It's Complicated Chapter 1

Reading the first chapter of Danah Boyd's It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, was a little difficult for me to understand to be honest. However, there were somethings I understood like how kids created fictional names for their accounts online to make or find an identity of themselves. I didn't understand why they would hide themselves away from their friends and families if they weren't comfortable with them commenting or sharing their opinions on their accounts. There are teens who want to fit in with the crowd and try to show that off to the public online or they don't want to be isolated from those around them because they don't fit in the click. Others would create and identity to catch up with what was going on in the world and what new items were coming out at the time. Danah explains how she has seen kids follow posts that they thought were good to follow without thinking who can see them follow that post or how people might react to what they followed.

When I first started out on social media, I was not sure how anything worked or what was most popular with other kids at the time. As I grew to understand how things worked, I never once thought about how my family would see what I wrote in my posts or how I communicated with others because there was nothing to hide. Now I understand what this reading was about when it talked about how teens would hide themselves away in their fictional profiles or limit what they do on their profiles to keep their family from embarrassing them or reading the conversations they have with other people. I am not one to be very public with my account, I like to keep to myself or to my family and friends that I am close to. Reading this chapter, I found that their are kids who would block or limit what is shared to people on their pages because they don't want to be embarrassed by that one friend or family member that can not take a hint on how they don't need to comment on your posts. I found this strange because why would you share something you don't want anyone to see to the world on your post? If you don't want a family member or friend to comment on your post, then why would you share or say it?

Being parents with kids who are on their electronics can be hard because their kids are sharing and communicating with others online, but are spending less and less time with their families. My family had to find different activities to keep off the electronics and I thank them for that because if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be very social with those around me and then that would be very awkward because you wouldn't know how to communicate with others face-to-face because of how much time you spend on the internet (social media).