Review: Instant Identity by Shayla Thiel Stern

         

          So, in order to continue my own individual exploration of the fields of literacy and girls studies, I decided to read yet another book in this field. I chose Instant Identity: Adolescent Girls and the World of Instant Messaging by Shayla Thiel Stern. In this particular book, Stern looks at the Instant Messaging that several girls of different races, socio-economic classes, and religions partake in. Throughout the book, Stern highlights how these young ladies construct their identities through these online interactions with their friends. For example, one of the participants in the case study can have a deep and introspective conversation about Christianity with one of her church camp friends but then also have a flirty and playful chat with a guy that she likes. Stern also explores how services like AOL Instant Messenger exploit these young women in order to promote their own business.

            Unfortunately, this book has several flaws. First of all, Stern has very limited interactions with them, so she is heavily relying on the self-perceptions of the subjects instead of her own developed perception of them. Secondly, Stern barely acknowledges any other way of instant messaging. She does mention texting but drops it quickly because it is still novel at the time. Because of this lack, Stern’s book feels extremely dated even though it is only 8 years old. Finally, because Stern focuses on so many girls in this study, these girls do not have much characterization. I spent so much time while reading this book flipping back and forth to the introduction of these girls, so I can make sure that I knew who was who.

            Although this book doesn’t focus as much on literacy as I thought it would, I can still see it being beneficial to my own research. After all, this research shows how young girls and their literacies can be impacted by online pressure. If you don’t know the hip IM slang, you are noted by others as being inexperienced. I would love to see Stern do a more focused and updated version of this research, but instead of focusing on IM, she should focus on texting and emoji language. After all, more young women and girls do texting than IMing these days anyway.

Work Cited

Stern, Shayla Thiel. Instant Identity: Adolescent Girls and the World of Instant Messaging. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. Print.