Digital Youth Culture and Social Networking in United States
Digital Youth Culture and Social Networking
Overview of Digital Youth Culture and Social Networking in relation to cyber crime: [1] The emergence of digital mediums has resulted in the creation of Web forums intended for teenagers that adults would not normally be involved in. These take the form of instant messaging clients, chat rooms, community message boards or forums, and blog style social networking sites. Often participating youth are able to exclude or include people of their choosing in these forums. Privacy controls are an essential part of identifying who can and cannot visit a personal Web page or contact youth via a messenger service. Privacy controls often allow users to minimize or layer information they reveal about themselves online (i.e., their ”appearance” or ”digital footprint”). However, these controls are only as effective as the settings that the user knows about and chooses to enable, along with the type and amount of information that is shared with others online. Given potential flaws in computer coding, discovery of exploits have also been found in the privacy settings of software, such as those used by social networking firms like MySpace and Facebook. When this happens, personal information posted by millions of youth participants can become known despite their efforts to keep certain information from becoming publicly known.
Resources
Notes and References
- By Neel Sampat and Samuel C. McQuade, III
See Also
- Types of Cybercrime
- Cybercriminal
Further Reading
Boyd, D. (2007). Why youth (heart) social network sites: The role of networked publics in teenage social life. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Learning—Youth, Identity, and DigitalMedia Volume, edited by David Buckingham. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; Hine, T. (2000). The rise and fall of the American teenager. Reprint edition. New York: Harper Perennial; Kirkpatrick, M. (2008, March 24). Facebook security lapse leaves private photos exposed, even Paris and Zuck’s. Retrieved from ReadWriteWeb Web site: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook _security_lapse_private_photos.php; Michels, S. (2007, December 3). No charges in MySpace suicide. Retrieved from ABC News Web site: http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/ story?id=3946124; Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5). MCB University Press; Stern, A. (2007, November 8). MySpace hacked using simple HTML exploit—Alicia Keys and others targeted. Retrieved from Center Networks Web site: http://www.centernetworks.com/myspace-hacked.