We’ve all heard from our older siblings, cousins, and even parents about the golden age of the internet from roughly the late ’90s to the mid 2000s. Back then, online chat spaces meant you could talk to friends, join communities, and above all, make a space customized for yourself that was an extension of you.Â
For young adults, and teen girls especially, the internet was a place where they could explore niche interests and express their awkward middle and high school phases without facing extreme backlash or hate. You could flourish without fearing repercussions or judgment from your peers or the online realm.Â
However, with the rise of social media apps that dominate the online social sphere today, it’s becoming harder and harder for teens to find their own spaces separate from those of adults. The increasing beauty and societal expectations placed on teens (especially young women) are exhausting, with current online spaces exacerbating these pressures.Â
What Are Digital Third Spaces?Â
A digital third space is similar to that of a physical space, in that it’s a place that differs from your home (first place) and school or workplace (second place). It’s a place for like-minded individuals to connect and socialize, similar to a gym, library, or cafe.
In terms of the internet, digital third spaces allowed users to post, socialize, and create, either anonymously or with friends. Popular online platforms included MySpace, AOL, and other forums. Users chose to belong to specific groups or explore interests without feeling external pressure, and were able to move fluidly and engage with the content they chose.Â
Additionally, more individuals utilized the idea of blogging by sharing their life experiences with full transparency and not thinking about views or likes.Â
The internet also had voluntary spaces for various groups and was a much more personalized experience than in today’s modern social media age.Â
That’s not to say that there were no digital concerns such as phishing, scamming, or even trafficking; however, action was typically taken to prevent this. According to Britannica, “In 2006 the company [MySpace] began detecting and deleting profiles of registered sex offenders and partnered with Sentinel Tech Holdings Corp. to develop the first national database of convicted sex offenders.” The action taken by MySpace’s founders demonstrates care and integrity, two characteristics that mainstream social media’s founders lack. Â
Monetization Of The InternetÂ
With Facebook’s founding in 2004, just one year after MySpace, it quickly became an online competitor, and Facebook users surpassed those of MySpace only a few years later. Facebook was new and exciting, requiring users to log in with their .edu accounts, and it began to blur the line between real life and online presence. Social networking took off to new heights, especially with the launch of Instagram in 2010.Â
According to The Daily Star, “about 25 percent of all pages sampled are no longer accessible as of late 2023” (findings from a Pew Research Study). This decline of webpages can be attributed to the monetization and monopolization of social media. With Facebook acquiring Instagram in 2012 and ultimately becoming Meta, the internet became a business rather than a service, and its use as a digital third space was quickly dwindling.Â
As a result, trends and norms exploded while individuality and exploration plummeted. Over this time period of about 10 years, bloggers stopped writing, photos became more and more edited, and algorithms got smarter.Â
Now, you’re no longer in control of your social media experience, as the algorithm determines it for you and there’s usually little space for change. As a result, the big tech companies can keep audiences hooked for longer, but users are not immersed in a community. If anything, algorithms separate and narrow users’ views, driving animosity and division. They show users solely what they believe they want to be shown, leading to individuals developing stronger biases and polarized opinions.Â
Just like how small businesses are bought out by larger ones, the monopolization of the internet has ruined a lot of what it was originally designed for: connectivity and community.Â
Impact On TeensÂ
The demographic most affected by the monetization of social media platforms is young adults and teens. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, nearly half of adolescents report feeling worse after prolonged social media use. Social media platforms are no longer a third space for teens, but rather a place of comparison, driving up isolation and depression.
According to ScienceDirect, “social interaction involves a group, not just an individual, and the average adolescent in 2018 had fewer opportunities to socialize in person and more opportunities to socialize online than the average adolescent in 2000 due to the shift in social norms.” The study goes on to note that girls feel lonely more often than boys, emphasizing the importance of digital third spaces where girls can explore and express themselves freely. Instead, girls are now not only dealing with pressures from authority figures and community members, but also from a curated set of expectations set on them by social media.Â
The erasure of digital third spaces has caused an indirect line of harm to adolescents in the digital age, and many women who have noticed these effects are attempting to bring back the nostalgia of earlier social media platforms through the reinvigoration of blogs, creating small digital tools, or scrapbooking.Â
The importance of digital third spaces is omnipresent, and now it’s just a matter of reclaiming it!
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