My PhD Blog

Today : - ) (the smiley) can celebrate its 25th birthday. On account of that I want to share a little story about a related symbol, the heart: <3.

<3 is a symbol that especially youth use when they are communicating online. I have seen many examples on Arto where youngsters use the symbol when they are writing praising messages about each other, e.g. like this message from one 16-year old girl to another:

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This Friday I am attending and speaking at an interesting conference called “Ung 2.0″ (”Youth 2.0″) about youth, culture and the library. The conference aims at defining what preoccupies young people today and how the libraries can accommodate the youngsters in the future. I am giving a presentation on youth and virtual communities (social networking sites) based on my research. Read more about the conference here (only in Danish).

Also, I have been writing an article about “the digital library users of the future” for the Danish journal DF Revy. (I will remember to post a link when it comes out.)

Furthermore, I have been giving interviews on how libraries can seek inspiration in social networking sites. And I am speaking at another conference dealing with the very same subject at The Royal School of Library and Information Science in Copenhagen later this month.

It is nice to see that libraries are really embracing the world of Web 2.0, social software and new media and trying to design for a new generation of library users.

I want to thank all of you who e-mailed me about my article ‘35 Perspectives on Online Social Networking‘ and also those who commented on the article at Social Computing Magazine or Slashdot. I found many of the comments to be really interesting and adding further perspectives to the discussion.

I can see from the comments that many people find that I focus too much on youth in the article. In this regard I would like to stress that my research is on young people’s use of social networking sites and therefore the article is only concerned with that. Actually, the list presented should be viewed as a list of ‘35 Perspectives on Youngsters and Online Social Networking’ reflecting the many different ‘voices’ we are currently experiencing in Denmark when it comes to online social networking and youth.

As mentioned earlier the list is mostly based on my own experiences with the subject in Denmark where the concept of ’social networking’ is just now starting to spread to the whole population. I find that up until now we have been going through a ‘moral panic phase’ where (the majority of) the older generation - the digital immigrants to use Prensky’s terms - have been worried about the use of SNS by the younger generation, the digital natives. But I think that social networking sites are starting to get a grip on the general public and when that happens it will be interesting to explore what (new) perspectives will emerge…

Yesterday I was contacted by Social Computing Magazine who wanted to turn my two blog posts on perspectives on social networking into an article in their online magazine. Of course I am happy to have my posts turned into something coherent. I have not really changed much in the article according to the original posts. But now they have transformed into a single list with 35 perspectives on online social networking.

You can read the article here.

Today my colleague Anders Albrechtslund and I hit the frontpage. The Danish newspaper Nyhedsavisen interviewed us about Google Maps Street View and how youngsters would relate to the surveillance. Read the article here.

Also, see my other press appearances here.