Hyperlinked Avatars: Negotiating Identities and Social Relations within Social Networking Sites

Abstract

Social networking sites (SNS) have been with us for some years. Their rapid evolution and pervasiveness in everyday practices are bringing about various social ramifications and impacts, especially for young people. Young people are seen as playing an important role in the development of knowledge societies as they are, generally speaking, early adopters, being the first generation to use, appropriate and share knowledge on new information and communication technologies (ICTs) (Rogers, 1995). This view owes much to the notions of digital natives (Prensky, 2001) and new millennium learners (OECD, 2008), which refer to the immersion and intensity of usage of ICTs (which include, above all, Internet and other multimedia digital technologies) by young people in their everyday practices. Even though these notions have been contested, it is fair to say that people living in networked societies have been brought up in a digital culture, where the Internet has been present along with other media, throughout their upbringing (Castells, 2000). Recent sociotechnological advances, also referred to as web 2.0 are composed of languages, applications and technologies that have lowered accessibility levels and increased usability and the ease with which content can be produced and data, knowledge and resources shared with peers (O'Reilly, 2005). Tagging, social bookmarking, microblogging and peer-to-peer networks are some of the major axles of this web2.0 shift, in which SNS constitute one of its most visible aspects.