Taking risky opportunities in youthful content creation: teenagers' use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy and self-expression

By Sonia Livingstone. New Media & Society, 2008

1,851 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The explosion in social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and Friendster is widely regarded as an exciting opportunity, especially for youth.Yet the public response tends to be one of puzzled dismay regarding a generation that, supposedly, has many friends but little sense of privacy and a narcissistic fascination with self-display. This article explores teenagers' practices of social networking in order to uncover the subtle connections between online opportunity and risk. While younger teenagers relish the opportunities to recreate continuously a highly-decorated, stylistically-elaborate identity, older teenagers favour a plain aesthetic that foregrounds their links to others, thus expressing a notion of identity lived through authentic relationships. The article further contrasts teenagers' graded conception of `friends' with the binary classification of social networking sites, this being one of several means by which online privacy is shaped and undermined by the affordances of these sites.

Subfields: Communication, Education, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c7e208091e92c67b45ce0c54297cb219d8e90fa2

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Citations in the corpus

Loneliness, social support, and preference for online social interaction: the mediating effects of identity experimentation online among children and adolescents (2011, background): “Scholars are reporting important age-differentiated outcomes in media preferences, language, and interpersonal interactions (Leung, 2003; Livingstone, 2008; McCann & Giles, 2002).”
Follow me and like my beautiful selfies: Singapore teenage girls' engagement in self-presentation and peer comparison on social media (2016, background): “When teenage users create online profiles, they are individuals as well as part of a larger community (Bargh & McKenna, 2004; Livingstone, 2008).”
Constructing the Self through the Photo selection - Visual Impression Management on Social Networking Websites (2009, positive): “…social capital (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007; Steinfield, Ellison, & Lampe, 2008), and trust and privacy concerns (Gross & Acquisti, 2005; Preibusch, Hoser, Gürses, & Berendt, 2006; Stutzman, 2006; Dwyer, Hiltz, & Passerini, 2007; Lenhart & Madden, 2007; Hodge, 2007; Livingstone, 2008).”
Harm and Offence in Media Content: A Review of the Evidence (2006, background): “A search of the literature (Livingstone, 2008) shows certain trends in the way social networking sites are used:”
An Alternative View of Privacy on Facebook (2011, background): “…example: Acquisti and Gross 2006 [37]; Barnes 2006 [38]; Dwyer 2007 [39]; Dwyer, Hiltz and Passerini 2007 [40]; Fogel and Nehmad 2009 [41]; Gross, Acquisti and Heinz 2005 [42]; Hodge 2006 [43]; Lewis, Kaufman and Christakis 2008 [44]; Livingstone 2008 [45]; Stutzman 2006 [46]; Tufeki 2008 [47]).”
A Systematic Review of Recent Research on Adolescent Social Connectedness and Mental Health with Internet Technology Use (2015, result): “…is consistent with previous studies that reveal the potential positive impacts of technology use among adolescents which should be recognized and cultivated even though the challenge exists for young people to avoid negative influences while using technology (Austin et al. 2006; Livingstone 2008).”
Too Many Facebook “Friends”? Content Sharing and Sociability Versus the Need for Privacy in Social Network Sites (2010, methodology): “Livingstone (2008) concluded, for example, that online privacy among youths is shaped and undermined by what is offered in the SNSs’ user interface.”
The emergence of network media logic in political communication: A theoretical approach (2015, background): “These social media platforms are characterized (next to other – for example, technological – features we cannot discuss here) by practices of constant updating (Livingstone, 2008; Svensson, 2012), speed (Van Dijk, 2006: 14–15) and connectivity (Bennett and Segerberg, 2012; Manovich, 2001: 2019).”
Tweens' conceptions of privacy online: implications for educators (2013, background): “To explain this disjunction, Livingstone ( 2008 )—whose research involves British teens—suggests that youth's conception of privacy online has less to do with the types of information they disclose and more to do with their desire to exert control over this information.”
"Girls are addicted to likes so they post semi-naked selfies": Peer mediation, normativity and the construction of identity online (2015, background): “Research has shown that mobile internet technologies and social networking sites have become fully incorporated in young people's everyday lives, potentially providing " full-time " access to peers (Bond, 2014; boyd, 2014; Livingstone, 2008, 2009; Mascheroni & Ólafsson, 2014).”
Hey Mom, What’s on Your Facebook? Comparing Facebook Disclosure and Privacy in Adolescents and Adults (2012, background): “The literature on youth and technology supports this idea, with young people reporting that they do care about privacy, especially privacy from their parents (boyd, 2007; Livingstone, 2008).”
Online Social Networking and Addiction—A Review of the Psychological Literature (2011, background): “Another study [54] used a qualitative methodology to investigate why teenagers use SNSs.”
Narcissism, extraversion and adolescents' self-presentation on Facebook. (2011, background): “…with peer acceptance, physical appearance and the impressions they convey, they are receptive to SNS because these sites present platforms to connect to their peers without adult surveillance and to facilitate identity construction and experimentation within a social context (Livingstone, 2008).”
The 'Privacy Paradox' in the Social Web: The Impact of Privacy Concerns, Individual Characteristics, and the Perceived Social Relevance on Different Forms of Self-Disclosure1 (2014, background): “Livingstone (2008) has shown that teenage SNS users are not at all unconcerned about privacy risks online; rather, they have a different notion of privacy.”
Older and Wiser? Facebook Use, Privacy Concern, and Privacy Protection in the Life Stages of Emerging, Young, and Middle Adulthood (2015, result): “The findings are in line with the growing body of literature that claims that young people are privacy aware (Livingstone, 2008; Raynes-Goldie, 2010; Tufekci, 2012).”
Risky Disclosures on Facebook (2012, background): “Livingstone (2008), in her exploration of 13- to 16-year-olds’ use of social network sites, found that information such as age, religion, politics, and sexual preference are not viewed as private matters by these young users of social network sites.”
The Role of Social Networking Sites in Early Adolescents’ Social Lives (2016, background): “…to the concerns that adolescents’ social connectedness would be reduced by the increased use of the Internet in general and SNSs in specific (e.g., Livingstone, 2008; Nie, 2001; Turkle, 2011), the outcomes of this study suggest that there may actually be positive social outcomes of using an SNS.”
PREDICTORS AND CONSEQUENCES OF DIFFERENTIATED PRACTICES ON SOCIAL NETWORK SITES (2010, result): “However, others have suggested caution before drawing dire conclusions since empirical evidence rarely supports overarching fears about the negative social and psychological implications of these sites (Hinduja & Patchin 2008; Jones et al. 2008; Livingstone 2008; Pasek et al. 2009).”