Despite what we see in news headlines, there is no single term that people who share nude photos use, according to Australian researcher and author Nina Funnell, who has interviewed some 4 dozen 16-to-25-year-olds about it. Especially not "sexting," she said in a talk I got to hear in Sydney this spring (their fall). Using the term tends to alienate young people, she said. And there are many more … [Read more...] about ‘Noodz,’ ‘selfies,’ ‘sexts,’ etc., Part 1: A spectrum of motivations
Kids, Instagram & its new feature ‘Photos of You’
Instagram is nothing if not creative – the app itself and its users. When I'm in it watching how the kids who encouraged me to follow them use it, I can't help but smile. They are creative in/with all parts of the experience – the photos, the filters for messing around with photography, the emoticons, the hashtags, and the writing of captions and comments – but in a fun, light way. It's not all … [Read more...] about Kids, Instagram & its new feature ‘Photos of You’
Ask.fm: Correction from UK hotline
Last week I focused on the widely reported story about the Q&A-format social site Ask.fm in a post about the whack-a-mole tendency that surfaces whenever social cruelty shows up in Web sites young people use. My position on that hasn't changed, but I do want to publish this correction about one point: In that post, I quoted a statement by a reporter at the UK-based Daily Mail that turns out to … [Read more...] about Ask.fm: Correction from UK hotline
Stickers, emoji & other social-media conversation add-ons
You may've noticed this too: Online and on-phone conversations have gotten very mixed-media – very artful, in a sense. Have you noticed that our children are among the most creative mixed-media conversationalists now? It's delightful to see the fun they have with this. Take stickers, for example. Because they're now part of Version 3 of the Path app, as I mentioned in my last post, and Path's … [Read more...] about Stickers, emoji & other social-media conversation add-ons
App ambition: Fun media-sharing for small social circles, planet-wide
Path, the mixed-media app for more intimate phone-based social networking, really illustrates how very borderless but cultural social media is. Growing by about 1 million users a month and now one of the Top 20 apps for Android phones, according to the Wall Street Journal, this app that limits your social network to 150 friends started growing fast in Asia first, its CEO David Morin told the … [Read more...] about App ambition: Fun media-sharing for small social circles, planet-wide