Abstract

Since 2007–2008, American undergraduates’ media ecology has changed dramatically without an accompanying transformation in how they use media to end relationships. The similarities in people’s breakup practices between 2008 and 2018 reveal that, regardless of what social media is used, American undergraduates turn to media in moments of breakup as ways to manage three complicated aspects of ending a relationship: untangling all the ways in which people signal intertwined lives, deciphering the quotidian unknowable of another person’s mind, and trying to control who knows what when. This paper explores how rapid shifts in media ecologies may change the ways in which conventionalization around social practices emerges, leading to more norms oriented around what all media accomplish, rather than generating norms around the affordances of a specific medium.

摘要

自2007年至2008年以来，美国大学生的媒体生态发生了巨大变化，而他们使用媒体建立关系的方式并未随之发生变化。人们在2008年至2018年间的分手实践上的相似之处表明，无论使用哪种社交媒体，美国大学生在分手的时刻都转向媒体，作为管理结束一段关系的三个复杂方面的方法：弄清人们发出信号的所有方式交织在一起的生活，破译了另一个人心目中无法理解的报价，并试图控制谁知道什么时候知道。本文探讨了媒介生态的快速变化如何改变围绕社会实践的常规化出现的方式，从而导致围绕所有媒介成就的更多规范，