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All responses Most smiled responses
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asked by tagfuThere are days when I'd love to do a JD and days when I think it'd be fun to get a proper sociology degree. I think that the person that I'd love to study under would probably be Manuel Castells. But I adored my advisor and I have zero regrets about the path that I took.
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I gave a talk at SXSW where I flesh out how I think about privacy: http://www.danah.org/papers/talks/2010/SXSW2010.html
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I just finished an article for I/S journal with Alex Leavitt and Jenny Ryan entitled "Pro-Self-Harm and the Visibility of Youth-Generated Problematic Content." Feel free to email me for a draft copy.
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I maintain a bibliography of what I know about social network sites here: http://www.danah.org/researchBibs/sns.php
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asked by natashacowanphd
I observe what people put up in public forums, but that's it. I do all of my interviewing in-person and I do not recruit using online communities. Teens have been taught that strangers are dangerous and scary. It's therefore irresponsible for me - a stranger - to try to reach out to them that way.
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asked by kachyka
Sorry, I'm not a psychologist. There are plenty of great scholars out there who do fabulous psychological work but I'm not one of them. I'm an ethnographer whose work draws on theories from cultural studies, media studies, and sociology.
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Generally speaking, I do not support institutionalized marriage, but my hatred of inequality far exceeds my disinterest in institutionalized marriage. Given this, I am a strong believer that anyone should have the right to make a public commitment to another person and receive the societal benefits that such a commitment provides. Neither gender nor sex should have anything to do with that commitment. Any attempt to deny partnerships on the grounds of race, gender, religion, or class is about prejudice and should be challenged as a civil rights issue.
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asked by davidleslie
Libraries primarily come up with kids who are from less privileged environments. For those kids, libraries have often been a lifeline. It's a "safe" place for them to hang out; their parents let them stay in the library as long as they want. But it's not about using social media or online services, as much as giving them the space to do whatever they want. So when I talk to teens who use the library a lot, the language that comes up is freedom.
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Since I actively avoid teens whose parents work in tech or academia, probably none. Most know that there are computer programmers who build the stuff they use but that's about it. When they talk about the sites, they talk about the companies not the programmers or engineers or any of that. My research focuses on average teens which tends to skew away from any interest in technology careers whatsoever.
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Alice Marwick put together a phenomenal bibliography of research that addresses LiveJournal: http://www.tiara.org/lj_bib.html
Today's U.S. teens are not using LJ that much. Those who are are primarily a part of anime communities or various subcultures and they engage very differently on LJ than on FB because of why they're there. -
As a scholar, I've struggled with the strengths and weaknesses of capitalism. If I were to critique Microsoft, it would primarily be a critique of capitalism and apply to most for-profit entities (including private universities that are basically government-supported landlords). At this point, I've worked for a series of for-profit technology companies, including Intel, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, but I can unequivocally say that I am most happy working at Microsoft.
Philosophically, I'm most comfortable with the ways that Microsoft makes its money. Advertising-centric companies must rely on a manipulation and, in a tech error, most ad-centric models profit off of the backs of the working class. Microsoft is primarily an enterprise institution and most of its money comes from other corporations. All companies need to make money and, at the end of the day, I'm more comfortable with how Microsoft makes its money than with how other companies do.
It also amazes me to see how well Microsoft treats its employees. I've never been inside an institution so dedicated to helping employees grow as people. And I can't tell you how nice it is to have health insurance that covers everything. Microsoft set the standard for the tech industry in terms of employee perks and stock options. It's really amazing to be in a company full of people who are really well taken care of by the institution.
Practically speaking, I'm in love with Microsoft Research. It's amazing to see an institution that is really about advancing the state of the art at a pure level. And I feel honored to be a part of it.
I'm not going to say that I fully support every decision Microsoft made in the past or that I'll agree with every decision that the corporation makes in the future. I've never worked for a company that I think is perfect. And I do think that Microsoft did some pretty dubious things in the past. But it now very much operates like a middle-aged adult whose sordid teen years are very much in the past. Even when I disagree with moves made for business reasons, I haven't seen anything take place that I would call evil. Quite the contrary. I find a lot of people to be really thoughtful and determined to balance difficult decisions. So I'm very much proud to be an employee. -
asked by AndrewL0
I consider myself part of the first generation of teens to have grown up online. I got online in 1993, thanks to my brother, and I spent a bunch of time in Usenet, IRC, and on various boards. Many of my friends were hackers and have the arrest records to prove it. When I went to college, I thought that I'd study computer science and build the kinds of systems that I loved. I ended up studying graphics and building visualizations of social interactions online. And then I realized that I was more interested in people's practices than coding visualizations. So slowly I became a social scientist. But I've always been a geek. What makes studying this stuff interesting now is that it's no longer just the marginalized folks who are online. So I made a conscious decision to primarily study what has become mainstream or normative. But that doesn't mean that I don't still keep tabs on subcultures that feel very much like home to me.
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asked by Cskott
That's a FASCINATING question. I honestly have no idea. But I suspect you're right. At least that it's a contributing component. Women who marry when they're older (30s) are far less likely to change their names than those who marry when they're younger, presumably because older women have invested a lot more in building their reputation around their names. With online identities based on names, we run into the same issue... a lot of reputation capital centered on one's name. So it seems to be logical.
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asked by reiddossinger
Neither. I think that it's about lifestage. Our goals change as we get older and we are forced to reconsider the calculations of what we might gain or lose when we do something. Teens tend to focus more on what they might gain; the older we get, the more conservative we tend to get.
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Develop a new role. There's nothing sketchier than a 20-something trying to act like a teen. You can be a mentor or role model or a confidante or any number of other things, but you will have to account for the power differential that emerges when you're not a peer. There's no way to avoid that. So don't try to seek validation from youth as a peer; that's always dangerous. There will be gaps. You have a lot more privilege and mobility and economic freedom, etc. than the youth you'll engage with. Never forget that. But always try to understand youth on their own terms and value their perspective. There's nothing wrong with being a "cool" old fogie.
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Ted Olson. I've never had the opportunity to debate him in a public setting, but I've never had more fun arguing with someone who I violently disagree with (about all things except Prop 8) than I've had with Ted at various Knight Commission meetings. We disagree, but he's never condescending or dismissive or unwilling to listen. It makes me see why he's such a talented lawyer. And why I'm REALLY glad to have him on "my" side for Prop 8.
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asked by ichthyos
The people at Facebook are extremely smart and I think that they're thinking very deeply about these issues. We may differ on perspective or philosophy, but I have little doubt about their commitment or deep engagement. The difficulty is that there are fundamental disagreements on the table; my hope is to persuade people to look at the issue from a different angle. But this isn't because I'm smarter than any of them. I just see the world differently and I want to make a case for the importance of the angle in which I'm looking at the problem. Of course, I don't have the power to make change and I'm not convinced that I have the respect needed for them to listen. So most of what I say is not really targeted at them; it's targeted at those who are trying to resolve what they're feeling and seeing.
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