A few days back I spoke with a gentleman who works has worked as a staff member at a popular youth center based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We discussed, among many other things, how young people interact when they come into the center.

The center, which provides opportunities for teenagers to make music in a recording studio, put on art shows, book bands to play there, and do more, attracts a diverse crowd of teens. There are socially-concerned blocs of students, he explained, who put on art shows to raise attention around depression issues or put on music shows to raise money for Darfur. This organization, he suggested, most-often occurs among those who are coming from middle to upper middle class households. The other students, who might be struggling with issues at home, are coming to the center to socialize, separate themselves from the issues they face back home, and even look for a little something to eat.

Even more interestingly, students largely self-segregate based on class - not outwardly or intentionally - but when signing up for various programs within the program, they look for other kids they know and have familiar experiences with which is, more often than not, contingent on their socioeconomic ties to each other, he suggested.

And now, an even more interesting observation, young people will come to the center and interact with each other less if there is an opportunity to go online and to connect with Facebook and MySpace. Their interactions are increasingly connected to the screen but not with each other. This came after an interesting observation earlier in the evening with Mary Lemmer, an interview subject for Millennials Changing America, who recalled her observation of peers she attended a private high school with who were IMing with each other and then struggled to maintain a face-to-face interaction any deeper than small talk.

I am curious, then, if access to Facebook, while simultaneously exposing young people to more information than ever before (and breaking down barriers to spreading that information, of course), is also helping young people to find and follow like-reared youth (on the basis of their interests) in exchange for the gamble of interacting with each other (this person likes this band, this movie, thus we're likely similar - though the liklihood of enjoying those pieces of media are very well marketed to our class, etc). If I already have an innate tendency to find people who fit within my comfort-zone in my immediate proximity, am I further compounding that tendency online?

I am increasingly interested in suggestions for how social networking tools might be used to redirect young people a) back to eachother and b) help to break down the aforementioned tendency to segregate based on familiarity of background. 

It's not all grim, explained the staff member, as the center successfully uses Facebook to invite and bring people to the table as well. But when they're at the table, is it possible to use SocNet tools to get them talking with eachother?