Ask and ye shall receive: public/private part II
A lot of you responded to my somewhat idealistic previous post about online privacy by making a distinction between what may be ideal (total freedom of expression) and what is prudent or practical (posting those pictures from that one party in a friends-only area).
This week is Social Networking Sites Week in my online course, and one of the assignments for the week was to sign up for a Facebook account, which I'd never actually done (I think I missed Facebook in college by a year). Some of the students, myself included, were a little taken aback by the whole business about signing up under Your Real Name.
This led to another essay about privacy, which led to slightly less sunny conclusions.
I just signed up for Facebook and agree completely with [names of classmates] above. My first reaction was, "Well, I'm signing up in my professional capacity, so I guess I can't put up anything personal." Which is to say, anything I wouldn't want teens at the library to know about me.
This "adult perspective" [this is a reference to an earlier comment by the instructor] may be in contrast with the way teens navigate privacy, but I think it's exceptionally relevant to us as professionals. I keep thinking about being queer as someone working with teens. I feel strongly that being queer is not something I should hide, nor does it in any way make my work with teens less effective (in fact, as coming out was one of the defining experiences of my adolescence, I suspect it makes me relate to teens in ways that I otherwise would not have done). However, I am lucky enough to live in a time and place when I can be open about this and expect to be supported by my professional institution. If I were working in Virginia, where I grew up, I might have some much harder choices to make.
Or if my personal life involved aspects that had not been socially mainstreamed (and desexualized) to the extent that queerness (or at least being A Lesbian) has. A quick survey of twentysomethings’ profiles on social networking sites reveals all manner of personal details I wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing with teens (or their parents): alcohol use; recreational drug use; dressing up in revealing “party clothes”; seeking dating partners (on Facebook, you can indicate that you’re looking for “whatever I can get”-ouch!); swear words; risque humor. Not to mention the risks involved if you are involved in certain stigmatized activities-if you are, say, a nudist, or a Wiccan, or a political radical, or a porn model (not an uncomplicated act, but also not one that, in my opinion, affects one’s professional abilities).
These are not new problems. Wiccans and radicals and porn models (and a couple of closeted queer teachers I remember from my Virginia days) have always negotiated the tension between personal and professional, public and private. But what is different now is how easily these lines are crossed. And the effect of surveillance-this feeling that no matter how and where you conduct yourself on the internet, employers and who knows who else could be watching-is chilling.
In some ways, this is an adult perspective too. After all, the library teens who’ve friended me on MySpace seem unperturbed by giving adults access to bra-clad photos and marijuana leaf icons (I’ve since adopted the policy of friending teens back but not reading their profiles-my understanding is that friending is a form of social validation but not an invitation to enter the personal worlds that their MySpace pages become). And as I said in Week One, I suspect that by the time this generation enters the workforce, posting certain unprofessional information about oneself on the internet will have become so commonplace as to be completely unremarkable and therefore unpunishable.
But I can’t help but wonder how broad this “revolution” really is. The ex-cheerleader with a few risque photos in her past may escape professional consequences, but what about the ex-cutter? Or the jock with a few beer funnel photos versus the role-player displaying the always-terrifying trenchcoat (are we still afraid of trenchcoats? I can’t remember). What I mean is, internet youth culture may be expanding the range of acceptable public behaviors, but it is certainly not eliminating the forces that deem some social behaviors acceptable and others unacceptable.
I’m thinking now about last week’s IM article [located here] and the way the authors showed teens using instant messaging to maintain their social status and to perform current and desired identities. Assuming that social networking sites serve similar functions (the performance of identity seems an obvious one), I wonder what effect the easy searchability has on teens’ identity formation and social structures. Is it easier to be, say, a role-playing gamer in a world where you can connect easily to others who share your interests? Or does the threat of surveillance make deviation from social norms harder?
A good question for teens would be what the social rules are for these new technologies. Is there anything you can’t say on MySpace? What are the social consequences of deviation?
I’ll see what I can find out. :)
Thoughts?
