Thursday, October 19, 2006

Myspace... their space... our space?

I've been musing over the whole myspace thing lately. Now that I'm not the only "crusty" old person with a myspace (Dave and Simo are both out there too!) I'm feeling a little less awkward but it is still a strange kind of a place and certainly a place for the young. On doing a local area search for people when bored the other night there were 17 pages of ppl aged 18-35 but only 7 pages of those aged 25-35. Far more young peopel than oldies. Is it actually THEIR SPACE?

I feel that my blog is probably my myspace really as it's the thing I really keep up to date and where I do a lot of my external thinking and musing. I have spent time tweaking it and making it prettier and have got my flickr link and all that but... BUT the young people are not really in to the blogosphere thing and they ARE into myspace.

(There was a great video presentation on a blog somewhere and I can't find it so imagine a link here! There was also some discussion about the myspace generation here)

Going along the whole lines of the "meeting them where they are thing" (and as usual playing catch-up with youth culture) I've had some ponderings and some ethical questions...

How much should we be out there with them?

Do we add them or wait for them to add us?

This is their space for free expression...
Do we comment on anything we think is ill-advised or inappropriate?


Should we leave myspace as their space or try to make it our space too?




2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Something to think on is the cold fact that without a genuine relationship, in the world of the electronic friendship - it is awfully easy to just tune someone out by blocking them.

So how much can you say about ill-advised or inappropros without losing touch?

If you do consider plunging headlong into this isn't the only way to make a difference is to lead by examle?

From someone to whom 'Myspace' is not where I am.space....

Anonymous said...

Why is the question posed with an 'us/them' framework? Why can it not be our space that is inclusive of all?

I have been in myspace for a while but I rarely update. I previously used chatrooms, messenger etc. No one was ever too shy to say they disagreed with me or thought someone else was appropriate, so why should you be? Because you are older?

So long as your different worldview is presented without being like a teacher telling the younger pupil off, then I dont think that many online users will ever find it difficult or tell you to leave their space...and thus it is also your space and their space...Our space.