Instant Identity: Adolescent Girls and the World of Instant Messaging explains how girls use
instant messaging - a primary mode of new media communication for their generation - in order
to flirt bond fight and generally relate to peers in ways that both transcend and play into
their culture's dominant gender norms. Examining IM conversations and interviews with the girls
Shayla Thiel Stern demonstrates exactly how girls use IM to construct identity and negotiate
sexuality as they constantly move between childhood and adulthood in their language and
actions online. This book is among the first of its kind to truly explore the millennial
generation's prevalent use of instant messaging and its implications for the future.
