Sharing Secrets on the World Wide Web

Digital Natives are at home on the Internet. Whether ‘hanging out’ on MySpace (see Danah Boyd's "Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace" (2006)), organizing and discussing events on Facebook, commenting on each others’ photos on Facebook, watching acquaintances football games, video diaries, or dance routines on YouTube, or spilling their heart out on countless blog services, Natives are expressing, sharing, talking – and shaping, presenting and developing personal identities – in all types of spaces online. How aware are Digital Natives that these spaces they often view as 'safe' are actually very public spaces? How aware are they of the potential consequences?

Why are Natives so comfortable sharing their lives in the most public of forums? Are they asserting the argument that in contemporary society “nothing is private, everything is recorded, so why not share myself?” Is this simply a representation of the evolution of personal privacy standards? (See Say Everything, New York Magazine) Are they, in the age of reality TV and YouTube stardom, seeking fame? Or perhaps they are simply not particularly conscious that the online spaces they feel so safe in are in reality accessible to anyone with a browser?

Recent events and research point to the answer that most likely all these dynamics are at play, to different levels for different Natives. For the most part, Digital Natives are conscious that they are engaging with each other, while on a wholly public forum. As such, how do they negotiate this dual audience?

The Case of Teen Girls' Blogs

In "Presentation of Self on the Web: an ethnographic study of teenage girls' weblogs" (in Education, Communication, & Information, (5:1) 2005, Paywall) Denise S. Bortree looks at a friend-group of teenage girl’s blogs. She discusses how they use their blogs to communicate with each other, to present themselves to friends from school that may read their blog, and how they address the public nature of this communication. Important to note, while most girls' blogs Bortree examined were public, her interviews revealed that some girls do choose to keep their blogs private.

Bortree found that teen girls use blogs as a creative tools for maintaining relationships. By creating a space they view as 'safe' (away from parents, teachers, etc - which was proved wrong to the girls themselves in some instances!) teen girls feel free to engage in self-expression, read about each others' lives, and share experiences. Bortree concluded that blogging is also likely used to build and maintain an image that will afford them access to friendship groups.

Bortree focused on how teen girls, writing blogs with the involved identity formation practices, negotiate the medium as one used for both inter-personal communication (between friends and classmates) and mass communication (as available on the world wide web). While the girls Bortree looked at were aware of their global audience, and sometimes referenced it by directing strangers away from more detailed personal recounts of relationships, their blogs mostly served as interpersonal communication. Content included what happened during their day, who they had hung out with, what they had done over the weekend, what they plans were, etc, as well as quizzes and IM conversations.

The teens Bortree studied feel they have carved out a 'safe' community for self-expression with out adult interference. Based on content, Bortree infers that teens seem to not always be aware that parents, teachers, and others outside the world of teenagers can read their blogs. (Some girls include full name, birthday, location, drug use, and virginity discussions in their blogs.) Bortree identifies the challenge girl teen bloggers face of "maintaining a presented self to both audiences" - including enough intimate details to solidify and re-enforce friend groups, while presenting a pleasant and not-too-revealing self to the wider audience.