Technological Architectures
The spaces in which individuals connect on the Internet, as well as through other technologies such as mobile phones and networked gaming consuls, each have their own particular architectures. They are built with specific allowances and capabilities, in attempt to dictate the forms and types of interactions that take place within those spaces. Like any space, these configurations can be re-interpreted and re-inscribed by creative users (who almost always find ways to bend - or break - the rules), but nevertheless, a particular mode of communication and connection evolves for each new technology that catches our attention, and enables connection.
How does the technical structure of digital social spaces affect the communication that occurs inside them? Do these new or different modes of communication then spill over into the analogue, or "real" world? Do they fundamentally change the way Digital Natives view themselves and their relationships? Or are these new spaces and technologies simply yet another way to connect, in addition to all those that have come before?
Making the Implicit Explicit
(see David Weinberger's With Friendster's like that... )
By articulating and defining both one's identity (via the creation of a profile) and one's social network (by accumulating "Friends") using social networking sites, individuals make explicit complex and involved identities and relationships that are inherently implicit. As David Weinberger writes in the above mentioned post, "I don't like it when a site assumes that what's implicit can be made explicit without loss."
How does this explicit conceptualization of both one's identity and one's social being in relationship to a network affect teens, in this important life stage of identity development?
Furthermore, what effect does the explicitness of social networking have when it is used to play-out age-old teen relationship drama? "De-friending" or "de-linking" someone is a very explicit and visible expression of traditional teenage feud (See Danah Boyd's "Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace" (2006), Bortree, D.S. (2005). Presentation of self on the Web: an ethnographic study of teenage girlsâ weblogs. Education, Communication & Information, 5(1), 25-39 Paywall). Does explicitness change the nature or weight of such relationship developments? Crucially, Digital Natives find themselves at home in social networking spaces, accepting such explicitness and visibility as the norm. As such, have they simply accepted the rules of the new space in which relationship drama takes place, thereby not allowing issues of explicitness or visibility to force on added weight to commonplace relationship issues? Or do these technologies exacerbate and alter the often volatile teen relationships?
Translating Human Relationships into Computer Code
As Danah Boyd points out, making use of social networking tools translates complex human relationships into the programming code - either "1" or "0" - either friend or not. As deeper friendship weighting and relationship nuances are excluded from the social networking sites where Digital Natives are spending their time, do their conceptions and understanding of "friends" change? Or is this simply an additional, though perhaps somewhat simplified, way to express identity, relationship standing, and social status?