This week Bettina and I interviewed two seniors, simultaneously, for our future podcast. Since we didn’t want our interviews to be too formal, we decided to try out a new format. We sat down two seniors and conducted our interview more casually. By this I mean, Bettina and I responded to interviewee’s responses with comments and follow-up questions. Julianna talked extensively about the flexibility millennials have to edit and think about their texts before we send them. She also mentioned that she primarily uses messenger or text messaging platforms to communicate with people because it’s “now weird to ask people for their numbers, whereas, everyone has Facebook.” David responded to Julianna’s interview by saying editing, erasing, and retyping messages produces a new kind of anxiety for millennials. Julianna added that the ‘read’ receipts give people anxiety and is a statement when the receiver of a text message sees the message but does not respond to it.
Interestingly enough, Julianna felt that she was able to be more expressive and “emotional” through text message. I found that to be really interesting because I find talking to someone over the phone to be more emotional because I am able to hear tone, breath, and the pace of words over the phone. David didn’t feel more particularly more emotional over text or phone; however, he said that he is able to be more casual with strangers on the phone but feels slightly uncomfortable talking to people he is already acquainted with.
Julianna claims that the millennials generation used to incorporate text speak into their verbal language. According to Julianna, text speak (e.g. LOL) has become outdated amongst most millennials, so millennials are increasingly relying on visuals to make up for it. David expressed that while emojis can be used to convey more emotion than words, emojis only make sense when the person receiving the text understands what the emoji means to the person who sent it. I wonder how much of this has to do with cultural capital? I would argue that memes, GIFs, and emojis are all a form of cultural capital that one has to learn how to use. There are always memes and GIFs that are either trendy or outdated. I certainly think this also applies to abbreviated text speech. Depending on your class or the age at which you first owned a cellphone determines how much cultural capital you have on messaging platforms based on your texting language.
Upon completing the interview, Bettina and I realized that we needed to ask more questions specific to millennials. I personally find it difficult to explicitly mention millennials in our interview questions because we are speaking to millennials and they are responding with their experiences. I think it’s a fine line between having the interviewee speak for himself or herself but also having an interviewee who wants to speak on behalf of the millennial generation. After the interview, I thought more about the organization of our podcast. I thought it would be interesting to record several mini podcasts with 2 or more student guests. The other option would be to cut and chop interview responses and organize them by theme so that we have one long podcast in the end.
Moving forward, I would like to think about texting language as a form of cultural capital. Who has access to this texting language? How do millennials gain access to it? And who is left behind or left out as a result of lacking the texting language skills? I would also like to consider the impact texting (text and visuals) has on the identity of millennials. How has texting, or the type of language used when texting influenced the identity of millennials and the perception of themselves?
Michelle,
You are generating some very fascinating data through your interviews. I do not see it a problem that you are not asking specific questions about Millennials, because I’m not entirely sure that, unless your questions conclude the interview, that you would get anything substantive anyway. However, getting stories about the experiences from Millennials about their texting practices are valuable, because you and Bettina will be able to use that data to theorize on the texting practices of Millennials.
The responses from Juliana were incredibly interesting. That she would put as much emotion into texting as she would interacting in person. David expresses something similar; the investment he places in texting arises out of anxieties he has with using other communication forms, including communicating through co-presence. Your interview highlights the importance of backstage work (Goffman) in presenting the ideal front through social media.
Your engagement about language is also interesting; I would agree that cultural capital has something to do with it (although various emoji symbols seem to diffuse pretty quickly through social media, like the eggplant). But we also seem to learn these symbols from somewhere, and given how expansive our social networks are on social media platforms, it seems that social capital also plays an important role.
Your discussion about the format (two mini episodes vs. one longer episode) is an important one. There is something to be said about investigative reporting in one long, continuous series. Then again, two episodes that explore different dynamics of the same topic is also a compelling format. Here, I don’t think you can go wrong either way.
Great work gathered so far. I look forward to learning more about this exciting project.