How would you like to keep in touch with me? OK, this might be a little weird question to start a lecture with, but still. We can come together, I can give you a call, we can take part in a Facebook groupchat. We can pin each others pictures on pinterest, connect on Linkedin, I can make a drawing you receive on your smartphone and you can guess what it is to earn points.

There are more and more ways to keep in touch. We can be as connected as we want to be, involve as much as we want and receive as much information we can possibly handle. We can be twenty four seven on, we can be always connected.

Jeroen de Vos

This is what fascinated me to do a research. Let me introduce myself: my name is Jeroen de Vos

Media Anthropologist

and I am an media anthropologist. As an anthropologist, I submerge into a this group of people to become one of them, to speak their language, know their knowledge, and understand the meaning they give to the things that are important to them. From this point of view I give a description from within.

[p]Office

This methodology is typical for anthropological research. This type of research is really bottom-up. With a theoretical framework in mind, I become part of a group of people. And from the observations I make, hypotheses come up, which I constantly like to verify and rectify with new observations. This way I gain in-depth insights that would otherwise have not come to mind.

So, I did my research through the Utrecht University, whose University Fund made it financially possible for me to be here.

Family | Friend | Neighbour | Stranger | Lover

And for this research I submerged into a group of techsavvy young adolescents, to see what role these communication technologies have. in the way these young and techsavvy people structure their social surroundings, the way they organize their social relationships.

The people I researched were working together in an organization called SETUP. SETUP is a so-called media laboratory, a platform for the innovation and the creation regarding digital media. They organize multiple public events a month, which are very different in form and content.

[p]Media Critical lecturer

For instance, they had a 'finish-your-website weekend'

they tested sleep applications in a bed-store,

Media Anthropologist

and walked around with a life size carton Facebook wall on a festival.

For three months I took part in the work flow to become a fellow SETUP-er. And during these three months I basically was where other SETUP-ers would be. I joined them here, in the office, sitting at the big table. And this was an excellent position to do my observations, and join the ongoing conversations.

Talk the Talk

But therefore I had to talk the talk, which was not that easy. They were using English words like :datascraping, and retweeting, and they were making jokes about the awkward cricket and the like-machine and other words I did not know.

So, I wrote down the words I did not know and asked for there meaning or looked after an explanation online, for I figured the meaning could be found there.

[p]Notebook: Talk

I found out most words were references to popular movies,

[p]Notebook: Talk

Games,

Social Media,

[p]Office

Series

And memes....

'Digital Culture'

And I would like to summarize these categories to the comprehensive concept of digital culture.

Joke the Joke

Next to the fact that I could not only not join the ongoing conversations, nor did I get most of the jokes that were being made. And I can still remember the day I dared to make my first joke. The joke went like this:

“ Hans told the initials of his names were two C's.

“is that supposed to stand for Creative Commence?”. Hans replied with a “yes” to which Lara asked “not really right?”

And a bunch of people were laughing, apparently this was a reference to digital culture everyone was familiar with.

Hey, we understand each other

By laughing together you say 'hey, were on one line', 'we get each other', 'we thing the same way and know the same things'. Laughing together affirms ones social identity, I am a SETUP-er too! But to be able to do so you had to know the symbolic knowledge, the digital culture, everyone seem to know about, talk about, joke about and have their own opinion about.

Knowledge of Communication Technology

Surprisingly in my research of communication technology it seemed to be of strong symbolic importance. If you do not know about whatsapp, Facebook and Skype, if you do not know about the socially awkward penguin, or at least know what it stands for, you simply bite the bullet in conversations and jokes. And therefor the knowledge of digital culture in general and communication technology as a part of it is typical for inclusion, it is this knowledge that connects and divides.

Next to the symbolic importance of communication technology to the SETUP group, I was interested in the role these communication technologies have on an individual level, in the way they organize their social surroundings.

Privacy

This has got more to do with privacy. Because this is one of the key terms of this conference, I first have to explain my use of the word privacy.

By privacy I do not mean the right to be left alone, nor I mean the control of social information or the right to intellectual property.

Privacy to me is a social process, a mutual process in which people are shaping their social relationships. A process in which people are defining and redefining social boundaries between us and them, family or friend, acquaintance or lover. It is the process of inter-personal boundary regulation.

Online Offline

For SETUP-ers, this privacy process is not limited to the offline environment. Instead, it is giving shape beyond the borders of online and offline.

“We the Web Kids”

ByPiotr Czerski

This is illustrated by a manifesto that was shared by some SETUP-ers, I would like to read a little part to you:

[called we the web kids, a manifesto of Piotr Czerski]

We grew up with the Internet and on the Internet. This is what makes us different; this is what makes the crucial, although surprising […] difference: we do not ‘surf’ and the internet to us is not a ‘place’ or ‘virtual space’. The Internet to us is not something external to reality but a part of it: an invisible yet constantly present layer intertwined with the physical environment. We do not use the Internet, we live on the Internet and along it.

Offline ~ Online

They shared this manifesto because in they found a lot of recognition on the role of internet in their lives: the internet is not external to their lives. Instead, their online en offline seems to be completely intertwined in daily life.

This also follows the many observations I made. The way they behave online, the people they meet online and the way they like to organize their social context online is more like an extension of the their offline performance.

[Dongwei]

For instance: Dongwei, the guy you see everywhere has more than 600 Facebook friends,

or Lara, who is kind of jumpy uses a lot of exclamation marks.

Tom

But the best example to show this consistency is the way Tom, organizes his social surroundings.

New Media | Highschool | Study

He said to me in a conversation:

I try to make a firm distinction between friends. I have got friends I know from new media, friends I know from High school, and friends I know from my study. But when I post an statusupdate on Facebook with a new media subject, I am afraid that other 'not new media friends' will react inappropriately.

| New Media Highschool Study |

For Tom a tension is to be found as a consequence of different social contexts collapsing into one online, for instance 'Facebook friend' or 'Twitter follower'.

New Media | Highschool | Study

He admitted that he strictly separates these different social contexts online. Whether in different groups on Facebook for instance, of just different media for different groups.

Twitter = New Media Friends

Recently my father reacted on one of my tweets on twitter. I did not react, for I preferred he had sent me an email.

He used to use twitter only for his new media friends, until his father joined the conversation, which forced him to redefine these social groups.

?

So what is happening here in the bigger picture?

The process of giving shape to their social surroundings is not limited to offline environments, instead, the the privacy process is taking shape over the boundaries between online and offline. Communication technologies are hereby new tools they have at hand extend the reach of their privacy regulation.

This same smartphone, for instance, that gives them the opportunities to be connected and stay connected on so many levels. But at the same time it is a tool in which they use to organize, connect and disconnect the way they.

To say, I don't mind my mom to be a friend on Facebook, but I do not want to take part in this Whatsapp conversation. To say, I am only using Skype for video conversation with intimate people, or I do not what to be called after 8 pm.

So it is not about the ever extending scope of possibilities to communicate, it is about the way they relate to these possibilities. The process of connecting and disconnecting, including and excluding and shaping and reshaping their social environment will be ever more important the a culture where they can be always connected.

I like to return the call to you with the question:

How would you like to keep in touch with me?

Jeroen de Vos

LINKEDIN www.jeroendevos.nl/linkedinWEBSITE www.jeroendevos.nlEMAIL mail@jeroendevos.nl

PHONE +316-245 428 07SKYPE j.m.devos

AMSTERDAM – THE NETHERLANDS