“That looks like me or something i can do”: Affordances and constraints in the online identity work of US LGBTQ+ millennials

Abstract

This article examines how search engines and social‐networking sites enable and constrain the identity‐related information practices of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) millennials in the United States. I employ affordances as a process concept to understand the recursive relationship between individuals and technologies and envision information practices as an outcome of this relationship. Guided by this conceptual framework, I conducted 30 semistructured interviews with LGBTQ+ individuals between the ages of 18 and 38. Data analysis identified 3 key affordances that enable and constrain participants' information practices: visibility, anonymity, and association. The findings indicate that participants are highly skilled in appropriating technological features to engage in desired information practices, such as seeking and creating. However, they also must contend with significant sociocultural barriers encoded into these features, which reinforce hetero‐ and cisnormative identity discourses. Library practitioners and systems designers can use these findings to offer services and systems inclusive of LGBTQ+ populations.

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