Network Publics and a Response to Danah Boyd's Article

For many teens, social networking is a must in order to keep in touch with friends and be able to stay in the social loop.  I find it interesting in the article that it is stated that "Although the luster has since faded and teens are not nearly as infatuated with these sites as they once were, they continue to be an important part of teen social life"(page 1).  I actually believe that these sites are more popular than ever.  Majority of students with access to the internet, have social network sites and I believe it might be rather a normality of daily life which creates this view that the interest is not as high.  It is not a new thing in other words, and because so many people are involved in it, it is not as abnormal and fascinating to explore anymore.

The social networks explored in the article are Myspace, Friendster, Xanga, and Facebook.  All of these sites allow teens to have accessibility to others connected to such networks as themselves.  They are allowed to delve deep into the lives of their peers and search them.
The idea of Network Public was brought up in Boyd's article, and the meaning of this is "a collection of people who may not all know each other but share 'a common understanding of the world, a shared identity, a claim to inclusiveness, a consensus regarding the collective interest.'"

Below are different properties that separate unmediated publics from networked publics,
Persistence: This is the fact that information posted online can be replicated, copied, or reproduced. Enabling communication, but also extending the period of existence of any speech created
Searchability: We may not be able to find one another in a town or state, but by a couple of clicks on a keyboard, a person can be found within seconds. Words or things they may have said can be found just as easily
Replicability: This is similar to Sweeney's article about cloning. Anything in the networks public can be replicated/repeated or copied. It can be made over and over or be used again and again by different individuals
Invisible audiences: This can cover parents, community, administrators, anyone who has access to the internet. It is virtually impossible to know all of those who come across our path online. 

I have been taught throughout my life what is appropriate to put online and what is not.  However, certain sites do not give the option.  Many students have changed their privacy settings so that they are not searchable on search engines such as Google, however on these sites, they are susceptible to searchablility from their peers, who have access to view their network.  I believe that many of these teens do not understand the concept of virtual privacy and many of them find out the hard way through internet bullying.

There is actually an instance that came up in my fieldwork, where a student was threatened via a social network.  These are very serious matters, and as a teacher, is something very important and fragile that we need to pay much attention to.  I feel that it is important to not only teach students the importance of privacy and information that they may reveal on these networks, but also see it as a harmful tool that may increase issues in every day life.
In our fieldwork, Melinda and I are working with the concept of bullying and using websites such as postsecret.com and thebullyproject.com that will help students to see what these ways of networking, although at times very exciting, can also have a dark side.