cally increase their worth. One girl reported that snapping a large number of photos and posting them online felt like a more honest representation of an event because participants could comment and interact afterward. “There’s a shared sense of what happened,” she notes.

Teenagers also like the fact they can access content online—photos, music, comments, and badges—at any time and from almost any place, thanks to Facebook and services such as Apple’s iCloud, says Zimmerman. Finally, by putting their possessions online, they have a space that is largely free of scrutiny from their parents. This means, among other things, that they can display a photo of a boyfriend or girlfriend online—whereas they might not be allowed to place a picture frame with the same photo in their bedroom. “In some cases, a virtual environment creates a more satisfying and holistic experience,” Zimmerman says.

A Changing Picture

It is tempting to think about digital possessions as ephemeral and easily duplicated, Lehdonvirta points out. What is more, because virtual objects do not register with our senses in the way physical objects do, they are not particularly useful in establishing social distinctions. However, the introduction of ubiquitous and always on computing networks—and the widespread adoption of social media—has altered the equation. “This introduces the economics and sociology of ownership into digital goods,” he observes.

In World of Warcraft, for instance, the publisher creates artificial scarcity by periodically adding 10 new levels to the system to devalue everyone’s status. This virtual form of inflation, or artificially imposed scarcity, ensures players will stay engaged and spend more money. Meanwhile, at sites such as Facebook and Twitter, value derives not only from objects and content but also from amassing “friends” and “ followers.” Lehdonvirta says there have been attempts to trade social media votes for actual money and one company recently sued an ex-employee over the ownership of followers on Twitter. In January 2012, the concept of virtual ownership was affirmed by the Dutch Supreme Court, which up-

“People not only
view a facebook
account as a digital
possession, they
look at it as a digital
storage locker for
their lives,” says
Amber Cushing.

held a conviction of a boy who stole another boy’s possessions in the online game Runescape.

In fact, virtual money and possessions are not an entirely new concept. For years, society has used virtual funds, such as credit and debit cards, to handle transactions and pay for goods. These virtual currencies were not created by government but rather by private organizations.

A bigger question is how virtual possessions influence our thinking and change our behavior. In this new virtual order, a Netflix instant queue becomes a to-do list rather than a personal collection of DVDs. A Kindle book cannot be loaned to a pal or passed on to a child. And so-called friends are people we may have never met or will never interact with in the physical world.

Amber Cushing, a doctoral candidate at The School of Information and Library Science at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has interviewed dozens of people of varying ages and backgrounds and found there is a common thread in the way people view digital possessions. They define a person’s identity; inform others about what is happening in their life; create value or status in some way; and provide a sense of bounded control that may not be possible in the physical world.

The popularity of Facebook, which now claims 845 million active users worldwide, is a perfect example of this thinking. There is a growing desire to document and archive digital experiences, Cushing explains. “People not only view a Facebook account as a digital possession, they look at it as a digi-

Career

Women
and
IT Jobs

education advocates have long highlighted the large discrepancy between male and female students studying technical fields such as computer science and mathematics, but a new Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) report, “Solutions to recruit Technical Women,” highlights the challenges the small number of women graduating with technical degrees encounter when they enter the job market.

“There’s a pipeline problem,”
says Denise Gammal, coauthor
of the report and director of
corporate partnerships at ABI.
“We have only about 20% women
in the computer science field [as
students], and once women get
into companies, they encounter a
lot of cultural and other barriers.
There’s a lot of implicit biases
that make it difficult for women
to get into companies and also
make it difficult for women to
advance in those companies.”
Based on interviews with
some of the world’s leading
technology companies, Gammal
and her colleagues were able
to identify four key areas where
companies are failing women.

first, companies often do not reach enough schools to include many women in their recruitment process and are not fully utilizing social networks to link female prospects to vacant positions. Second, many job descriptions are unwittingly biased toward male prospects. Third, women are underrepresented in most search committees. finally, companies need to identify ways to retain and promote female talent to deter them from dropping out of the field.

The ABI report focuses heavily on offering best practices for companies. for instance, companies should diversify their hiring committee during the recruitment phase to include different genders and cultures and institute a blind résumé screening process. The report also suggests creating gender-balanced internships to build strong and diverse future work forces.