Taking risky opportunities in youthful content creation: teenagers' use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy and self-expression

The explosion in social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and Friendster is widely regarded as an exciting opportunity, especially for youth.Yet the public response tends to be one of puzzled dismay regarding a generation that, supposedly, has many friends but little sense of privacy and a narcissistic fascination with self-display. This article explores teenagers' practices of social networking in order to uncover the subtle connections between online opportunity and risk. While younger teenagers relish the opportunities to recreate continuously a highly-decorated, stylistically-elaborate identity, older teenagers favour a plain aesthetic that foregrounds their links to others, thus expressing a notion of identity lived through authentic relationships. The article further contrasts teenagers' graded conception of `friends' with the binary classification of social networking sites, this being one of several means by which online privacy is shaped and undermined by the affordances of these sites

Young children's Internet use at home and school: Patterns and Profiles

Thirty-eight children in first and second grade completed a 10-item rating scale on Internet use at home and school. Results suggested that, in general, more children used the Internet at school than at home but home-based use was more often perceived as enjoyable. Three patterns of Internet use emerged suggesting three types of young users: home-based users demonstrated extensive, comprehensive, and enjoyable use of the Internet at home coupled with limited and less enjoyable Internet use at school; school-oriented information seekers reported mainly visiting websites, both at home and at school, but school access was preferred; and school-oriented communicators indicated primarily using email, both at home and at school, but school use was preferred. Implications for Internet literacy in young school children are discussed