youth and blogging
I talked to Elin Stueland from Barnevakten yesterday. Barnevakten works with increasing the knowledge about children and media, especially among parents. They've recieved several questions from (worried) parents about children and blogging. Which is why I was contacted for an interview. First of all, I don't have the impression children blog a lot. I've hardly seen any bloggers younger than 14-15. At least I could say a few things about youth and blogging based on the things my informants have told me. The black/white summary of the interview: what's good and what's bad about adolescents writing about their lives and thoughts in more or less public spaces? I struggled somewhat when we came to the bad things about blogging. Is it not a problem that some of my informants might be a little too open when they write about their lives and their feelings? Especially if they don't bother to restrict diary-access to registered friends only? What's too open? I'm not too personal myself. I deleted a whole paragraph from the tarnation-entry, because I thought it was too disclosing.
A minority of my informants have told their parents about their online diary. Some of them don't mind revealing stuff publicly, but they still don't want their parents to know. I found it rather challenging to take a parents' perspective. I'm usually focused on seeing things through the eyes of my informants.
3 Comments:
I would be fascinated to know more about that discussion as this is one of my own research interests. People who are happy to reveal things today may not be happy about what they said years ago if people find it later when they are at a different point in their lives.
On the other side, there is a lot said about the possible benefits of self-expression but how much has it actually been measured? I would be interested in any references you have for that...
This is a rather important question for my whole project. I know that several of my informants find it almost therapeutic to write about their own lives and thoughts - sharing experiences with others and getting comments and support from their readers. I believe them, but of course I don't know what they will think about it in the future. Some have had several diaries and deleted them at a later point.
I think you're right: there is indeed a lot said about benefits of self-expression. I think Foucault's concept of "technologies of the self" is good. His references to Seneca is rather interesting (can be found in Foucault's Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth): keeping a notebook in order to contemplate on thinkgs read, heard or thought, as a form of gathering the self. Sharing these thoughts online makes the whole thing a lot more complicated of course...
I definitely promise to get back to these questions :-) At this point I'm trying to concentrate on personal media and social relationships.
hey my little brother (15) has a blog too! He is terribly modern! Our parents don't give a shit about his blogging! They may not even know what a blog is. We dont talk about the internet (which is quite a 2nd reality we do belive in) to our parents. Can my little bro become an informant of yours? :-) ciao
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