Young adolescents' social development in relation to digital media

Today’s adolescents are immersed in digital media in the cross-contextual media landscape (i.e., using various platforms, at various places, with various others) that surrounds them, and experience digital media as a central part of their lives. This digital evolution is likely to profoundly impact their social development, which seems to be especially true for young adolescents in the age of 12 to 14. As they shift from primary to secondary education, they also gradually shift from perceiving their parents and families as their main social relations toward forming closer relationships to peers. This reflects in spending more time with their peers, which increasingly takes place online.

To form and maintain these relationships, adolescents need to develop social skills. These are skills needed to be effective in a variety of social interactions, such as emotion regulation, initiation of interaction, and empathy. These skills emerge over time by having meaningful interactions with others. Until recently, the development of these social skills was predominantly promoted through face-to-face interactions. However, with the rise of online communication adolescents’ opportunities to learn and practice social skills have increased dramatically. Although there is public concern about whether this widespread use of digital media among today’s adolescents inhibits the development of these fundamental social skills, not much is known about the relation between digital media and online and offline social skills. Furthermore, the effects of digital media are not that straightforward: evidence is found for both negative and positive effects of digital media. Therefore, how exactly adolescents’ digital media use in the cross-contextual media landscape is related to their social development warrants rigorous scientific study.

Hence, this project examines the interrelatedness of digital media use and adolescent’s social development. The objectives of this project are to gain insight into (1) how adolescents' digital media use in cross-contextual media landscapes affect adolescents' social development; (2) how key persons can increase or decrease the impact of digital media on this development; (3) how adolescents' individual differences can increase or decrease the impact of digital media on their social development. This will be studied using various research methods, including qualitative interviews and longitudinal survey research.