance, a 22 year old male user initiated a conversation with another by posting the message „sup“ on a friend's wall. About 15-20 minutes later, the friend responds „nm m8 u? “, after which the 22 year old answers „been working on my GMAT today“ a while after. This asynchronous form of communication suggests that the youths do not expect an immediate answer as when they are talking to someone on the phone, for instance. It appears that this mode of communication is common and regarded as an acceptable – even normal - way of communicating between youths on Facebook. As previously

20

have suggested, this simultaneously indicates the collapse of the time/space dimensions as an important – perhaps even necessary – prequisite for communicating and socialising. As both Larsen (2010) and Boyd (2008) have suggested, this further indicates that what the youths actually pursue with this form of communication is the sense of 'constant contact', rather than the content of the messages as such.

„It is […] very much like being physically around someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does – body language, sighs, stray comments – out of the corner of your eye. […] Each little update – each little individual bit of social information – is significant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting.“ (Thompson 2008:1)

And indeed, according to my findings, youths genuinely appear to experience a sense of 'constant contact' with each other, and as Townsend (2001) also rightfully notes, it is a much deeper sense of connectedness than simply being available on your phone. As a consequence, I would argue that there is an emerging need to reconsider the idea of 'being alone'. The new meaning of 'being alone' arises out of the idea which Gefter (2006) and others have described as a constant 'social presence' – even whilst being completely alone in a physical sense. It seems to me that one cannot accurately be described as being completely 'alone'—in the traditional sense—when one has constant and immediate access to one's entire meta-network of friends and family everywhere we go (or stay). I would argue that what Gefter already saw coming in 2006, is now already reality:

„We will carry this meta-network with us in small wireless devices so that our virtual identities become seamlessly integrated with the real world. We will become more autonomous and mobile than ever, and at the same time discover an unprecedented form of collectivism“ (Gefter 2006:46(3)

In this study, 17 out of the 22 informants I interviewed had Facebook installed as an application on their mobile phones (or other mobile gadgets). One informant especially illustrates very well exactly how integrated into the every-day life of today's youths Facebook has become. During my interview with Haylee (pseudonym) she told me that on a „normal day“ she would usually spend around „3 hours“ in front of Facebook actively browsing the network. However, later she revealed that she also had Facebook installed on her Blackberry phone and that it would alert her any time someone posted a comment on her wall, “Liked” one of her posts, or “tagged” her in a photo-album. She said that she carries her phone with her all the time, everywhere, „even in the

21

shower“. Although this could well have been intended as a joke it was perhaps a declaration that her phone is simply always within reach. These findings correspond to earlier findings of studies such as that of Gefter (2006) and suggest that the notion of “ambient awareness” is particularly prevalent among youths on Facebook. This notion has been severely criticized by some experts as I shall explain in the discussion section.

9. THEME II: Changes in the Meanings of 'Friendship' and 'Authenticity'

As THEME I revealed, the widespread domestication of Facebook among today's youths has

brought about a series of fundamental institutional and conceptual social transformations. Not only

have we been forced to rethink traditional notions of privacy, but as this chapter will investigate, we

might also have to reconsider the notion of what it means to be “friends”. In other words, is the

notion of “friendship” as a socio-cultural institution undergoing a transformation as a result of the

way in which youths (and other social groups) use Facebook and similar SNSs? As Pahl (2000)

reminds us, it is a commonly accepted theory among social scientists that no social institutions can

be regarded as 'stable' units and that they evolve as a product of their socio-historical circumstances.

The idea that the notion of friendship is currently undergoing a negative transformation as a result

of the new communication technology generation that Facebook is part of is argued vociferously by

people such as Kraut and Lundmark et al. (1998), Anderson (2001) and Granovetter (1973). As

Anderson articulates it:

„...the friendships of today are simply thinner than before and increasingly restricted. By 'thin' I

mean there is less to them. By 'restricted' I mean that friendships have been pushed out of the key

social institutions such as business and are increasingly seen as belonging to recreation. “

(Anderson 2001:30)

Anderson's argument is in accordance with Granovetter's (1973) idea of 'thick' and 'thin' friendships.

The idea, according to this line of thinking, is that, as a result of they way in which friendship is

'played out' (Beer 2008) on SNSs such as Facebook, we are increasingly producing more 'thin'

relationships at the expense of 'thick' relationships. As Beer (2008) also notes, the fact that SNSs

have now become mainstream suggests that what we are seeing cannot just be regarded as a passing

'trend'.

I would, however, challenge the notion that friendships are undergoing a negative transformation as

a result of Facebook and the way friendships 'play out' on Facebook. As several of my own

22

informants have suggested, it is in fact possible to both create and maintain more than just “weak

ties” through Facebook.

„Yes! I met many new friends through Facebook, and then afterwards [met them] in real life.“ (18

year old female)

As this individual illustrates, she used Facebook as a “portal” to meet new friends whom she could

then subsequently meet up with IRL (usually friends of friends). Another informant actually found

her best friend on a SNS called MSN Messenger, and they are still friends today – over 6 years

later:

„Not over Facebook – over MSN when I was 13; made friends with a girl who is one of my best

friends almost 6 years later“ (19 year old female)

„I met people on Facebook before I went to uni so that I already knew a lot of people when I started

in September, so that was really good“ (18 year old female)

