by Carolyn Downs
Citation
Downs, C (2011)‘Playing in a Virtual Bedroom: youth leisure in the Facebook generation’ pp 15-31 in Children, Youth and Leisure, Editors Ruth Jeanes and Jonathan Magee (LSA No 113) ISBN 978 1 905369 24 9
This paper will take the idea of physical personal space in which identity can be explored, leisure activities... more
This paper will take the idea of physical personal space in which identity can be explored, leisure activities undertaken and a friendship network maintained and apply it to the new virtual worlds inhabited and personalized as ‘virtual bedrooms’ (Lincoln and Hodkinson, 2008). These worlds offer unlimited opportunities to develop leisure interests, engage in communication and image projection, to access content (games, role play, video etc) that is unmediated by adults in an environment where risk-consciousness may be reduced. Exploring this privatized virtual world where young people ‘type themselves into being’ (Sunden, 2003) and create carefully managed and sometimes serial or multiple personas as they self-socialize (Arnett, 1995) away from adult family members offers new information on the continuing evolution of youth leisure, what constitutes risky activity online and the development of youth cultures in the twenty-first century.
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