technoculture314-09

The Sunday Star Times recently featured an article (sorry not online) about parents logging onto Facebook and the (often indignant) reaction from their kids. It'll shock some to learn that 35 years and older are Facebook's fastest growing demographic, and perhaps more disturbing, 100,000 of them have gathered in a group called 'Cool Parents Who Have Facebook'. In the interests of full disclosure, I fit the age group but I would never join that group. The journalist was inspired by Michelle Slatalla from New York Times and her article about her teenage daughter's reaction to mom invading her private online space. Slatalla writes (in a hokey American way) a column called Cyberfamilias, which chronicles the changing landscape of family life under the influence of the Net. This column wasn't one of her best but the comments page was worth a read. Slatalla's statement that "membership makes it possible for parents like me to peek at our children in their online lair" incited some outraged responses. "Ugh. Fine, join Facebook, but for the love of God, don't friend your kids," said one teen. She has a point. If you're not part of your daughter's social network in real life, why invade her friends online? Others posted advice to "get over it and change your settings". What you really have to worry about, said one teen, is the "regular creepy people". In the article, Slatalla quotes Professor Michael Wesch, who argues that younger users are actually involved in the serious business of exploring their identities, which understandably, they don't want to expose to their parents. Referring to the Her@ group experiment, Helen Kennedy said that guestbooks can be conceived as spaces in which the identity of self is constructed through identifications with and recognition from others. In other words, your identity is partly shaped by the people you hang out with. There's no way my teenager wants to associate with my parental dorkiness online and the same goes for millions of other teenagers. Shunned by their own kids, parents are shaping their own identities online with support groups like CPWHF. Most of my friends are using Facebook as a communication tool, not spy tool. And given that most over-35's have spent more time on the planet, we may even rack up more friends than our kids. Of more concern is the ignorance (among all generations) about information dissemination. As Kennedy points out, anonymity is more complex than it seems...there's a difference between feeling anonymous and being anonymous. While their parents lurk online, many teens have sealed their settings to protect their privacy - faceless to their parents but on full display to the rest of the world. Anonymity aside, I reckon most social networking sites are more about people fabricating a slicker version of themselves. I recently toured the South Island with a 16-year-old college student from America, who spent hours taking photos for her Facebook page. Pose, click, same (gorgeous) look.