In the light of these findings, it seems unreasonable to me to label the transformation of the meaning

of friendship as negative. On the contrary, I would argue that friendships through Facebook can

occasionally have the potential of being stronger and more intimate than “IRL friendships”, because

the nature of socialising on Facebook appears to have certain distinct advantages over IRL

socialising. As a comprehensive study by Wesch (2008) revealed, asynchronous communication has

made it easier and more comfortable for certain individuals to communicate without being nervous

and anxious about the flow of the conversation. These findings correspond to Goffman's theory that

people act (or behave) differently according to who is physically present and what kind of social

relationship exists between them (Goffman 1959). Goffman described this 'social field' as the

'interaction order' and this idea corresponds to the findings by Wesch. Wesch pointed out that

people generally seek as much connection with other people as possible, but that our socialising

ability is naturally limited by the constant 'pressure of spontaneity' and 'social anxiety' of the

consequences of delivering a bad or unconvincing social performance in the physical presence of

others. The mode of communication on Facebook and SNSs, I would argue, has reduced the

'pressure of spontaneity' found in physical communication. A similar study by Blumer (in

Silverstone 2005:113) was also able to present similar findings. According to Blumer, two of her

respondents had begun communicating in the form of email (another form of asynchronous

communication) which also made it “easier” and more “comfortable” to communicate, without

23

being nervous and anxious about the flow of the conversation (e.g. such as being on the phone with

someone or face-to-face). As others (Boyd 2008; Larsen 2010 and Wesch 2008) additionally have

pointed out, this mode of communication also has made it „acceptable“ to write certain things that

you would not say IRL such as „I love you“, „<3“, „Miss uuu!!!<'3“and „you mean a lot to me“.

Comparable to Miller and Slater's findings from their study of kinship-ties and technology on

Jamaica, a parallel was found between their discovered notion of 'elective affinity' and the idea of

'elective friendships' (Miller and Slater 2000:83). Facebook, I would argue, has set a milestone for

communication and socialising by having effectively marked the end of fatalistic relationships.

With Facebook you do not have to limit your search for friends to those in your physical proximity,

but you are now more free than ever to select friends based on other attributes or characteristics

such as common interests or personalities.

As one informant experienced: „I met a guy from America; he even wrote me a song and I do see

him as a friend since we try to meet up at some point.“ (22 year old female)

Facebook as 'another dimension'

As discussed so far in THEME II, I argued that we are forced to reconsider the traditional notion of

'friendship' as a result of the way in which friendships are 'played out' on mainstream SNSs such as

Facebook. My own research findings have suggested that it would be unreasonable to regard the

new emerging meaning of friendship as negative or as weaker than our traditional understanding of

friendship. On the contrary, I was able to explore how new forms of friendships 'played out' on

Facebook, and as a consequence I have argued that there seems to be a reasonable ground to suggest

that online friendships have the potential to overcome some of the previously existing limitations to

socialising and, most importantly: I discovered how Facebook often facilitates socialising despite

the fact that many of my informants were often geographically—or physically—separated from

many of their closest IRL friends.

Instead of viewing Facebook as a way of systematically producing 'weak' ties at the expense of

'strong' ties or as a negative techno-social transformation of socialising, I argue that we can simply

regard Facebook and SNSs as an added dimension to the already existing social life of an

individual, a 'very special social place' (Larsen 2010; Blumer in Silverstone:113), that, as

demonstrated, has enabled its users to bend the rules of traditional face-to-face social practice.

24

Authenticity

As the THEMES I and II have revealed, Facebook and the way Facebook is used among youths have forced us to reconsider certain social institutions and categories, such as the traditional notions of friendship, social presence and privacy. In the following section I move on to exploring another central aspect of a traditional everyday category that we might have to rethink in the light of the widespread mass domestication of Facebook and the way it has come to be used in everyday life: the idea of authenticity.

As with most adults in general, some social scientists regard Facebook and mediated social practice as less 'real' or less 'authentic' than offline in the 'real world' (Calhoun 1991 cited in C.Y. Kou et al. 2002:12). This section aims to challenge this notion and as my research findings have suggested, one cannot just simply make such a distinction without taking into account how integrated Facebook has become into the lives of contemporary youths.

Throughout the interviews, I noticed that many of my informants kept referring to Facebook as „in there“ suggesting that they did not regard Facebook any differently than for instance another room, building or another physical space.

„What we talk about in there is often just what happened on that day or if we’re going to do something this weekend or, you know, things like that“ (21 year old female)

For the same reason social scientists investigating mediated human behaviour on the internet increasingly have stopped using the world 'virtual' to describe Facebook or the social practice that takes place on Facebook. Because by labelling something as 'virtual' one is essentially suggesting that there is a qualitative difference between what happens on Facebook as opposed to IRL. It is due to the extreme level of offline integration, that we have established that one cannot simply make such a distinction, and as I saw myself, many youths often do not differentiate at all between online and offline socialising.

In one instance, social practice even proved to be 'more valuable' or 'authentic' if it had

happened online because then it could be documented and shared with others: As an informant bluntly puts it when talking about sharing stories or gossip (or banter) with his friends:

"Screenshot, or it didn't happen! “ (22 year old male)

25

Finally, as I mentioned earlier, one informant even stated that she had met one of her best friends through the social network and instant messaging service MSN Messenger.

This further strengthens my point that reality and virtuality have blurred so strongly that many youths do not actively distinguish between them in their every-day life. It therefore does not seem to make sense to consider what happens 'on the screen' as 'less authentic' than what happens 'off the screen'. Finally, Chaykos' (2002) point, that strong social bonds can still exist and thrive without being based on face-to-face interaction, is proven by this 18 year old female who has managed to find one of her „best IRL friends“ on a social networking site.

