Swedish student writing his thesis about people on the autis

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Hi everyone! Hope you're all good!

I would like to make a brief introduction of myself and to give the reason why I signed up here.

My name is Björn (yeah, it has those weird dots over the "o" that we use here in Sweden. My name means bear in swedish by the way), I'm 34 years old and I currently live in Malmö in the south of Sweden.

Since I was 22 years old I've been working with teenagers and young adults on the spectrum. This has been one of the most rewarding journeys in my life, and I reckon I'll keep working in the same field my entire life, one way or another.

Right now I'm writing my thesis in the media and communications field at Malmö University. I figured I would combine the two things in my life that I'm genuinely interested in, and so my thesis is trying to figure out if we have come to a time in history, both technologically and socially, where people on the spectrum finally can represent themselves, and not by moviemakers or journalists, for example.

My method is pretty new and is called netnography. It has many similarities with etnography, that is that I'm trying to experience and be a part of the world that I'm examining.

This forum is a good example of a place that I would like to take part of. My main focus is on Youtube though, since my theory on self-representation is easily translated to that audio-visual medium. But this kind of method also tells you to participate in all the digital arenas that you want to examine, so basically all response is warmly welcome!

Briefly, my hypothesis is that people on the spectrum have a greater chance of being able to speak for themselves, give a more accurate view on how it might be to live with their diagnosis and to form strong communal relationships with people from all over the world, much thanks to our new media and ways of communicating.

Do you personally feel that things have changed, for good or bad, with the arrival of new media such as Youtube, Instagram, Facebook etc? In what ways do you feel it has changed, in that case? Maybe just the birth of forums like this one was a major change for you personally?

Have you any experience with communicating with others through other means than written communication? Maybe youtube-videos?

If you're interested in participating in my study (that means basically having a conversation through mail, chat or just here in the forum), please comment in this thread or mail me at [email protected]!

Any help is much appreciated, and my hopes is that my thesis will provide more academic research on the topic and in the long run help people on the spectrum to be heard and understood.

Ps. One of the first comments I got from another forum was that i speaked “college” , so please tell me if I’m not making sense and I’ll try to explain everything in a different way!


Allt the best,

Björn, The Swedish Bear, Wiberg

Welcome to Wrong Planet Swedish Bear, I'm a huge ABBA fan so I know that Bjorn means bear in swedish as its mentioned in one of my ABBA books.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Hi aprilviolet and anonymousanonymous!

Thank you very much for your welcoming comments

Love ABBA too! Seen the mamma mia movies a few times.

Do you both use other forms of digital media apart from being a part of this forum? YouTube, Facebook, instagram?

I hope you're having a nice friday!

/ Björn, the swedish bear and ABBA-fan, Wiberg

Hi Swedish Bear, I'm not on facebook but I look at Youtube find old songs that I haven't heard for a while and old shows.
I do play the Candy Crush games on King.com.

My Sister has a friend who married a Swedish man his name is Lars they live here in Australia but they do go back to Sweden to see his family and friends sometimes.

Hi Björn,
some years ago, I was privately diagnosed as an Aspie by a good friend of mine, then I did some tests on the Internet and found she was right by half (so I'm a "mild" Aspie) but didn't went for an official diagnosis. However, I started to pay more attention to my differences to neurotypical people.
If I can be of some help to you, please feel free to contact me, ask me questions, etc.
As for my use of the Internet, my preferred medium depends on the kind of information involved: For technical information, I certainly prefer written text + drawings (+ animated drawings, if they convey additional information). Advantage: I can read it in my own speed, depending on my previous knowledge, ease or difficulty of understanding. Better still, on paper, I can add remarks, paste bookmarks etc. (I know that's possible with some text reader programs, too, but I find it easier on paper. So, usually I print important texts found on the Internet before I start reading them in detail.)
I use Youtube, of course, when looking for music or entertainment movies.
I don't have accounts on Facebook, Twitter etc., but on ResearchGate because there I find some questions and answers stimulating, and I use arXiv.org for publishing articles not yet published elsewhere.
And today, I joined WrongPlanet!
Anyway, I wish you success with your thesis!