How young people use social networks for news, particularly on Facebook July 20, 2010
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentSome edited highlights from a BBC focus group of 19-39-year-olds:
*very clear understanding of what they wanted from Facebook (Twitter barely mentioned)
*sophisticated appreciation of the image they projected through FB… most used it for both personal and professional reasons
*used it on both their mobiles and their PCs, but to do different things. Mobile usage is about need; PCs about choice and pleasure
*all saw comment and discussion as a key component of enjoying news on FB
*very mixed view too on what kind of news should be posted by news organisations on FB (light vs serious). Most accepted that it was probably a good idea for media organisations to ‘put it all out there’ and let people pick and choose for themselves.
Having said that, nobody really believed what they read on Facebook, even if it had mainstream media branding all over it. If they wanted to know about a particular story, they would go directly to a mainstream media website either first, or via FB
Bebo kids will value privacy when they see adults do too | Comment is free | The Guardian October 31, 2008
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentCory Doctorow says parents of the YouTube generation have not learned an important lesson:
"When we tell kids to safeguard their privacy from everyone except governments, merchants, advertisers, entertainment giants, schools, Transport for London and parents, we tell them that we're not really serious about this stuff. Worse, when we allow our own private information to be taken by all these parties, we tell them that privacy is the cheapest coin of all. When BT secretly installs spyware in our browsers and captures all our clicks in order to serve ads to us, our lack of outrage tells our kids everything they need to know about the value of privacy."
Technology Review: Blogs: Jason Pontin's blog: Authenticity in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility October 9, 2008
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentThe Editor-in-Chief of Technology Review ponders his professional persona as presented through his use of social media (introducing two contributions on this theme):
"Social-media Jason Pontin, in short, is a function of my business life. I know that this identity is inauthentic, because there is so much about which I do not post or blog. Do other habitual users of social media, whose social identities are as carefully constructed to attract attention, but who blog and post about everything (and thus feel no alienation), not know that those identities are inauthentic?"