10. THEME III: Risk on Facebook: Contradictions between Public Discourses and

Local Experiences

Despite their enormous popularity, Facebook and other SNSs have since the dawn of their existence been surrounded by an over-sensationalised media hype which has blurred our sense of reality around them. This happens when exaggerated and often dystopic media representations increasingly „lose contact“ with the reality that is experienced by the users of SNSs (Wall 2011; Vuorela 2009; Turkle 2006; Plambech 2011; Collins 2008; CBS News 2009; Landau 2012 and McCracken 2011). As a simple search on Google with the keywords „Facebook“ and „Risk“ will reveal, there is a widespread public understanding of Facebook as being potentially intrusive, dystopic and threatening to our electronic privacy as well as our personal safety.

Some of the most visible news stories of 2011 in the media focused on how users of social networks such as Facebook increasingly face potentially harmful threats surrounding areas such as privacy, online safety and identity protection, areas, which are arguably being systematically neglected and compromised on social networks (Ejsing & Allingstrup 2011). Due to extensive, and often very accurate, self-disclosure on these sites our private data supposedly carry the risk of being abused or sold without permission by the SNSs themselves (or third party programmes within their respective “eco-system”) to various corporations and businesses in order to facilitate targeted advertising (Tufekci 2008). Similarly, exaggerated headline stories where users (particularly teenagers) fall victims to sexual predators overemphasize the prevalence of or single out particularly hideous examples of sexual harassment (CBS News 2009). However, as Boyd convincingly argued, because 'virtually no users respond to sexual solicitations from strangers'

26

(Boyd 2008), the presented reality of the media, by no means correspond to the reality experienced by the majority of the users of Facebook.

„It is not to say that incidents of sexual harassment on SNSs (or due to information acquired on SNSs) do not exist or are not problematic; they are. It is just that the way the mass media is increasingly representing social networking and privacy is overdramatized and inaccurate.“ (Boyd 2008:267)

As Cohen (2002), Furedi (1997) and Wall (2011) have convincingly explained, the result is a form of moral panic that further problematizes accurate risk assessment and further contributes to distort the public's sense of reality around social networking.

According to the ethnographic data that I had gathered it seemed as if the picture painted by the media process often seemed exaggerated and over-sensationalised, and it seemed as if there was a major contradiction between the way in which the media represented risks on Facebook and the way in which the users themselves experienced them.

In the present study, only three informants told me about any unpleasant experiences they have had on Facebook or about any immediate concerns they had with the networks' privacy policy. As one female informant who has experienced being 'stalked' on Facebook had to say:

„Generally, I feel average safe, I know I had a guy who stalked me and collected lots of information from me, that didn't feel good but luckily I could block him so that he can't even find me on Facebook anymore. “ (18 year old female)

In this case my informant had managed to completely escape the unpleasant and threatening situation by simply 'blocking' the account of the stalker via the controls in the privacy settings on Facebook. In most cases users seemed to have worked out a “strategy” on how to manage risk and pro-actively prevent any unpleasant experiences on Facebook:

„There's nothing on there that I really feel I have to hide. I don't accept friend requests from people I don't know and I don't mind the people I do know seeing photos of me going out.“ (18 year old female)

„I feel safe on Facebook because I have not got any personal information on there and I don't mind if everyone can see because if I didn't want them to see I wouldn't be friends with them anyway!“ (18 year old female)

27

„I always question the security settings on Facebook. It's not something I trust but I'm also not paranoid about it. I try to limit anything posted by me or about me to keep a certain standard. Again, I am quite selective of my friends so it doesn't bother me that much. Also I take the time to restrict friends from seeing the entirety of my profile where necessary.“ (24 year old male)

„Yes [I do feel safe], as you can choose who you talk to and what information you give out. “ (21 year old male)

„I feel safe for all aspects of Facebook that I am in control of […] I try my best not to put things up on Facebook I do not want other people to see. “ (20 year old male)

„I'm satisfied. I'm not intimately familiar with them – I have just set my profile to 'private' and everything else to 'friends only' – simple. “ (18 year old female)

ME (Interviewer): „How do you like the idea that all your “friends” can see everything that you're doing on Facebook?”

„I'm completely fine with that. If I wasn't happy about it, I'd remove them as a friend! “ (22 year old male)

It became apparent that most users I spoke to had already thought about risk-management. According to them the risk of being victimised is „virtually reduced to zero“ by having the policy only to have people on Facebook that you already know IRL and, as one respondent put it: „not to accept friend requests from strangers“. Others effectively reduced the risk of their personal data being harvested by third-party programmes by simply not disclosing any sensitive personal information. In the light of these findings it became clear that one can easily and seemingly effectively manage and even pre-emptively avoid risk on Facebook.

The problem occurs when the production of knowledge around privacy and social networking is influenced by several clashing realities (Wall 2011, Baudrillard 1991). As demonstrated by Baudrillard's concept of the 'vertigo of reality', the notion of "objective reality" is both completely meaningless and irrelevant in a world where powerful social voices in society and the media vociferously compete to construct our sense of reality (Baudrillard 1991).

28

According to one such 'Internet Predator'-report from 2009, that since sparked a widespread culture of fear as well as a moral panic among teenagers (Furedi 2007), youths and concerned parents, a Wisconsin teenager was accused of „an elaborate sex-scam“ involving Facebook. According to the state attorney, 18 year old Anthony Stanchel is facing up to 300 years behind bars, after he allegedly hunted his fellow class mates like pray using Facebook where he set up 3 fake Facebook accounts to impersonate 3 girls from his senior high-school in order to send and receive explicit emails and nude photographs of himself and numerous fellow male class-mates. According to the media, Stanchel subsequently used this material to blackmail his victims into having sex with him – often on school property. According to CBS News (2009), Stanchel has been charged with 12 felonies including sexual assault and possession of child-pornography. Facebook-officials who commented on the case stated that so-called „impersonation schemes“ only concern roughly 1% of its [then] 150 million users worldwide. However, this message did not seem to get across very well, unlike one that the CBS news-reporter gave, suggesting that 80% of teenagers and youths on Facebook use the network to send and receive naked pictures of themselves (CBS News 2009).

