Success In Privacy

I have come to realize that many young women in today’s world enjoy IM-ing and feel that it gives them the privacy that talking face to face and over the phones do not.  Thiel mentions on page 51 that this idea that the internet provides a safe place for self-expression and disclosure has been explored in past literature on adolescents and new media by examining the web pages that they publish and the topics they explore on those pages and the online forums on which they participate and both share and gain personal information.  I definitely agree with this idea because you can express how you feel through writing a friend on IM and not having to worry about someone overhearing you.  This gives you the freedom to really tell someone how you feel in the privacy of your own room.  The very act of IM is silent consisting only of a single adolescent typing on a keyboard, so no one can overhear the conversation.  The IM window can be easily and quickly closed if someone intrudes into the physical space.  It is possible to keep a “log” of messages with some IM programs, but this may seem like a serious breach of privacy, especially for parents of older teens who value that privacy above all else (I.I. p.52).  I know I would have loved to have been able to IM friends as a teenager.  Because it is true that the extra privacy cushion is a big turn on.  Some things I would have never told friends over the phone just because I wouldn’t want to run into the possibility of someone overhearing me.  Thiel also mentions that just because the IM privacy settings are available many parents don’t have the technical expertise to figure out how to save the IM logs.  The IM also allows males and females to start relationships that they may never do in public.  A study concurs: 37 percent of the adolescent IM users say they have said something online that they would not have said in person (I.I. p.54).

The situated identity is in fact the characteristic way “coordinating or getting coordinated by other people, things, tools, technologies, symbol systems, places, and times” – at least with regard to the characteristic way someone presents themselves in interviews and all of their other conversations submitted for something (I.I. p.63).  In other words tracking shifting identities from one to another.  I believe that this is true for many people, especially young adolescent females trying to find themselves in today’s world.  They may act one way with a group of people and the complete opposite with another group.  Being able to IM conversations like the young woman Sunny did on page 62 of Instant Identity shows you that the “privacy” that this messaging gives you is a positive thing because someone may find out that they are a different and more positive person with the guidance of someone that they may have never gotten in contact with in a normal setting.

Do you/will you allow your children access to private messaging or will you “log” their messaging?