TTYL - Teens build relationships, find temporal freedom via TXT MSGS

"Dad! No body emails anymore!!"

This is a direct quote from two daughters (spoken in stereo) exasperatedly exclaimed to a friend of mine recently. This caused me to conduct an informal survey of teens and pre-teens about their texting habits and social network usage.

Overwhelmingly texting as communication was the most popular for several reasons: ubiquity ("it's on my phone which I always have with me"), functional privacy ("this way mom/dad can't hear what I'm saying") and perceived privacy ("a boyfriend and girlfriend sent each other photos of themselves which was OK, until their parents found out then they got in trouble").

A mere 20 years ago, the modes of discourse for teens were the telephone, in person speech or more metaphorically and abstractly, the mix-tape. Now it's the cell phone and texting or instant messaging within a social networking platform like Twitter, Facebook or Myspace. The mix-tape has been replaced by the CD or viral video. Although it seems unlikely, teens still communicate face to face, but these situations are frequently punctuated by back-channel chat and commentary "stuff you just couldn't say aloud" i.e.: when a voice call is impractical, impossible or unacceptable.

It is ironic that fearful, helicopter parents seeking control over their children's whereabouts purchased these phones for tracking purposes only to discover that the devices are being used by their children to engage in private, un-moderated conversation.

Confiscating the mobile phone is one of the more popular forms of punishment for the behavioral infractions of misbehaving youth. Over 60 percent of parents admitted to doing this and 64 percent of those same parents admitted that they viewed the content of their kid's phone according to a study by The Pew Internet and American Life project.

But what is it about texting? Why is it such a preferred mode and what has made it so commonplace? Is it the immediacy, the speed that mimics a face to face conversation? Does the text message encourage a sense of intimacy which in turn creates a feeling of limerence?

Ah limerence! A feeling that teens (girls especially) are familiar with. Limerent bonds manifest as intense feelings of attachment and preoccupation with the object of affection. Intrusive thoughts invade, cognitive obsession grows. Teens of both genders have reported that texting and participating in virtual social networks have an addictive quality. The need to remain connected is strong and "reachability" is highly valued. They report feeling a need to "keep up" with what was happening currently. They felt lost not knowing what people were doing or where they were while participating in a voluntary break from Facebook for a 24 hour period.

StudentSpeak Webisode 2 from Spotlight on Vimeo.

Texting also allows teens to multi-task. "It's a lot easier to be doing my homework or watching TV while I am texting." Texting also allows them to carry on multiple conversations, "I'll probably be texting five or so of my friends over the course of an evening." These interactions can range from homework questions, quick social check-ins "hi!" and complaints "my sister's being a B*tch". They have their own acronyms idk, gtg and lingo. Teens carry out conversations with one another without being expected to reply within a short amount of time, as in a mobile phone conversation where reception can be shoddy. Texting offers a flexibility and freedom from temporal constraint.

Teens communicate in this way all day long, even falling asleep in the virtual company of their correspondents -- effectively texting themselves to sleep. But the sound of a voice is just as important as one 17 year old boy told me, "I'll text a girl, but if I'm interested (in her) I'll also call her and talk on the phone too." Thus reinforcing a bond, with every call or 1 txt @ a time.

Open Source – The End of Scarcity means More

IBM has estimated that the amount of digital information will double every 11 hours in 2010.

That’s an abundance of unlimited content, access, and information. Something barely imaginable. It is frightening and exciting at the same time. It is a huge paradigm shift for a culture used to a previous world driven by scarcity, preciousness and exclusivity.

The potential here is best understood in the context of education.

At Itunes U any number of amazing and free lectures from places like MIT, the Sorbonne, Cambridge and UNC Chapel Hill can be downloaded.

It’s a remix of the traditional idea of education: get some experts, people eager to learn and start a discussion. Where it takes place is less relevant, though to draw students the content must be strong and the sense of Bakhtinian sobornost – “togetherness” or “true sense of community” must still exist.

More control and choice for learners creates a P2P environment where students are both learners and teachers as well as creators and consumers. Knowledge flows freely rather than being stockpiled.

A unique example of this is happening at Purdue University. They have designed an app called Hotseat. It functions like Twitter for the lecture hall and in fact was developed with the idea that students were already texting anyway -- why not create a faculty endorsed distraction to focus that back channel discussion? With this app, students are commenting on the commentary and asking questions. Student to student sharing has been embraced by Purdue rather than seeing it as a threat for it’s potential to encourage cheating and non independent learning. In this way, redundant academic work becomes more vibrant and open. Hotseat is remediative - a new way of showing an old media form. Ie; the "class discussion" experience.