Over-sensationalised 'signal events' like these, leaves the reader with the impression that this type of cybercrime, regarding personal data, is far more prevalent, intrusive and dystopic than it really is (Wall 2008/11). At least according to the reality of the vast majority of the more than 800 million Facebook users who have not experienced any forms of personal victimisation. As Wall (2011) argues, exaggerated news stories, like the above example, make use of rare and particularly dramatic so-called "signal events", in a rhetorical effort to make the reader believe privacy intrusion to be an existing norm in social networking.

Actual experiences of Risk on Facebook

Another reason why it is important to have an empirically grounded public understanding of what

Facebook is, how it works and of the risk-factors that are involved in using it, is that the actual

issues and risks that contemporary youths are actually experiencing on Facebook can be addressed

and receive more attention. Problems, that some of my informants were keen to highlight to me:

„The idea that everything posted is stored by admins is quite worrying. It forces me to limit

everything posted by me and about me. “ (24 year old male)

29

„I don't like that you can only re-block someone after 48 hours and I have also considered getting

rid of Facebook because of the new Timeline.“ (18 year old female)

„Changing them [the privacy settings] repeatedly isn't that great, but we do have to submit to this kind of activity as we accept the terms and conditions of Facebook by using it. “ (22 year old male)

„I think they [the privacy settings] used to be great and by 'perfecting' them it's just become shit and

public. “ (20 year old female)

As we can see, the problems that my informants actually experience differ drastically from the

problems commonly presented by the media process. However, some of these actual problems and

concerns, mostly involving the new Timeline-feature and the privacy settings, have been found to

be so problematic that some of my informants even considered leaving the social network. The

Timeline is a new feature that, according to Facebook, is supposed to „tell your life story with a new

kind of profile“ (Facebook, see 'Introducing Timeline'). Following this purpose these new kinds of

profiles, the so-called Timelines, controversially store all your texts, messages and all other posts

that you have ever made, indefinitely. As a consequence, other users have the option to see what

you were up to on, for instance, the 14 of March 2008 or perhaps on Christmas Eve last year.

According to many of my informants, this feature was considered „too much“ or „too intrusive“

because, „although you may personally know all the people on your friends list, you might not want

them all to know exactly what you are doing 24/7“, or in other words, some of my informants

expressed concerns about the idea that everyone is effectively presented with their entire life story,

and there is nothing – or little – that they can do to prevent or limit that.

Chapter VI: Reflection and Discussion

In this chapter I wish to return to (and bring together) a few of the main points of THEMES I, II and III and start a discussion that I already touched upon in the preceding sections, viz. the occurring transformation of the meaning of central social concepts of everyday-life, such as privacy, relationships, social presence and divorce.

According to McCracken (2011), Ratty (2012) and others (see Holson 2010; Turkle 2006; Collins 2008 and Ejsing & Allingstrup 2011), Facebook has recently crossed a line and made itself far too intrusive into people’s everyday-lives. This raises important questions about where and how we draw the boundaries of electronic privacy in the age of Facebook and online social media.

30

In the recent article „Facebook status update: I'm Pregnant“, Jess Ratty discusses the need for cyber-privacy during her pregnancy and the surprisingly strong reactions from her friends when they discovered that she had been pregnant for a while without announcing it on Facebook. As Ratty correctly explains, „it is an issue that would not have arisen a few years ago“. However, with Facebook now being such an integral part of her personal as well as social life, the boundaries between the public and the private – between the online and the offline – had now been blurred to an extent where some of her friends considered her behaviour as „downright rude“, „online etiquette gone wrong“ or as her „not acknowledging the existence of her child“ (Ratty 2012). For Ratty major personal life-events like being pregnant require a certain degree of privacy and non-mediated human emotions:

„sharing this personal miracle is something to be done in person with the tangible responses included – a hug, a touch – not a poke on Facebook or an abbreviated exclamation on Twitter“ (ibid.: 2012).

This story reveals a form of resistance against the emerging level of intrusiveness of Facebook into an individual’s personal and private life as a result of the way in which the social network has come to be used and domesticated as an integral part of the social existence. As a consequence, I would argue, it is not just a question about where and how we draw the boundaries of electronic privacy, but it is also important that people 'figure out the new rules of digital etiquette' when forming and ending a relationship (Holson 2010). As a family-lawyer, Randall Kessler often grapples with the complexities of online entanglements in real-world divorces, and he explains how breaking up could be managed on Facebook: „it is best for our clients to change their passwords, stop posting on social networking sites, acquire a new e-mail address and secure or make copies of whatever is posted of them online“ (ibid.: 2010).

