Collapsing contexts: social networking technologies in young people’s nightlife

Abstract

In the latest discussions of children and young people's new geographies of leisure and pleasure, one controversial issue has been how digital technologies co-produce and reconfigure young people's everyday worlds. This article draws on semi-structured interviews with 40 young people who regularly use social networking technologies in their nightlife experiences in Zurich and Lausanne, two nightlife hubs in Switzerland. Informed by Danah Boyd's concepts of 'collapsing contexts' and 'imagined audiences', this article enables a critical engagement with young people's emerging understanding of their nightlife contexts, which are increasingly permeated by networking technologies. I show how social networking spaces facilitate the coming together, or collapse, of various social contexts which induce young people to imagine multiple audiences, including authority figures, in their nightlife practices. These collapsing contexts and imagined audiences, I argue, present new perspectives on debates about control and surveillance in young people's contemporary urban nightlife.

How do social media-related attachments and assemblages encourage or reduce drinking among young people?

“…Second, the omnipotent presence of electronic media may reduce young people's drinking in parties by translating the occasion into a more public phenomenon and by relating it to assemblages and mediators that belong to other contexts (Truong 2018). When our interviewees attend drinking parties that involve peers that do not belong to their closest circle of friends, this induces them to think about imagined audiences and to be concerned about their self-presentation, since other partygoers could share online pictures of or messages about their drinking.…”

“…The increasing presence of mobile networking technologies has transformed our interviewees' intimate and private drinking spaces into more public situations. The omnipotent presence of electronic media in their leisure activities has introduced new actors and linkages to their physical spaces, forcing them to redefine their understanding of the character of these spaces, and motivating them to pay more attention to their self-presentation (Truong 2018). STELLA: Rumors spread very fast on parties, on social media.…”

Drinking stories as a narrative genre: The five classic themes

“…The results therefore reflect verbal drinking stories with an emphasis on spoken words. With the flourishing of online social media, drinking stories are increasingly expressed through written words, photography and video clips (Truong 2018). Unfortunately, we do not have data to address such drinking stories.…”

“…The key element is the intake of large amounts of alcohol, combined with the transgression of boundaries established by tradition, the law or other authorities (Hackley et al, 2015). These stories are usually told to make people laugh and are often circulated widely among friends through face-to-face interactions and increasingly online through written communication, pictures and video clips (Truong, 2018). Studies indicate that sex, drugs and alcohol are among the most common topics of conversation on social media and that these online conversations serve multiple interactional purposes such as displaying intimacy, strengthening friendships and storing good memories (Cullen 2011; Van Doorn 2010).…”

(Cyber)Bullying in schools – when bullying stretches across cON/FFlating spaces

“…Holloway and Valentine 2000;Katz 2004), the number of works engaging with information and communication technologies (ICT) in this process has recently increased (e.g. Jones, Williams, and Fleuriot 2003;Stokes 2010;Bond 2014;George and Odgers 2015;Plowman 2016;Truong 2018;Thulin and Vilhelmson 2019;Thulin, Vilhelmson, and Schwanen 2020).…”