Adolescents’ perceptions of digital media’s potential to elicit jealousy, conflict and monitoring behaviors within romantic relationships

Abstract

Adolescents' perceptions of digital media's potential to elicit jealousy, conflict and monitoring behaviors within romantic relationships. AbstractUnderstanding the role of digital media in adolescents' romantic relationships is essential to the prevention of digital dating violence. This study focuses on adolescents' perceptions of the impact of digital media on jealousy, conflict, and control within their romantic relationships. Twelve focus group interviews were conducted, among 55 secondary school students (ngirls = 28; 51% girls) between the ages of 15 and 18 years (Mage = 16.60 years; SD age = 1.21), in the Dutch-speaking community of Belgium. The respondents identified several sources of jealousy within their romantic relationships, such as online pictures of the romantic partner with others and online messaging with others. Adolescents identified several ways in which romantic partners would react when experiencing feelings of jealousy, such as contacting the person they saw as a threat or looking up the other person's social media profiles. Along with feelings of jealousy, respondents described several monitoring behaviors, such as reading each other's e-mails or accessing each other's social media accounts. Adolescents also articulated several ways that they curated their social media to avoid conflict and jealousy within their romantic relationships. For instance, they adapted their social media behavior by avoiding the posting of certain pictures, or by ceasing to comment on certain content of others. The discussion section includes suggestions for future research and implications for practice, such as the need to incorporate information about e-safety into sexual and relational education and the need to have discussions with adolescents, about healthy boundaries for communication within their friendships and romantic relationships.

The Brief Partner Behavioral Control Scale (B-PBCS): Development and Validation

“…In covert partner behavioral control, by monitoring daily activities of the partner, one tries to create a rule over his or her romantic partner. However, to date, partner monitoring has been frequently addressed in social networking site research (e.g., Belu, Lee, & Sullivan, 2016;Fox & Tokunaga, 2015;Van Ouytsel, Walrave, Ponnet, Willems, & Van Dam, 2019) and we still do not have strong evidence regarding the effects of partner monitoring in real life settings. Therefore, based on broader conceptualization of partner behavioral control, it seems important to fill the gap and develop a new valid and reliable instrument incorporating these two dimensions in the assessment of partner behavioral control.…”

Intimate Partner Cyberstalking, Sexism, Pornography, and Sexting in Adolescents: New Challenges for Sex Education

“…In fact, some adolescents prefer online communication to face-to-face communication [3]. Thus, internet use, social media, and instant messaging are tools that boys and girls use routinely in both their peer and dating relationships [4,5]. Their growing impact on adolescents has become a major concern for educators and researchers in recent years [6].…”

A Systematic Review of Immersive Social Media Activities and Risk Factors for Sexual Boundary Violations among Adolescents

“…28 Online shaming on social media is also a form of sexual abuse carried out by the users to satisfy their sexual needs. 29 Relationship among the partners can be affected with jealousy such as online pictures of the partner with others and online messaging with others. 29 This can lead to sexual abuse by the partner who was angered by the flirtatious partner's online or physical acts.…”

“…29 Relationship among the partners can be affected with jealousy such as online pictures of the partner with others and online messaging with others. 29 This can lead to sexual abuse by the partner who was angered by the flirtatious partner's online or physical acts. It was also reported in a study that digital sexual abuse contributes to 42.7% of victimization and 29.1% perpetration and half of the studied sample experienced digital direct aggression viz.…”