A personal experience: Ending a relationship - on Facebook </3

In my own research, this topic proved to be the most sensitive one to talk about and many of the informants could themselves reveal stories about „unpleasant“ and very public break-ups that had various unfavourable consequences reaching far beyond their 'offline' worlds. Here is what one young female had to say after her relatively recent break-up with her boyfriend on Facebook:

„It was really messy; we used to share a lot of stuff: bank accounts, passwords, emails... And a lot of his friends were mine on Facebook and a lot of my friends were his, so it kind of felt like we had not really broken

31

up even though we had. “[ME: (Interviewer): „Have you deleted him on Facebook? “] „I did yeah and [I have] blocked him, but in theory one of his friends could just be telling him everything that I'm doing and that's not a nice feeling at all.“ (19 year old female)

My interview with Natascha (pseudonym) was an insight into a wholly new problematic side of Facebook which I had never encountered before. It revealed the experience of a girl who had just broken up with her boyfriend and who had also experienced a negative aspect of the “digital entanglement” of social media into her personal and private life first-hand. These findings correspond to a report by Holson (2010) and suggest that, as a result of the way in which social media and Facebook have become integrated into the everyday-lives of today's youths, the traditional notion of what it means to end a relationship or break up also needs to be reconsidered in the light of this new digital dimension of social life (Holson 2010). As Holson describes:

„Where once a spurned lover could use scissors (literally) to cut an ex out of the picture, digital images of the smiling couple in happier days abound on the Web and are difficult to delete. Status updates and tweets have a way of wending their way back to scorned exes, thanks to the interconnectedness of social media.“ (Holson 2010)

11. Conclusion

As outlined in Chapter I the primary objective of this dissertation has been to illuminate, investig-ate and try to understand today's young people's use of one of the biggest social phenomena of our time, Facebook, an egocentric online social networking site (SNS). With its empirical point of departure in a series of 22 qualitative interviews of youths aged 18 to 24, the study aimed at mer-ging two essential levels of analysis: the individual micro-perspectives of the social actors and at the macro-level of discourse. After having reached the end of the nexus-analysis, it is now time to conclude the study. I begin by summarizing the most significant analytical findings, points and results that emerged from the study's navigation phase. Subsequently, I create a distanced perspective, taking all the phases and the study as a whole into account. Finally, I will take a look at the potential for new promising areas of research involving Facebook, contemporary youths and mediated actions on social net-working sites.

In Their Own Words: Why Youths are on Facebook

32

The first empirical question that was addressed by this study was the issue of which motive(s) contemporary youths have for joining Facebook. The results of the study's navigation phase could reveal 6 overall motive-categories. The most prevalent reasons youths had for joining the social network were, not surprisingly, to communicate and socialize with friends (scene argu-ment). With 17 responses, the second most common reason to join Facebook was proven to be the “Staying in touch”-category. This category appeared to be very important for many of the in-formants interviewed, because it was established that many youths often used Facebook as an im-portant tool to stay in touch with old friends from their childhood – friends that often lived too far away to keep in touch with otherwise. In accordance with the theories of Boyd (2007), Gefter (2006) and Larsen (2010), I was able to note how hardly any youths use Facebook to meet new friends or as a 'tool' to find love. This suggests that Facebook predominately is regarded among youths as an alternate way of socializing and organizing the offline lives of already existing friends.

Social Presence and the Maintenance of Friendship Ties

In Theme II of the analysis, I attempted to shed light on typical mediated social practice on Face-book, and I quickly discovered that the mainstream “mode of communication” on Facebook was directly via the so-called Timeline (formerly known as a person’s 'profile' or 'wall'). With the help from Boyd (2007a/2007b) and Simmel (1950), I then attempted to de-code why the predominant social practice observable on Facebook was in the form of short and seemingly very mundane messages such as “sup bro” or alike. As Boyd accurately suggested, this is due to the fact that the importance lies within the communication itself. It is regarded as an acceptable way of communic-ating between friends because it is commonly thought of as a way of showing interest in another person. As such, this kind of mediated social practice can be seen as an important way of being so-ciable with your network of friends – even though this is not in a physical sense. As Simmel right-fully suggests, this form of mediated social practice on Facebook can therefore be described as a form of 'sociability'.

Changes in the meaning of 'Friendship' and 'Authenticity'

In the following, Theme I continued to dig deeper into the world of mediated social practice between youths on Facebook, and I began to discover how, as a consequence of the way in which the technology is used and of the role and meaning it is given in their personal and social lives, we might have to fundamentally reconsider a series of concepts and social institutions, starting

33

with the notion of 'friendship', which according to authors such as Granovetter (1973) is cur-rently undergoing a negative transformation and becoming much 'weaker' than in the traditional sense. He and others argue that even though someone might have 400 friends on Facebook, that by far does not mean that this person also has 400 friends IRL. As a result of the semi-structured interviews in this study I quickly found enough empirical grounds to challenge this notion, be-cause several of my informants could share personal experiences with me that have suggested otherwise. And as I have mentioned earlier, one informant even reported having actually met her best IRL-friend on the network. This led me to question the idea that 'friendships' could be just “pseudo-friendships” on Facebook, and, using the theories of Wesch (2008) and (Goffman 1959), I argued that mediated socializing actually, on the contrary, has distinct advantages over IRL so-cializing, because it can facilitate “deeper” and “more “intimate” communication, communica-tion that would otherwise not have been socially acceptable, had it not been on Facebook, such as: “luv u :))!!!”. I concluded that socializing on Facebook is a revolutionary way of socializing be-cause it allows youths to connect with as many people as possible, at the smallest risk of rejec-tion. Similarly, the data I had collected also suggested that the notion of 'authenticity' is cur-rently undergoing a transformation as a result of Facebook and the form social practice has taken on the network. For older generations and authors such as Calhoun (1991), online socializing is al-ways a 'lesser' alternative to IRL socializing. However, because many of my informants did not ac-tually seem to distinguish between online and offline social interaction and even referred to Face-book to me as in 'there', I argued that this suggests that authenticity is taking on a new meaning, because the online and the offline dichotomy have become redundant and frankly irrelevant to the youths themselves. What happens on Facebook, it turned out, occasionally was even more 'valuable' than something that happened IRL and could not be shared or documented.

