Digital Young

My interest in this subject was to point out the various forms of socialization for young people and their ways of appropriation of social space. A first classification can be made in function of frequented spaces: indoor and outdoor socialization. There is a strong identification with Bucharest urban space, specially for those teens born in Bucharest. Spare time is also organized in function of daily activities. Mainly, in Bucharest, socialization places frequented by young people depend on time, moment and activities.

Peer group…	With colleagues…
Indoor …

Ex: during the week, as they have classes, socialization is expressed through time spent with friends either it is realized indoor or outdoor. In the morning or in the daytime, socialization if for making activities with peer group (pubs, cafes around high schools or colleges).

Here, I saw a gender differentiation: girls usually have the habit to socialize in groups of two, as they are interested to spend time with their best friend. Activities that have to be the same and interest are made concrete by going everywhere together (shopping centers, libraries, little clothing shops, cafes). For boys, this time is used differently; the socialization logics is different than the girls’ one. They socialize in big and various groups: school group, football group, clubbing groups.

Girls …	Girls …
and Boys ….	Skaters
Break dancers

Sometimes, these groups are constituted from different people, sometimes they converge (meaning that friends from a group can take part to constituting another type of group). This variety of socializing groups is for boys very effective, in the way that they function as more diversified and relaxed social relationships. Girls have more chances to be disappointed, because they invest emotionally in one person (the best girl friend) and here, dramas are more frequent and more powerful in terms of impact. Therefore boys spend time with friends that they make in different activities (sports, computers, games).

Evening time is differently allocated. For girls, it’s time to spend with peer group (their friends). Also, in the evening, time is used for communicating with boyfriend / girlfriend and meeting with him / her. In the case of teenagers, boys wait for their girlfriends when they finish classes and after that, the boy accompanies her on the way home. They may have the same route or not. If they have money, the boy takes out the girl (to have a drink or to eat something); but this is valid just for teenagers with a good financial status. In the other cases, teen boys just spend time with their girlfriend in cheaper ways. If a meeting is not possible (one of them(one of them is not available), they go home and they will communicate through Instant Messenger or by mobile phone.

This scenario is characteristic to teenagers. Being a student, the social status is changed, meaning that they become more independent, they are seen differently by their parents (as acquiring a more serious and adult position). Their life style becomes more and more demanding (going outs, parties, clothes etc). Relationships occupy a big space of their life.

Time and spaces for socialization becomes from outdoor marked (as teenagers) to indoor specifics. In both cases of relationships (friendships or love involvements), they have to meet in a certain place and in a certain moment. The organization of time becomes more important, due to another social dynamics of their life, inscription in work field. Time and space become more compacted and students start working from first year of faculty or second year from two main reasons (they might be more numerous, but we’ve seen only two of them): a more demanding lifestyle and the instability of work market. Urban life in Bucharest becomes more and more expensive, from rent payment to other utilities; pleasures become, them too, more expensive (books, clothes, spare time, socialization going-outs). In this dynamics, they order their time, therefore it becomes labeled: faculty time (who is less and less represented), work time (more and more represented), socializing time.

Students socialize in pubs and cafes that are placed in the surroundings of their faculty or work place. That is valid for week time. In the evening, they try to see their friends, but that becomes very difficult, due to the fact that they spent almost all time at work. Weekends remain the major time possibilities to explore, in order to socialize and see their friends. They can stay in Bucharest and explore the weekend cultural activities (theatre, clubs, concerts, pubs with live concerts as Green Hours, Laptaria lui Enache). Mostly, they gather around University Place and Ancient Centre of Bucharest, where they go for socializing discussions, dancing or listening to music of different genders. Students who are not from Bucharest, go home (once at two weeks) in order to bring food and take some money from their parents.

