twitter is for everybody, facebook is for friends.

the whole point of social media and social networking is the “social” part. if you’re locking down your twitter account letting only certain people follow, you’re doing it wrong. facebook acts the same (but was originally the entire point of the service. it has since changed dramatically.), allowing only those you want to see your pictures, movies, personal information to see it. i think this point is most evident in that facebook calls connections “friends” whereas twitter calls them “followers”… there’s an inherent separation of public and private in the use of the two words.

but i do agree with your point that teens and young people don’t want their parents or school teachers to follow their updates on twitter, or to be their friend (and therefore see their activity) on facebook. it’s what being young is all about. your whole life you’ve grown up under someone’s rules and regulations.. now you want to be free from supervision. social networks used to give this freedom to young persons, but – with grown celebrities, oprah, martha stewart, large corporations, etc. joining these social networks – we’re starting to see a backlash of young persons against these networks.

parents are not cool. what teenager wants to be uncool? it’s only natural they don’t want to be friends with their own parents.

http://www.microsocialmarketer.com/2009/07/twitter-marketer.html

Still in demo though, can add 15 in one go, does any one know where the full version of this app is availble??

http://www.microsocialmarketer.com/2009/07/twitter-marketer.html

Still in demo though, can add 15 in one go, does any one know where the full version of this app is availble??

Here’s what I mean: I generally don’t view anything that I write online—whether it’s on my blog, in Facebook or on Twitter—as private. Instead, as Chris Lehmann once wrote, “my private life begins once I walk away from the computer.”

That “no-privacy boundary” changes the way I participate in online communities. I’m careful about what I reveal and cautious about what I’m willing to say. My online contributions and relationships are measured instead of entirely open.

But I’m starting to feel a “spill-over effect” into my face-to-face relationships. I’m more cautious than ever…even skeptical to some degree…when interacting with others simply because I’ve had to put that “filter” on my online relationships.

Does this make any sense? Is it possible that I’m translating behaviors from my online relationships to my real-live relationships?

And more importantly, are our students making the same translations?
Bill

So to me the more interesting question for today’s youth, is not where they will find their escape (the Internet is plenty big enough), but how they will maintain their privacy, and will they develop the savvy to keep their shit clean and off the public record. Just look at the sexting scandals going on these days. When I was a kid, and I suspect for all of human history, we did much worse, and the adults never had clue one.

I agree that the ability for young people to maintain digital outlets where they can attempt different versions of themselves is of the utmost importance. I missed the opportunity to experiment in this way when I was a teenager. John Palfrey and Urs Gasser’s phenomenal work in Born Digital covers this subject at length.

Additionally, I agree that researching where high school studetns go online to escape their peers would be fascinating work. I would also be curious to hear the stories of those who chose to leave networks (MySpace and Facebook) once their peers and family members began using them.

BREWTON