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The paper examined how different age groups construct and enact normality within social networking sites (SNS), with the aim of extending theory into the area of online interactions. It is the first study of its kind to adopt the concept of normality as a theoretical lens for understanding the interactions on SNS.

The chosen research site was Facebook and research design involved focus groups across three different age groups: teenagers, young adults and the middle-aged. The focus groups explored the metaphoric images of Facebook interactions. Participants were asked to draw a picture to represent their metaphor and following this, to position themselves and other characters within the picture. Connective and protective encounters were found to be used by different age groups when constructing and enacting normality on SNS. Further, it emerged that the interpretation and enactment of normality across the different age groups significantly varied.

The findings of the study suggested that SNS managers and designers should sympathise with the view that users of different ages engage in different ways and as a result, user interfaces should be customised according to the age of the user.

The criteria used to judge the awards were based on six areas: internationality; diversity; support for scholarly research; encouragement of applied research (impact); commitment to high quality scholarship; and a desire to ensure reader, author and customer experience is the best it can be.

This is great news – well done, Ben!