Risk on Facebook: Contradictions between Public Discourses and Local Experiences

The final Theme then revealed a contradiction between how risk is perceived by youths on Face-book and how it is commonly presented in the media and, accordingly, how it is often perceived on a discourse level. Using the theories of Wall (2010/2011) and Furedi (1997), I discovered that there is an emerging need for empirically grounded studies of youths, Facebook and the notion of risk. Especially within the areas of electronic privacy, online safety and identity protection the media representations were often particularly over-sensationalized as a result of the culture of fear that emerged concerning pedophiles, stalkers and other forms of online perpetrators. Yet, the youths themselves, perfectly aware of the unrepresentative discourses, almost always asserted that risk

34

was effectively avoidable with the right privacy settings in place and a healthy 'rule of thumb' not to invite anyone they did not know IRL.

The final Theme illustrated the emerging need for an empirically grounded assessment of youths and their experiences with Facebook. This is particularly important in today's “age of experts”, as authors including Larsen (2010) and Wall (2010) have both pointed out. Not only will this put an end to the media-generated culture of fear surrounding social networking but also direct the pub-lics attention to the problems and risks that the users actually report experiencing. This indeed is what I would suggest as a promising new field of research. As I have shown with this study, many users have expressed serious concerns about the level of intrusiveness of Face-book into their everyday private lives and one of my informants even considered leaving the net-work for this reason.

If Facebook cannot balance their ambition to enable sharing (partly to facilitate targeted advertise-ment and thus grow as a business) with the innate need for user privacy and identity protection, then Klastrup's (2010:1) critical question might become more relevant than ever: 'how long will the success continue?' With new powerful competitors emerging on the market for social networking such as Google+, Facebook’s ability to maintain its trust with its users will, I argue, be put to a ma-jor challenge in the future. However, for as long as the users share Zuckerberg's ambition, Face-book will continue to play a key role in the everyday social lives of many contemporary Western youths.

35

12. Bibliography

Anderson, D. C. (2001) “Losing Friends”, London, UK: Social Affairs Unit.

Ardevol, E. (2005) "Cyberculture: Anthropological Perspectives of the Internet", Using anthropological theory to understand media forms and practices workshop, December 9 th, Loughborough. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.

Bakardjieva, M. (2003) “Virtual Togetherness: an Everyday-life Perspective”, Media Culture Society, Volume 24, p. 291.

Baudrillard, J. (1991) “Simulacra and Science Fiction”, Science Fiction Studies, November, Volume 18, Part III.

Baym, N. K. (1998) “The Emergence of Community in Computer-mediated communication”, In S. G. Jones (Ed.), Cybersociety: Computer Mediated Communication and Community (p. 138-163). Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi, SAGE.

Baym, N. K. (2000) “Tune In, Log on: Soaps, Fandom, and Online Community”, Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: SAGE Publications.

Beck, U. (2007) “Risiko und Freiheit”, (T. Hviid Nielsen, Tran). Oslo: Fakbokforlaget.

Beer, D. (2008) “Social Network(ing) sites...revisiting the story so far: A response to Danah Boyd & Nicole Ellison”. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(2), 516-529.

Bennett, A. (2007) “As young as you feel: Youth as discursive construct”, In P. Hodkinson & W. Deicke (Eds.), Youth Cultures: Scenes, Subcultures and Tribes, Routledge Advances in Sociology. London: Routledge.

Bild, E. L. (2011) "Why do we get addicted to Facebook?", Videnskab, October 11th, [Online] Available at: http://videnskab.dk/sporg-videnskaben/hvorfor-bliver-vi-afhaengige-af-facebook.

36

Boyd, D. (2007a) "Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics", Published Ph.D. Thesis, University of California, Berkeley.

Boyd, D. (2007b) "Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life", MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Learning – Youth, Identity, and Digital Media Volume (ed. David Buckingham). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Boyd, D. & Ellison, N. B. (2007) “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship”, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), p. 210-230.

Castells, M. (2002) “The Internet and the Network Society”, In B. Wellman & C. Haythornthwaite (Eds.), The Internet in Everyday life (pp. xxi-xxxi). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

Castells, M. (1996) “The Rise of The Network Society”, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

CBS News (2009) “Teen's Facebook Sex Scam”, CBS News, February 6th: [Online] Available at: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4779496n.

Chayko, M. (2002) “Connecting: How we form bonds and communities in the Internet age”, Albany, NY.: State University of New York Press.

Cohen, S. (2002) “Moral Panics, Margate and Mary Poppins: Mysterious happenings in south coast seaside towns”, Crime Media Culture, (March 2005) Vol. 1. no. 1 p. 100-105.

Collins, L. (2008) “Friend Game: Behind the hoax that led to a girl's suicide”, The New Yorker: January 21st, p. 1-7.

Denzin, N. K. & Lincon, Y. S. (1989) "Handbook of Qualitative Research", 2nd Ed., Los Angeles, CA, Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications Inc.

37

Drotner, K. (1991) ”At Skabe Sig – Selv: Ungdom, æstetik, pædagogik”, København: Gyldendal

Ejsing, J. & Allingstrup, M. (2011) "Facebook. Det Vildt populære netværk fik masser af kritik i 2011. Anklagerne gik på tvivlsom omgang med brugernes personlige oplysninger ...", Berlingske Tidne, December 16th, p. 8.

Facebook (2012) "About Advertising on Facebook", Facebook, 2012 [Online] Available at: https://www.facebook.com/about/ads/?megaphone=1#click.