Their inscription in work field depends on faculty’s profile; if the faculty is too demanding (as the Politehnica University or Medicine University), they can’t work. But these students are under-representative from the number point of view. Most of students get a job, in a part-time system or full-time. Weekends can be used for going-outs of Bucharest, for those students who have a more important financial status (they have a job or their parents give them a substantial monthly allowance). These going-outs depend on the season: seaside in the summer and 1^st of may and in the mountains during winter. Again, they choose the resort in function of their finances. But if they are strongly interested in one activity that can take place in one expensive resort (as Poiana Brasov or Sinaia), they do not care so much about the money.

Still about teens in Buzau. Maybe I bother you talking and talking about these guys, but I was really impressed by these teens. You might say that it is something really normal for teens to express themselves through these art forms: dance, graffiti or manga. But I will tell you that in this case it is not so normal after all. These kids have no source where to see these things or to learn how to do these things besides Internet. They also do not have places to express them. They also don’t have other local crews or groups to socialize with or to learn from. So, my question is: how do they do it? Isn’t this a legitimate question?

From these break dancers, I found out that there are teens for whom break dance is not the only art form for expression. It’s like they are a melting pot of urban art forms. Ionut Alexandru (aka Saga), 16 years, is a break dancer, a graffer, an extreme biker, an illegal car driver and he also does volunteering in a ONG. So…how does he deal with all these?

Graffiti sketches…

Graffiti on walls:

And…

Madalina, 16 years, she’s also a multi-functional-maker urban stylist. She’s more into graphics and manga, but she also does graffiti. Here are some of her works.

Manga:

She’s so incredibly talented, so I really wanted to show you what she does and how she does. Both of them, Ionut & Madalina, are witty, smart, interesting and do so many things that make a part of their everyday life. They identify themselves with every drawing, graffiti, or dance that they do. I liked them a lot, I only hope that this incredible talent do not waste and just transform into different art forms.

Talking about where do teens and youngsters spend their time, when is beautiful, well, they are going in the parks. Another observation of a foreigner was that parks are filled with young people, every hour of the day, like it was holiday time or vacation one.

Three weeks ago, Sunday, there was the Youth Day in Romania. Several things happened during this day and some of them took place in the biggest park in Bucharest, Herastrau. Now, what I would like to talk about in this post is a very paradox attitude at youngsters. Most of the sociological researches (both French and English-American) announce, regarding the relationship between institutions (especially parents) and teens, a big rupture, in the sense that teens do not care anymore about parents, that teens replace in their life parents with peer group.

Well, just allow me a little bit to think about this. If we follow this line, then we might say that teens and youngsters are an anti-culture, that they are against all sorts of institutions like family, school etc. From my observations on the field, I could argue against this radical view. Yes, it is true that peer group starts to play a center role in teen years, but it does not replace family. And just to give you an example: a teen makes a tatoo without parents knowing. In their presence (when eating together or watching tv), he will hide the tatoo, he will put a blouse with longer sleeves. The same way with cell phone. What does this say about teens? That they do not care anymore about parents and family as an institution (with its rules etc)? If it was like this, then they would have reacted totally different: they would have shown their tatoo or their cell phone, just to position themselves in a rebel way AGAINST rules. So, by hiding the tatoo or the cell phone, that means they DO CARE about family. It is just that in teen years, the center of gravity changes from family to peer group.

And this is also what I saw in the Herastrau park, in the Youth Day, when Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Internal Affairs came to present their offer to young people, in order to attract them to apply to their academies. So, here we are, we speak about two important institutions, with a big tradition. If teens would not care at all, they would have not come to this manifestation. In exchange, the place was filled with teens. In plus, they liked very much the badges with Ministry of Defense logo. I am sorry if most of researchers look at these aspects – institutions, teens, youngsters, parents, family, school etc – in a radical way, but I think that things are more complex than that and that we really have to think differently when talking about a certain aspect of social life.

(in front of the park)

And, of course, graffiti…

So, I really hope you found this post interesting and intriguing. Or just to put you to think a little bit about how easy we become judgmental and how hard is to stay apart of prejudices.