A mixed‐methods study of the quality of parental support during adolescents' information‐related Internet use as a co‐construction process

The COVID-19 pandemic marked a step change in society's reliance on digital infrastructure for information, education, work, commerce, entertainment, and communication. More than ever before, and especially but not only in wealthy countries, adolescents are exploring and expressing their identity and autonomy, including risky as well as creative and constructive opportunities. Born into an already-digital world, their present and future imaginaries presume a thoroughgoing engagement with technology that transcends real/virtual and online/offline binaries. By contrast with older generations (including their parents, teachers, and even researchers), adolescents cannot envisage a return to pre-digital times through any serious limitation of their digital engagement. But, also by contrast with many adults, they can imagine alternative digital futures, and are often keen to discuss how technologies could be redesigned or newly regulated in ways that would better support their well-being and rights in a digital age. As society increasingly pivots towards all things digital and recognizing that the global companies providing digital products and services are becoming hugely powerful in both public and private sectors, governments are making greater efforts to regulate their activities and harness their impacts for the betterment of society. These efforts include turning to psychological and social science evidence for guidance, and listening to the voices of adolescents and those who have their needs and rights in mind.In commenting on the 11 articles selected for this special issue of the Journal of Adolescence on adolescents' digital lives, I reflect on how the findings can inform these efforts and, relatedly, on significant research gaps that future research could usefully address. Let us begin by welcoming the ways in which this issue effectively advances beyond the popular treatment of adolescents as a unitary and homogenous category-often implicit in the celebration of "digital natives" or anxieties about "screen time"insofar as it explores differences among adolescents, including differences in vulnerability. The special issue distinguishes, for instance, more or less lonely adolescents to explore whether going online supports their efforts at emotional regulation (Scott et al., 2023), and whether adolescents' sensitivity to behavioral avoidance or inhibition is a risk factor for problematic gaming (Bradt et al., 2023). Contextual factors also differentiate among adolescents, potentially rendering some more vulnerable than others, as shown by Menabò et al. (2023), who reveal the importance of peer network and school connectedness in mediating the effect of cyberbullying on well-being. There is more work to be done regarding vulnerability. For example, my colleagues and I recently conducted a systematic review of evidence relating digital experiences to adolescent mental health, identifying multiple ways of conceptualizing adolescent digital experiences; yet, even in a literature concerned with clinical population...

Section: Who Should Act On Findings About Adolescents' Digital Lives?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflections on the meaning of “digital” in research on adolescents' digital lives

Livingstone

2024

“…The perceived style of parents to communicate restrictive mediation seems to have stronger associations with these outcomes, with a controlling style being related to more gaming‐related problems than an autonomy‐supportive style. A mixed method study conducted with German parent‐adolescent dyads (Kurock et al, 2024) showed small to moderate associations between parent and adolescent reported quality of parental support with adolescents' request for help being an additional indicator for the quality of support and possible co‐construction support processes. Moreover, the study by Menabo et al (2024) showed that peer networks and school connectedness were significant influences in mediating the impact of victimization and cybervictimization on the wellbeing of 10–14‐year‐old students in Italy, highlighting the role of school‐related factors in tackling cyberbullying.…”

Section: Adolescents' Digital Livesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adolescents' digital lives: Introduction to the special issue

Schoon,

Symonds,

Beyers

2024

The key message of this Special issue is that a more nuanced understanding and specification of digital technology use is needed, to gain a comprehensive understanding of adolescent's lives in a digital age (Livingstone, 2024). The digital context is rapidly increasing in the lives of adolescents and across society. Whereas a few decades ago, the digital activity of adolescents was constrained to television and earlier forms of computing and instant messaging on mobile phones, today sees adolescents engaging with a much wider set of digital activities and devices. The time spent on these devices is of great interest to researchers, as is what adolescents do on their devices. This activity sets new parameters for the digital context, making it more diverse and time consuming than ever before. Furthermore, the digital context in which adolescents develop spills over into the offline world. Interactions and interests forged in the online and digital world continue in the offline world, and aspects of the digital world are talked about and influence offline interactions and activity. In this perspective, the digital context is interwoven into the offline world, and it is hard to separate the two.To begin to understand this complex new reality, we need to consider differences in adolescents' characteristics (such as their age, social background interests and social and emotional capacities), the contexts in which they use digital tools, and the digital technologies themselves that can comprise different apps, networks and different regulations of their usage. Drawing on evidence from different data sources, the studies included in this special issue examine interactions between adolescent social and emotional wellbeing when using different digital technologies, as well as the role of parents, peers and teachers in shaping these interactions and associated outcomes. The findings suggest that the use of digital technology can in some instances be beneficial and in other instances detrimental for adolescent development, depending on characteristics of the individual, the context in which they use these technologies, and the different technologies used.A number of papers focused on associations between the use of digital technologies and well-being. A 7-day diary study by Scott et al. (2024) among Australian adolescents showed differences in the use of digital technologies for emotion regulation and their effectiveness depending on adolescents' emotional wellbeing (measured by indicators of emotional problems and loneliness). The question of whether socially anxious young people perceive social media as a less risky context than face-to-face interactions to express emotions in communication with their peers was addressed in the study by Angelini et al. (2024). Based on a sample of 1046 Italian students the findings suggested a potentially beneficial role of social media for those who are more socially anxious. In particular the absence of nonverbal cues (such as tone of voice or eye contact) was associated with a higher l...

Distinct Social Factors Are Linked to Epistemic Curiosity and Digital Information‐Seeking Among Adolescents: Generalizability Across 41 Countries

Ali

2024

IntroductionCuriosity, the intrinsic motivation to sense, know, and experience the unknown, plays important roles in adolescent achievement and well‐being. Theoretical considerations and empirical research suggest the contribution of social relationships in fostering curiosity. However, curiosity is expressed in different forms and contexts. Here, we investigated the social predictors of general epistemic curiosity, and of different forms of digital information‐seeking in adolescents.MethodsNationally representative cross‐sectional data from Programme for International Student Assessment 2022 were used (N = 327,778 from 41 countries, 15.8 years, 49.6% female). Multiple regression was implemented using four different types of social relationships—teacher relationship, school belonging, bullying victimization, family relationship—as predictors of three forms of curiosity and information‐seeking—general epistemic curiosity, and digital information‐seeking for formal learning and for informal learning purposes.Results and ConclusionTeacher–student relationship was linked to general epistemic curiosity but less so, or not at all, to digital information‐seeking. Instead, family relationship and bullying victimization were more important drivers of digital information‐seeking for formal and informal learning purposes respectively. These distinctions were largely generalizable across 41 countries examined. The findings paint a complex picture of how figures in different adolescent social spheres matter for different forms of epistemic curiosity and information‐seeking, with practical and theoretical implications.