Is Social Networking just the product of an insane "Zero Risk" culture?

We were giving a seminar yesterday on mobile social networks, and had the chance to hear a very interesting talk on social trends among the youth by Dr Norman Lewis, who is researching this space.

In essence, he points to the insane "zero risk" culture that OECD societies have, one part of it is where parents are extremely nervous of letting children out of the house / home etc without intense supervision (compared to previous - even their- generation). This has led to the rise of the "bedroom culture", so kids have to do all the kids stuff in the confined environments of their homes.

I can attest to this, we roamed far and wide in our youth...and yet many parents of our peer group keep a martinet's eye on their own kids time, structuring activities where previously there was free play. I have asked everyone "why do we succumb to this risk culture" often in the past, and the litany of pervs, car crashes, bad boys with knives etc etc is rapidly trotted out. It doesn't help that when things do happen they are blown out of all proportion b the media. Also, what was very annoying about the Madeleine McCann abduction was all the pious people grabbing the moral high ground and slagging off the parents for leaving her asleep in their room while they went for a meal - in a holiday resort mark you. As any parent knows, if you had to manage your children for every very low probability event, it would be impossible to move, never mind live.

But, kids have found a way to be kids - essentially used technology to overcome the enforced isolation, so the rise of mobiles and more recently social networks is directly driven by the zero risk culture.

Net net, all that socialisation, self exploration and self expression that kids used to do in Real Life social nets is now being done on Virtual Social Nets.

This also explains the heavy use of mobiles, as kids get so little outside time and space to call their own any more, they have to use mobiles to stay in touch and/or cluster at pre-arranged times - just hanging out is no longer an option, as much public space is now private (eg malls), and even public space is quite often teen-intolerant.

As in the old days when there was a generational divide over music, there is now one occurring over Social Nets - parents like conformist, safe Facebook, kids like the more anarchic MySpace. So Danah Boyd's hypothesis could be right - but not for the reasons she thought - in that conforming / preppie kids are going to Facebook, but the rebels - and probably most normal kids I'd guess - prefer MySpace, which is apparently still growing.

Adults are flocking to Facebook for just those same reasons too - its ordered, safe and......square. And what the adults dig, the kids will avoid.

According to Norman, kids are apparently drawn to spaces where they can personalise, their measure of their own existence depends on this. They use popular culture as a tool, not an outcome, of their self expression.

Maybe.....we also think the generic social networks are tied to the whims of fashion to quite an extent.

But, a very plausible reason nonetheless for the mass adoption of social networks...but it still doesn't answer the core question - why have we got ourselves into an insane zero risk culture?