Media has become an integral part of teenagers’ everyday lives. While magazines and other more traditional, “old” media forms like television have always been very prominent in the lives of teenagers, the addition of the “new” media devices—mobile phones, the Internet, and other platforms used by the phones/Internet—has changed the way teenagers interact with media. Now, it is rare to be somewhere where there is no presence of some kind of media, in one form or another. Recently, I contacted a Rutgers Journalism and Media Studies doctoral candidate, Dara Persis Murray, for her view on the relationship between teenagers and media, a relationship that seems to be growing in complexity. I was very interested in her thoughts particularly because in addition to studying journalism and media studies, she has a certificate in Women and Gender Studies, and research interests that closely mirror the focus of this blog. We covered a variety of topics, some of which I will address in weeks to come, but for this week I will stick to issues of authenticity in online interactions and identities.
The growth of media and its influence has begun to alter the way teenagers interact with others (both with other teenagers and with those not of their own generation). According to Ms. Murray:
Teenagers’ daily lives are synonymous with constant communication. It seems like there is never any room for down time (i.e. turning off electronic devices). Many people may have more “friends” on Facebook than they could ever meet in person. These sorts of relationships are good and bad—people can engage in identity play but they may also feel that the relationships lack a certain sort of authenticity. Teenagers’ use of new media may also be problematic for generational interactions—for instance, communicating with a grandparent or even a parent who is not used to texting.
Ms. Murray brings up a number of interesting points. Authenticity online is something with which teens struggle; in general, teens (and girls in particular) use social media to reinforce relationships that already exist in real life: “While anonymity and the ability to escape family and the confines of the household by connecting with friends, it is vital to note that because they are primarily used to keep in touch with people known offline these [social media] tools are extensions of ‘real-life’ social networks.”1 Also, if you really take the time to think about it, portraying yourself authentically is, in and of itself, an interesting idea. This entry from the blog PersonalizeMedia really has some good food for thought about being authentic, online or otherwise. The Internet is a good place for trying things out, especially for those who really want to explore who they really are, and this is kind of how Ms. Murray feels teenagers use it: “I think that teenagers primarily see the internet as a free space—a place to be your aspirational self—as there is always a chat room where you can recreate your identity and see how users respond to you.”
It seems as if people tend to flock to social media during teenaged years especially, just because of the nature of life during that timeframe. As Ms. Murray put it, even though trying new versions of oneself out online “raises the issue of misrepresentation versus identity play…since the teenage years, especially, are fraught with figuring out who you are, the internet is a logical space for identity work.” It is during this period in life that humans really try to come up with an “identity” for themselves, which is done namely through trial-and-error. For example, I know many see the beginning of college as an opportunity to “reinvent” themselves—to assert the identity they feel is their own, which they might not have fully developed (or been able to implement, so to speak) during the earlier teenage years.
But the role of identity branches out into more things, as well. For example, Ms. Murray also points out a physical side to it:
For girls and young women, I think that the Internet is [a] space to play with your physical self too—there are so many tools for photoshopping pictures of yourself or otherwise representing your appearance in a way that may not reflect the offline reality. It is also a space for the formation of communities about issues of beauty, fashion, and health. The reasons why women feel the need to alter their appearances online (and, of course, offline) may speak to the impact that media messages about beauty and body image [have] on female audiences.
This reminds me of Brad Paisley’s amusing song, “Online” (lyrics can be found here):
On websites like hotornot.com, or even online dating sites, people purposely misrepresent their physical images—teenagers are not alone in this activity (as for gender, I would like to note that Ms. Murray pointed out to me that one reason why girls may be more active than boys on social media platforms, such as Twitter, is because sites have been more aggressively marketing to girls)—and other things about themselves, regardless of what may be authentic. The trend seems to begin during the teenage years, but it is by no means left exclusively to teenagers, as many people take advantage of the relative anonymity of the Internet to be something other than what they are in "real life."
1 Tsoulis-Reay, A. “OMG I’m Online… Again! MySpace, MSN, and the Everyday Mediation of Girls.” Screen Education, 2007, 53, 48-55.
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