Digital Young

Wondering what I have been done so far, as a researcher and a cultural anthropologist, that I am entitled to talk about youngsters, urban culture etc, I thought it would be a good point to describe you, shortly, my researches.

I started with a research about the uses, practices and representations of SMS (Short Message Service) in youth culture. This research took me about 4 years, and it had a complex methodology. First, I have to say that I did a comparative field between Bucharest and Brussels. Why, you might say. Well, I wanted to see if the appropriation of SMS is a youth culture thing, therefore it would be expressed in the same way about everywhere. So, as methods, I started with passive observation in those places that youngsters go. For Bucharest, I talk about commercial centers, urban spaces where they gather, meet and explore, urban transportation. For Brussels, I can add restaurants, cause youngsters in Belgium go to restaurant with their parents.

I continued with participative observation. Meaning, concretely, to use my cell phone and send SMS in the places that I mentioned before, just to see reactions. Being in a youngsters group and socializing with them, I was using my cell phone, talk about my SMS with them etc. They also let me transcript the messages they had in their cell phones, even the most intimate ones.

After that, in-depth interviews and domestic observation, in their homes, showed me the full extension of the phenomenon, but also a distinctive difference between public uses of SMS and domestic ones. I continued with a journal where my subjects of research were writing the messages sent and received, the hour and the place where they were, but also describing the relationship with the recipient and the feelings he/she felt in the moment of reception of a message.

All this data gathered, I use it for my PhD thesis. Which, I hope, will defend in spring.