Facebook (2012) “Introducing Timeline”, [Online] Available at: http://www.facebook.com/about/timeline.

Flick, U. (1998) "An Introduction to Qualitative Research", 2nd Ed., Los Angeles, CA: Thousand Oaks, SAGE Publications.

Furedi, F. (1997) “Culture of Fear”, 4th Ed.: London: Continuum.

Gefter, A. (2006) "This is your space: what is online social networking all about and how is it changing our world?", New Scientist, September 16th, p. 46.

Giddens, A. (1996) “Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age”, Oxford, Stanford, Cambridge: Stanford University Press.

Glaser, B. & Strauss, A. (1967) "The Discovery of grounded theory: strategies for qualitative research", Chicago, IL: Aldine Publications Co.

Goffman, E. (1959) “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life”, Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Goffman, E. (1971) “Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order”, New York: Basic Books.

Granovetter, M. (1973) “The Strength of Weak Ties: A Network Theory Revisited”, Sociological Theory 1: p. 101-133.

Hall, D. & Hall, I. (1996) “Practical Social Research”, London: Macmillian Press Ltd.

38

Harris, J. R. (1998) “The Nurture assumption: Why children turn out the way they do”, New York: The Free Press.

Hjalvard, S. (2005) “Det selskabelige samfund: essays om media mellem mennesker”, (vol. 2), Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur.

Holson, L. (2010) "Breaking up in a Digital Fishbowl", The New York Times: retrieved on 22/10/2010. p. 1-3.

Holloway, S. L. & Valentine, G. (2003) “Cyberkids: Children in the Information Age”, London, UK: Routledge Falmer.

Horst, H. & Miller, D. (2005) “From Kinship to Link-up: Cell Phones and Social Networking in Jamaica”, Current Anthropology, December 2nd, p. 755-778.

Illeris, K., Katznelson, N., Simonsen, B., & Ulriksen, L. (2002) “Ungdom, identitet og uddannelse”, Roskilde: Center for Ungdomsforskning og Roskilde Universitetsforlag.

Jones, R. H. (2004) “The Problem of Context in Computer-Mediated Communication”, In Discourse and Technology: Multimodal Discourse Analysis, Georgetown University round table on languages and linguistic series (p. 20-33). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

Kahn, M & Chanell, S. (1968) "Interviewing: Social Research", D. L. Silis Ed. In International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, London, UK: Macmillian Company.

Kendall, L. (1999) “Recontextualizing 'Cyberspace': Methodological Considerations for On-Line research”, In Doing Internet Research: Critical Issues and Methods for Examining the Net (p. 57-74). Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Klastrup, L. (2009) "Facebook. How long will the success continue?", Politiken, February 15th, [Online] Available at: http://politiken.dk/debat/analyse/article650223.ece

39

Klastrup, L. & Stald, G. (2009) “Mobity survey: Danske unges brug af sociale netwærk I et mobilt perspektiv” (Executive rapport). København: IT Universitetet. Retrieved from: http://www.itu.dk/people/klastrup/mobity-SNSsurvey.pdf.

Kraut, R., Lundmark, V., Patterson, M. Kiesler, S. Mukopadhyaym T., & Scherlis, W. (1998) “ Internet Paradox: A social technology that reduced social involvement and psychological well-being?” American Psychologist, 53(9): p. 1017-1031.

Kuo, C.Y., Choi, A., Magizhnan, A., Wai Peng, L., Soh, C. (2002) “Internet in Singapore”, Singapore: Times Academic Press.

Landau, P. (2012) "What if Facebook Timeline was read instead of your CV?", The Guardian, January 30th, [Online] Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/work-blog/2012/jan/30/facebook-timeline-employers-applications?newsfeed=true.

Larsen, C. M (2010) "Unge og Online Sociale netværk: En neksusanalytisk undersøgelse af medierede handlinger og offentlige diskurser", Published Ph.D. Thesis. Aalborg Universitet.

Lenhart, A. & Madden, M. (2007) “Social Networking Websites and Teens: An Overview”, Pew Internet & American Life Project. Retrieved from: http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2007/PIP_SNS_Data_Memo_Jan_2007.pdf.pdf

Livingstone, S. (2002) “Young People and New Media”: London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: SAGE Publications.

Livingstone, S. & Bovill, M. (1999) “Young people, new media: report of the research project Children Young People and the Changing Media Environment” (Research report), London, UK: Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science. Retrieved from: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/21177/1/Young_people,_new_media_%28LSERO%29.pdf.

Marshall, C. & Rossman, Gretchen B., (1995) "Designing Qualitative Research", 2nd, Ed., Los Angeles, CA: Thousand Oaks, SAGE Publications, Inc.

40

McClard, A. & Anderson, K. (2008) "Focus on Facebook: Who Are We Anyway?", Anthropology News, March 17th, p. 10-12.

McCracken, H. (2011) "Oh, the Humanity. Will Facebook's shift toward data sacrifice its soul?", TIME Magazine, October 17th, p. 58-59 Mead, G. H. (2007) “A Critical Introduction”, Malden, MA.: Polity Press. Miller & Slater (2000) "The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach", Oxford: Berg.

Mui, C. (2011) "Facebook's Privacy Issues Are Even Deeper Than We Knew", Forbes, August 8th, [Online] Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2011/08/08/facebooks-privacy-issues-are-even-deeper-than-we-knew/.

Orgad, S. (2009) “How Can Researchers Make Sense of the Issues Involved in Collecting and Interpreting Online and Offline data?”, In N. K. Baym & A. N. Markham (Eds.), Internet Inquiry: Conversations about methods (pp. 33-53). Los Angeles: SAGE Publications.

