Growing up in the Social Web

Dr. Jan-Hinrik Schmidt

Senior Researcherfor Digital Interactive Media

and Political Communication

Hamburg, 06.05.2009

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What‘s happening?

Commons-Based Peer Production (Yochai Benkler) Produsage

(Axel Bruns)

Convergence/ Participatory Culture

(Henry Jenkins)

Produsage (John Palfrey / Urs Gasser)

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What‘s happening?

Social Web lowers technical barriers for online-based…

www.flickr.com/photos/44029537@N00/12760664/

– Identity Management (Expressing one‘s ideas, experiences, personality) e.g. Blogs, YouTube

http://flickr.com/photos/mylesdgrant/495698908/

– Relationship Management (Articulating and expanding social ties and networks)

e.g. Facebook, ICQ

http://www.flickr.com/photos/axels_bilder/1267008046/

– Information Management (Selecting, filtering and distributing information and knowledge)

e.g. Wikipedia, Digg, Delicios

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Practices and developmental tasks

Practice Examples Developmental Task

Key Question

Identity management

Filling out a profilePublishing a VideoUpdating „MySpace Mood“

Self-Development Who am I?

Relationship management

Requesting/confirming a contactCommenting on a blogFollowing

Socialization What is my position within groups, networks, society?

Information management

Searching in WikipediaTagging a picture Rating a YouTube Video

General Orientation What is happening in the world?

• Why is Social Web so attractive for adolescents? Because it provides means to fulfill certain developmental tasks which are particularly pressing in adolescence.

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Our study

• But how exactly is the social web assisting and challenging the ways teenagers are growing up?

• 15-month-study on social web use of 12-24-year-olds

– combining focus groups, in-depth interviews, case studies and representative survey

(N=650; field phase: October 2008)

– commissioned by the Media Regulation Authority North-Rhine Westphalia (LfM)

– conducted by a team from the Hans-Bredow-Institute and the University of Salzburg

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69

69

58

5

38

2

34

1

8

3

0 20 40 60 80 100

Instant-Messaging

Online Communities

Listening to Music

Uploading Music

Reading Wikis

Editing Wikis

Watching Videos

Uploading Videos

Reading Blogs

Writing Blogs

Using the Social Web (in %, at least several times/week)

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Popularity of (selected) Social Web Platforms (in %; ever visited)

94,888,5

84,269,3

63,947,9

42,341,6

37,130,5

18,316,7

15,211,7

3,33,2

1,81,7

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Google

YouTube

Wikipedia

ICQ

MyVideo

SchülerVZ

MSN

Clipfish

StudiVZ

MySpace

Knuddels

Wer-kennt-wen

meinVZ

Lokalisten

MyBlog

Flickr

Facebook

Second Life

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Popularity of Platforms (in %; at least once/week)

39,2

30,2

14,4

2,8

49,1

24,7

70,1

27

90,6

54,8

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

SchülerVZ

StudiVZ

MySpace

Facebook

ICQ

MSN

YouTube

MyVideo

Google

Wikipedia

Growing up in the Social Web Page 9 of 13

Popularity of Platforms (in %; at least once/week)

66

9,5

23

2,7

59,5

32,7

83,1

34,5

90,5

60,5

10,9

56,9

12,3

3,3

37

16,5

55,7

13,3

92,9

49,8

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

SchülerVZ

StudiVZ

MySpace

Facebook

ICQ

MSN

YouTube

MyVideo

Google

Wikipedia

15-17 21-24

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Social Networks on Social Network Sites

Those who do use Social Network Sites (~76%)…

Have an average number of friends of: 130

Have met most of them face to face: 85 percent

less than half face to face: 5 percent

Consider most of them as close friends: 15 percent

less than half as close friends: 62 percent

Social Network Sites help articulating existing weak ties.

Social Network Sites are training grounds for networking skills.

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Problematic usage (in %)

Have you ever… Total Male Female 12-14 15-17 18-20 21-24

… been bullyied online? 28 27 29 25 25 37 26

… been confronted with pictures of you which others uploaded without your consent?

13 14 11 8 11 17 14

… done things online others have protested against?

9 12 5 6 5 17 6

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Favorite communication channels (in %; green: most favorite channel; black: not suitable at all)

F-2-F Letter SMS E-Mail Phone IM SNS HP None

Arrange meetings, parties etc.

15,8 0,4 19,8 1,0 49,2 12,7 0,8 0,2 0,1

7,9 43,2 4,3 14,3 1,5 8,8 12,4 17,9 6,9

Chatting / Small talk with friends

44,0 0,2 2,1 0,6 33,1 17,6 2,0 0,2 0,2

2,2 38,4 18,3 13,3 1,8 8,0 8,9 19,5 5,8

Meeting new people

45,5 0,4 0,6 2,3 1,6 29,4 17,8 1,3 1,0

7,2 34,1 19,1 12,3 20,2 7,7 6,3 13,9 4,6

Flirting59,6 0,6 3,7 1,8 5,3 19,9 6,5 0,2 2,4

4,3 5,5 13,0 12,3 10,9 12,0 10,8 20,2 4,9

Breaking Up87,6 2,1 2,8 0,9 5,3 0,4 0,0 0,0 0,9

2,3 22,5 47,8 21,4 12,6 27,0 21,6 21,6 3,6

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Thank You!

Dr. Jan-Hinrik Schmidt

Hans-Bredow-Institute

Warburgstr. 8-10, 20354 Hamburg

j.schmidt@hans-bredow-institut.de

www.hans-bredow-institut.de

www.schmidtmitdete.de

Download the White Paper (German) at

http://www.hans-bredow-institut.de/webfm_send/367