Maybe people can create new identities when they are in the contribution stage – as in, what if somebody has a jarring life event like a divorce – and finds themselves re-defining who they are relative to their peer groups…

An other good example for identity formation space is the Swedish Lunarstorm – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunarstorm. And even Gladwell points out in The Tipping Point that during the identity formation peering matters the most.

Talking of reflection and storytelling you should also consider the pro-am-ing that mostly will affect the elder – http://www.demos.co.uk/catalogue/proameconomy/

Talking about IMing I consider myself a geek, but the trend of the youngsters getting shy face-to-face worries a bit me.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how anti-MySpace propaganda has been rooted in the culture of fear. Given that youth play a critical, but different, role in social software, i suspect that folks might be interested in how MySpace is…

Martha Burtis points to this welcome and heartfelt plea from Danah Boyd “capturing why it is that we need to allow space online for young people – and why we need to step aside and let them fill those spaces”: A few days ago, i started laying out how…

Kris – i actually don’t know whether it would relate to Maslow’s hierarchy or how… but then again, i’m not a psychologist… i’m more interested in practices than the personal psychological ones so i don’t know how it works as fulfillment so much as how it plays out in practice.

Maria – there’s definitely some stuff happening with seniors but not that much considering how large of a population they are. I totally agree that they vary immensely by culture – could you tell me more about the practices and patterns you see in the Chinese-American culture?

Matt – that’s *insane*

Cheryl – the one place where i see older folks meeting people online is in a dating context. Match.com has some amazing stories about 70+ members – people that don’t live in communities of seniors but want to engage with new peers. It’s that same problematic situation – do you go to a bar to meet people? Ugg. Anyhow, i think it would be interesting to understand when and where seniors want to meet new people and when they don’t. (It’s also important to point out that my description isn’t just about meeting/not meeting people – there are tons of folks who don’t want to meet people online of all ages… it’s a matter of how it plays into their cultural practices.)

Lilly – thanks!! And i’m working on it. ::gulp::

Guy – great link!

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007491

…
We profoundly misunderstand contemporary Islamist ideology when we see it as an assertion of traditional Muslim values or culture. In a traditional Muslim country, your religious identity is not a matter of choice; you receive it, along with your social status, customs and habits, even your future marriage partner, from your social environment. In such a society there is no confusion as to who you are, since your identity is given to you and sanctioned by all of the society’s institutions, from the family to the mosque to the state.

The same is not true for a Muslim who lives as an immigrant in a suburb of Amsterdam or Paris. All of a sudden, your identity is up for grabs; you have seemingly infinite choices in deciding how far you want to try to integrate into the surrounding, non-Muslim society. In his book “Globalized Islam” (2004), the French scholar Olivier Roy argues persuasively that contemporary radicalism is precisely the product of the “deterritorialization” of Islam, which strips Muslim identity of all of the social supports it receives in a traditional Muslim society.

The identity problem is particularly severe for second- and third-generation children of immigrants. They grow up outside the traditional culture of their parents, but unlike most newcomers to the United States, few feel truly accepted by the surrounding society.
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