Danah Boyd- What we need to know about Social Networking
Dana Boyd is an academic, researcher, and blogger. She is well-known for her research and surveys involving the interactions and use of social networking sites. She digs deep into the virtual world today and provides our world with accurate information on what is going on. Many of us do not know what goes on in a virtual world which is why she has studied different aspects of social networking.
Boyd started out studied computer science at Brown University when she wrote a thesis paper on how “3-D computer systems used cues that were inherently sexist.” After being intrigued by the information she unfolded she pursued her Masters Degree in Sociable Media at MIT Media Lab. In 1999, she worked the New York Based V-Day, first as a volunteer and then as paid staff. She eventually moved to San Francisco, California, where she became associated with individuals involved in creating the new Friendster service. She documented what she was observing via her blog, and this grew into a career.
She advanced to a Ph.D with a background in new media, graduating from UC Berkley Information, in 2006. Her thesis was titled “Taken Out Of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics”, and focused on the use of sites such as Facebook and MySpace by U.S. teenagers. Boyd is also co-director of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, a group of Internet businesses companies organized at Harvard University as a non-profit group. She is also involved in a collaborative project examining youths’ use of technologies through interviews, focus groups, observations, and document analysis. Her research in an article “MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Learning, Identity Volume” called Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites:The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life. This article analyzes and discusses many of the issues that youth are facing today in the online networked publics that have become a major part of their social lives. The article focuses on social networks as an outlet for youth identity. Her research on this article was roughly two years. In addition to blogging on her own site, she addresses issues of youth and technology use on the DMLcentral blog. Dana Boyd has had a large impact acknowledging youth on the pro’s and con’s of virtual worlds.
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