Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Teens have always gone where identity isn't

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

Statements that describe an entire demographic - 'teens', say - are always dubious and subject to counterexamples, but beyond the hyperbole is a point worth taking home in this text: "Teens eschew Facebook and Twitter for Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat and other apps not because they're a new, different generation, but because they don't yet have much of an identity to boast of." Such spaces allow them to try on new identities, and to be someone they aren't. I remember saying much the same thing about MUD participation in the 1990s and can recall people saying it of online bulletin boards in later years.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Nov 23, 2024 04:42 a.m.

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