In today’s National Post by Siri Agrell, there is an article about how students and youth are willing to document aspects of their life through blogs, pictures, and video online. They are described as a web-friendly generation and don’t feel they are being exploited or taken advantage of. The article also address some of the negative implications of these actions.

Mechthild Maczewski, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Victoria, said this sort of digital experimentation by young people can be as healthy as it is hazardous.

“When you talk to them about it, the first thing that comes up is that it’s fun,” said Ms. Maczewski, who is studying the benefits of Internet connectedness. “They love writing, they love expressing themselves in a creative way.”

The Internet, she says, functions as a 21st-century Room of One’s Own, the mythical place Virginia Woolf longed for where she could work and explore her own identity.

“They feel like it’s a space of their own, where they can do and say what they like,” she said. “I think you can gain validation through expressing yourself. You can find people who appreciate and understand you for what you do.”

Relevance: I live online myself. I am studying the internet for my thesis (tagging spaces such as del.icio.us), I blog, I post pictures of myself on flickr, and I am in facebook. I enjoy sharing aspects of my life with others and I am interested in ethnographic studies that explore who these people are within this digital culture and the rational behind creating online personas. Is this just another form of creative expression?

This article ties into another article on this digital generation entitled The MySpace Generation from BusinessWeek magazine that discusses how teens and youth are living online via social networks like MySpace and Facebook.

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