Back in December, Curt Bonk posted the following about blogging and identity:
Identity. We all need it or we would be checking out on life. It is what life is. Now a blog can also help stretch your community beyond one letter to a friend to an entire community of millions (or billions) of potential readers. At the same time, it maintains some of the passion and emotion of a letter and is not distilled down or emptied of one’s true self for a publisher to feel safe about. You really get a sense of a person or a story that he or she is sharing. It is about story telling and having those stories remain available for others.
I agree completely. I think one of the reasons we see kids embracing web 2.0 technologies and social networking tools like MySpace so enthusiastically is that these tools can support their own personal quests for identity. What are the teenage years if not a quest for identity? Who am I, who are you, and what do I want to do with my life? What do I value, and why do I value those things? These are essential questions for every human being to ask, and the safe use of blogging tools by students can play a powerfully constructive role in that process.
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On this day..
- Pocket Share Jesus (May 2017) – 2017
- Basic Online Video Editing with YouTube – 2012
- eBook Won’t Open in iBooks (Closing & ReOpening an iPad App) – 2012
- FaceTime from the Michigan Avenue Apple Store – 2011
- Using the iReporter Theme on iMovie for iPad – 2011
- Window Washer on a Chicago Skyscraper – 2011
- iPad2 Mobile Interview with iRig Microphone – 2011
- Embedding “non-iframe” versions of Screenr Screencasts on WordPress – 2011
- Best News Apps for the iPad – 2010
- Hobo Signs, Symbols, and Parodied History – 2009
Comments
2 responses to “Blogging and the quest for identity”
[…] news Wesley Fryer notes the relationship between Web 2.0 social software such as Blogging and a child’s developing sense of identity. “What are the teenage years if not a quest for identity? Who am I, who are you, and what do I want to do with my life? What do I value, and why do I value those things? These are essential questions for every human being to ask, and the safe use of blogging tools by students can play a powerfully constructive role in that process,” he says. […]
Thanks for linking to my blog. You have given me a bit of identity. Smile. We all need a sense of purpose. A feeling of belongness to something–a professional organization, a conference, a field of study, a boy scout or girl scout group, a church, a poetry reading society, a bicycle club, a newsgroup online, etc. We contribute and take from the community. We revel in successes of our community members. Have logos, mottos, purposes, goals, and so on. We have a shared history and set of stories that are common to members. Our blogs provide the stories for others to read and respond to (Web 2.0) and from that we gain a sense of identity of who we are. We all need such.