Friending, IMing, and hanging out face-to-face: Overlap in adolescents' online and offline social networks.

Abstract

Many new and important developmental issues are encountered during adolescence, which is also a time when Internet use becomes increasingly popular. Studies have shown that adolescents are using these online spaces to address developmental issues, especially needs for intimacy and connection to others. Online communication with its potential for interacting with unknown others, may put teens at increased risk. Two hundred and fifty-one high school students completed an in-person survey, and 126 of these completed an additional online questionnaire about how and why they use the Internet, their activities on social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, MySpace) and their reasons for participation, and how they perceive these online spaces to impact their friendships. To examine the extent of overlap between online and offline friends, participants were asked to list the names of their top interaction partners offline and online (Facebook and instant messaging). Results reveal that adolescents mainly use social networking sites to connect with others, in particular with people known from offline contexts. While adolescents report little monitoring by their parents, there was no evidence that teens are putting themselves at risk by interacting with unknown others. Instead, adolescents seem to use the Internet, especially social networking sites, to connect with known others. While the study found moderate overlap between teens' closest online and offline friends, the patterns suggest that adolescents use online contexts to strengthen offline relationships.

Possible Effects of Internet Use on Cognitive Development in Adolescence

“…One of the most common online activities for adolescents is communicating with others, primarily individuals known offline (Reich et al, 2012). Use of social networking sites is associated with greater feelings of peer affiliation (Spies Shapiro & Margolin, 2014), and adolescents who use social networking sites report less peer-related loneliness than non-users (Teppers, Luyckx, Klimstra, & Goossens, 2014), suggesting that adolescents who use social networking sites are developing the necessary social skills to have healthy peer relationships.…”

“…In an interview study of 128 American 13 to 14 year olds, 85% reported using information technologies for communication purposes (Fitton, Ahmedani, Harold, & Shifflet, 2013); a study of 10,930 adolescents spanning 6 European countries found that approximately 70% of adolescents aged 14 to 18 years reported using social networking sites daily (Tsitsika et al, 2014). The primary reason why adolescents use social networking sites is to connect with individuals known offline (Reich, Subrahmanyam, & Espinoza, 2012). …”

Networked Media Collectivities. The Use of Media for the Communicative Construction of Collectivities Among Adolescents

“…That is to say that online communication is most frequent with those persons we communicate with in person as well. The strong overlap of computermediated and face-to-face communication networks can at least partially be explained by the fact that new communication technologies are diffusing within the pre-existing social structures that are represented by face-to-face communication (Baym et al 2004;Subrahmanyam et al 2008;Neuberger 2011;Reich et al 2012;van Zalk et al 2014). Offline relationships may not only be relevant for the adoption of new communication technologies.…”

School Extracurricular Activity Participation and Early School Dropout: A Mixed-Method Study of the Role of Peer Social Networks

“…The growth in technology including social media, texting, and competitive online gaming has affected teenagers' communication during the ensuing years. This has implications both for how social networks form and members communicate with one another (e.g., Reich, Subrahmanyam, & Espinoza, 2012) and for how aggression is carried out among peers with different social status (e.g., Badaly, Kelly, Schwartz, & Dabney-Lieras, 2013). These implications call for an effort to replicate of the current findings with more current and expanded measures of peer group socialization processes and related outcomes.…”