Youth, identies and the internet

Young people can be recognized as social subjects who are constantly constructing their individual and group identities. At the same time, they build their social status, groups of reference and their possible and imagined futures.

According to their networks, communities, world interpretations and social, economic and cultural resources, young people create their groupings and participate in different activities. In this way, young people construct their notions of private and public, and understand the relation with politics and social praxis.

The world is facing a globalising process; in which the circulation of material and symbolic goods is one of the main characteristics. Young people in different parts of the world are the principal recipients of the distribution of these goods.

In contemporary society, this is a key aspect in analysing the transformations of youth identities of developed and developing countries. Although world populations do not have the same opportunities and resources, transformations produced by the distribution of goods are visible in many parts of the world.

Transformation

For example, Mexican Mayas who live in the southeast Mexican rain forest have access to satellite TV. Many of them know the TV programme friends, and are big consumers of Coke. A cultural globalizing process which started decades, if not centuries ago, is changing the world.

The use of technology creates global ways of interaction and communication which introduce young people into new ways of socialization that are different from local ways of socialization found in school, work and family, among others.

Technology allows young people to access to transnational consumer communities, identities and groupings. Therefore, much of youth symbols connected to identities construction have their origin in the market and are connected to a number of brands and products. Nevertheless, these symbols vary depending on the segment of the social pyramid we are referring to.

For example, in Mexico, youth of middle and high class value symbols connected to brand clothes such as Abercrombie and Fitch, Hollister or Aéropostale, among others; or products such as iPODS, expensive mobiles, and sunglasses. Young people from lower classes value some other products that might be not related to the status that an expensive t-shirt bought in United States confers to its user according to the values of their group identities.


Consumption

Youth identities are dealing with a restructuration that follows the consumption of a number of global products. These products become identifications that might create a sense of belonging that goes beyond local limits such as family, neighborhoods, schools, university, towns and cities. Remoteness and closeness are determined by the access to new communication technologies such as the internet, which allows instant communication between people from different and distant parts of the world.

A number of groups emerge continuously in a virtual space where taste, fashion, music, language, hobbies and interests, among others, are the new axes of virtual communities in which many young people are very active members. Youths construct their identities using these elements as some of the main characteristics that portray their belongingness to a group. This is how youths recognize themselves and differentiate themselves from others, reinforcing their identities.

Those who portray similar identities get closer, and those who are different are excluded. Therefore, youth groupings are created on the basis of sameness and differentiation.

Offline and Online

The phenomenon explained above exists in online and offline groupings; it is a common process in social dynamics of grouping. Nevertheless, this process obeys to a number of factors that need to be addressed, in order to understand the process of differentiation and grouping. Economic, social and cultural conditions of individuals define a large part of their available identity construction resources.

Therefore, depending on a defined set of conditions they build up their identities and groupings in online and offline worlds.

It is impossible to separate de analysis of youth identities and groupings in contemporary society, from the global condition the worlds is facing now, and the economic, cultural and social backgrounds of the subjects of study.