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The experts who took part in the seminar conceded that there are a number of dangers inherent in communication portals, but that they should not scare users off or overshadow the positive aspects of such communication. One of these is the way that future leaders understand borders and ways of working together, which could breathe new life into cross-border cooperation. Siibak, who has previously studied the Internet-based communication of kids and young adults from Latvia and Lithuania, is part of a research group at Södertörn College simultaneously looking into practices in the construction of gender identity among Estonians and Swedes aged between 10 and 14. The project, which will last for three years, was launched in early 2009. The Estonian office of the Nordic Council of Ministers supported the organisation of the "Social media for adults" seminar. |
Online communication between young people represents an opportunity to overcome border obstacles
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Finding kids and young adults who don’t use Internet-based social media like Facebook, Twitter, Skype, MSN and blogs would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. And in the years ahead they will be scientists, political leaders and entrepreneurs with a new understanding of communication and borders. Young people’s behaviour on Internet-based communication portals was the subject of the Finnish Institute seminar "Social media for adults" held on Tuesday 29 September at the University of Tartu by Andra Siibak, a researcher from the Institute of Journalism and Communication, who recently completed and defended her doctoral thesis. Siibak says that young people seek to show themselves in the most positive light and come across as agreeable to others, and that though restless they are also very ambitious. At the same time, they have to take the rules and regulations of communications portals into account, without always realising that everything that is done on the Internet is public – everyone else can see it and follow it. Siibak says that it is not these rules and restrictions that tend to get in the way of communication, but the mediocre English skills of kids aged between 9 and 13. |