Cyberkids? Exploring Children’s Identities and Social Networks in On-line and Off-line Worlds

Abstract

In the first rush of academic and popular commentaries on cyberspace, a stark opposition has been drawn between off-line and on-line worlds-the "real" and "virtual." Such understandings of the relationship between these spaces are now increasingly subject to critique, yet relatively little is known about how people actually employ information and communication technologies (ICT) within the context of their everyday lives. In this article, by drawing on research with children aged 11-16, we provide primary empirical material demonstrating how on-line spaces are used, encountered, and interpreted within the context of young people's off-line everyday lives. In doing so we consider both how children's "real" worlds are incorporated into their "virtual" worlds and how their "virtual" worlds are incorporated into their "real" worlds. In other words, we demonstrate how the real and the virtual are mutually constituted. We also reflect on some of the forms of "private" and "public" spaces constituted by children's activities on and around the screen.

Psykisk helsearbeid på internett: konsekvenser for normalitets- og identitetsdannelse hos ungdom

“…I en gjennomgang av vitenskapelige artikler framkommer det også at nettbaserte tjenester ikke kan erstatte kontakt ansikt-til-ansikt [1]. Valentine og Holloway [21] har på sin side gjennomført en studie om forholdet mellom barn og unges identitet og sosiale nettverk on-versus off-line. Deres funn peker mot at nettbaserte tjenester gir barn og unge bedre kontroll over egen identitet fordi asynkron kommunikasjon gir dem tid til å tenke på hva de vil si og hvordan de ønsker å presentere seg selv.…”

“…Internett muliggjør med andre ord at ungdom kan håndtere en identitet som både avhengig og uavhengig av andre mennesker. Det vil vaere av samfunnsmessig betydning at disse verdenene konstituerer hverandre gjensidig, fungerer berikende og styrker ungdoms muligheter for mestring [21]. Mennesker må ikke bare blir anerkjent on-line, men også bli anerkjent og ikke minst anerkjenne andre off-line.…”

Virtually Queer? Homing Devices, Mobility, and Un/Belongings

“…It also signals our methodological alignment with post-positivist research that troubles (Lather & Smithies, 1997) modernist readings of interviews as transparently representational and unproblematically accessible to the technics of hermeneutics. There are many important themes that this particular reading cannot attend to, including geographic location, age, continuities and discontinuities between embodied and online community, extensibility of social networks (Valentine & Holloway, 2002), complexities implicated in the production of gender in ostensibly "same sex" communities and locations, and a whole lot more.…”

“…Insights into everyday uses of media is a critical aporia produced by an analytic emphasis on media textualities. Accordingly, we follow a line of thinking from cultural media studies scholars (e.g., Jenkins, 1992;McRobbie, 2005;Probyn, 1995;Radway, 1984;Valentine & Holloway, 2002;Walkerdine, 1997), who emphasize that research needs to eschew technological determinism (or an "effects of media" model) and carefully consider quotidian uses of popular culture.…”

Internet-based Mental Health Services in Norway and Sweden: Characteristics and Consequences

“…They also worry about the lack of therapeutic control in such settings. In a study that explored the relationship between childhood identity and social networks both on-and offline, Valentine and Holloway (2009) showed that information-based services and communication technologies increase children's control over their identities because asynchronous communication gives them time to think about what they want to say and how they want to present themselves. They further argue that children's on-and offline worlds are similar, and mutually enrich each other.…”