Also, um, I have a Facebook account or something? So those of you who are always talking about Facebook can feel free to seek Its Royal Blankness out, if you so choose. I'd give you the location, but I guess you can just look under My Real Name. Crazy kids.
This week is Social Networking Sites Week in my online course, and one of the assignments for the week was to sign up for a Facebook account, which I'd never actually done (I think I missed Facebook in college by a year). Some of the students, myself included, were a little taken aback by the whole business about signing up under Your Real Name.
This led to another essay about privacy, which led to slightly less sunny conclusions.
I just signed up for Facebook and agree completely with [names of classmates] above. My first reaction was, "Well, I'm signing up in my professional capacity, so I guess I can't put up anything personal." Which is to say, anything I wouldn't want teens at the library to know about me.
This "adult perspective" [this is a reference to an earlier comment by the instructor] may be in contrast with the way teens navigate privacy, but I think it's exceptionally relevant to us as professionals. I keep thinking about being queer as someone working with teens. I feel strongly that being queer is not something I should hide, nor does it in any way make my work with teens less effective (in fact, as coming out was one of the defining experiences of my adolescence, I suspect it makes me relate to teens in ways that I otherwise would not have done). However, I am lucky enough to live in a time and place when I can be open about this and expect to be supported by my professional institution. If I were working in Virginia, where I grew up, I might have some much harder choices to make.
Or if my personal life involved aspects that had not been socially mainstreamed (and desexualized) to the extent that queerness (or at least being A Lesbian) has. A quick survey of twentysomethings’ profiles on social networking sites reveals all manner of personal details I wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing with teens (or their parents): alcohol use; recreational drug use; dressing up in revealing “party clothes”; seeking dating partners (on Facebook, you can indicate that you’re looking for “whatever I can get”-ouch!); swear words; risque humor. Not to mention the risks involved if you are involved in certain stigmatized activities-if you are, say, a nudist, or a Wiccan, or a political radical, or a porn model (not an uncomplicated act, but also not one that, in my opinion, affects one’s professional abilities).
These are not new problems. Wiccans and radicals and porn models (and a couple of closeted queer teachers I remember from my Virginia days) have always negotiated the tension between personal and professional, public and private. But what is different now is how easily these lines are crossed. And the effect of surveillance-this feeling that no matter how and where you conduct yourself on the internet, employers and who knows who else could be watching-is chilling.
In some ways, this is an adult perspective too. After all, the library teens who’ve friended me on MySpace seem unperturbed by giving adults access to bra-clad photos and marijuana leaf icons (I’ve since adopted the policy of friending teens back but not reading their profiles-my understanding is that friending is a form of social validation but not an invitation to enter the personal worlds that their MySpace pages become). And as I said in Week One, I suspect that by the time this generation enters the workforce, posting certain unprofessional information about oneself on the internet will have become so commonplace as to be completely unremarkable and therefore unpunishable.
But I can’t help but wonder how broad this “revolution” really is. The ex-cheerleader with a few risque photos in her past may escape professional consequences, but what about the ex-cutter? Or the jock with a few beer funnel photos versus the role-player displaying the always-terrifying trenchcoat (are we still afraid of trenchcoats? I can’t remember). What I mean is, internet youth culture may be expanding the range of acceptable public behaviors, but it is certainly not eliminating the forces that deem some social behaviors acceptable and others unacceptable.
I’m thinking now about last week’s IM article [located here] and the way the authors showed teens using instant messaging to maintain their social status and to perform current and desired identities. Assuming that social networking sites serve similar functions (the performance of identity seems an obvious one), I wonder what effect the easy searchability has on teens’ identity formation and social structures. Is it easier to be, say, a role-playing gamer in a world where you can connect easily to others who share your interests? Or does the threat of surveillance make deviation from social norms harder?
A good question for teens would be what the social rules are for these new technologies. Is there anything you can’t say on MySpace? What are the social consequences of deviation?
I’ll see what I can find out. :)
Thoughts?
Also, um, I have a Facebook account or something? So those of you who are always talking about Facebook can feel free to seek Its Royal Blankness out, if you so choose. I'd give you the location, but I guess you can just look under My Real Name. Crazy kids.