Pahl, R. (2000) “On Friendship”, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Piaget, J., Vygotsky, L., Erikson, E., Montessori, M. & Dewey, J. (2000) “Theories of Childhood: An Introduction to Dewey, Montessori, Erikson, Piaget & Vygotsky”, St. Paul, MN: Redlead Press.

Politiken (2009) "Internet giver dig gode venskaber", Politiken, March 17th, [Online] Available at: http://politiken.dk/tjek/digitalt/internet/ECE671291/internet-giver-dig-gode-venskaber/.

Plambech, A. C. (2011) "Hurtige medieindtryk og Twitter kan påvirke den moralske sans", Videnskab, October 25th, [Online] Available at: http://videnskab.dk/kultur-samfund/hurtige-medieindtryk-og-twitter-kan-pavirke-den-moralske-sans.

Ratty, J. (2011) "Facebook status update: I'm pregnant!", the Guardian, November 22nd, [Online] Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/nov/22/facebook-status-update-im-pregnant.

41

Rheingold, H. (1993) “The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the electronic frontier”, A William Patrick book Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

Russel, H. B. (2006) "Research Methods in Anthropology", 4th Ed., Langham, MD: AltaMira Press.

Scollon, R. & Scollon, S. W. (2004) “Nexus Analysis: Discourse and the Emerging Internet”, London; New York, NY.: Routledge.

Sheldon, P. (2008) "The Relationship Between Unwillingness-to-Communicate and Students' Facebook Use", Journal of Media Psychology, Volume 20(2), p. 67-75.

Silverman, D. (1997) "Qualitative Research", 3rd Ed., London, New Delhi, Singapore, Thousand Oak, CA: SAGE Publications. (Revided in 2011)

Silverstone, R. (2005) "Media, Technology & Everyday Life in Europe", Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd.

Singleton, J. A. Jr. & Straits, B. C. (1999) "Approaches to Social Research", 3rd Ed., Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Simmel, G. (1950) “The Sociology of Georg Simmel. Translated, edited, and with an introduction by Kurt H. Wolff”, New York: The Free Press. Simmel, G. & Hughes, E. C. (1949) “The Sociology of Sociability”, The American Journal of Sociology, 55(3), 254-261.

Simonsen, B. (2003) “What are we talking about when we talk about 'youth'”, In B. Hølge-Hazelton (Ed.), Perspectiver på ungdom og krop (vol. 1). Roskilde: Center for Ungdomsforskning og Roskilde Universitetsforlag.

Strauss, A. L. & Corbin, J. (1990) “Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques”, London, UK: SAGE Publications.

42

Tong, S. T., Van Der Heide, B., Langwell, L. And Walther, J. B. (2008) "Too Much of a Good Thing? The Relationship Between Number of Friends and Interpersonal Impressions on Facebook", Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Volume 13, p. 531-549. Townsend, A. M. (2001) “Mobile Communications in the Twenty-first Century City”, In B. Brown, N. Green, & R. Harper (Eds.), Wireless World: Social and Interactional Aspects of the Mobile Age. London, UK: Springer.

Tufekci, Z. (2008) "Grooming, Gossip, Facebook & Myspace: What can we learn about these sites from those who won't assimilate?", London: Routledge. Turkle, S. (2006) "Living online: I'll have to ask my friends", NewScienceTech, September 20th, Issue nr. 2569 p. 48-49.

Turkle, S. (2005) "The Second Self, Computers and the human spirit", MIT Press.

Turkle, S. (1997) “Life on the Screen: Identity in the age of the internet”, New York, NY.: Simon and Schuster.

Van Dijk, J. (1999) “The Network Society", London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Vestergård, G. L. (2010) "Facebook is a tapped living-room", Videnskab, February 26th, [Online] Available at: http://videnskab.dk/kultur-samfund/facebook-er-en-aflyttet-dagligstue.

Vuorela, M. (2009) "No, Facebook does not make us more stupid", Videnskab, 19th October, [Online] Available at: http://politiken.dk/videnskab/ECE780463/nej-facebook-goer-os-ikke-dummere/.

Wall, D. (2005) "The Internet as a Conduit for Criminal Activity", pp. 77-98 in Pattavina, A. (ed) Information Technology and the Criminal Justice System, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage (Chapter revised in March 2010 – revisions in purple)

Wellman, B. & Haythornthwaite, C. (2002) “The Internet and Everyday Life”, Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Inc.

43

Wellman, B. (1994) “Little Boxes, Clocalization, and Networked Individualism”, In M. Tanabe, P. V. Besselaar & T. Ishida (Eds.), Revised Papers From the second Kyoto Workshop on Digital Cities Ii, Computational and Sociological Approaches (October 18 – 20, 2001), Lecture Notes In Computer Science, vol 2362 (pp. 10-25). London: Springer-Verlag.

Wesch, M. (2007) "What is Web 2.0? What does it mean for Anthropology? Lessons from an accidental viral video", Anthropology News, May 1st, p. 30-31.

Wesch, M. (2008) "An Anthropological Approach to YouTube", YouTube, [Online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU.

Wilson, S. M. & Leighton, P. C. (2008) "The Anthropology of Online Communities", Annual Review of Anthropology, Volume ,31, p. 449-467.

Ziehe, T. (1989) “Ambivalenser og Manfoldighed: En artikelsamling om ungdom, skole, æstetik og kultur”, København: Politisk Revy.

Ziehe, T. (1991) “Zeitvergleiche: jugend in kulturellen Modernisierungen”, Jugendforschung. Weinheim: Juventa.

44