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![]() by Staff Writers Pittsburgh (UPI) May 9, 2011
Virtual possessions -- digital imagery, Facebook updates, online music collections, e-mail threads -- have a powerful hold on teenagers, U.S. researchers say. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University say the very fact that virtual possessions are without physical form may actually enhance their value, a university release reported Monday. "A digital photo is valuable because it is a photo but also because it can be shared and people can comment on it," said John Zimmerman, associate professor of human-computer interaction and design. For the 21 teenagers in the CMU study, a digital photo that friends have tagged, linked and annotated was more meaningful than a photo in a frame or a drawer, the researchers found. One study subject said she takes photos at events and uploads them immediately so she and her friends can tag and talk about them. "It feels like a more authentic representation of the event," the 16-year-old told the researchers. "We comment and agree on everything together then there's a shared sense of what happened." Those in the study said they could display things online, such as a photograph of a boyfriend disliked by parents, which were important to their identity but could never be displayed in a bedroom. In fact, the teenagers said, the online world allowed them to present different facets of themselves to appropriate groups of friends or to family.
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