John Dvorak provides an interesting article at pcmag.com which suggests that there is not nearly enough sociological research on the culture of blogging and digital social networks (thanks for the tip Keith).

There are far too many understudied phenomena bubbling on the Net, and it’s time for academia to wake up. Valuable time is being wasted.

I agree. And, what about the greatly misunderstood social trend that is MySpace?

Ironically, the blog search engines reject the blogs within the MySpace and Live Journal systems, so they’re mostly unexplored, like a jungle in Borneo. This is despite the fact that there are more people doing online diaries and “blogging” on Live Journal and MySpace (over 50 million) than in all the rest of bloggerdom combined, worldwide.

I agree! Incredible studies relate to teen popular culture, the potential for social networks, technological and media literacy, teen dating and sexuality, teen identity and socialization, etc. are just waiting to be discovered. If I only had the time … uggh. Now back to that dissertation.

And that one thing that comforts me about all of this is that when I do complete this major step in my life, there will still be many interesting studies left to conduct. We truly live in an exciting time and I love my field more each day.