Communicating Online: Adolescent Relationships and the Media

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2008

Abstract

Over the past decade, technology has become increasingly important in the lives of adolescents. As a group, adolescents are heavy users of newer electronic communication forms such as instant messaging, e-mail, and text messaging, as well as communication-oriented Internet sites such as blogs, social networking, and sites for sharing photos and videos. Kaveri Subrahmanyam and Patricia Greenfield examine adolescents' relationships with friends, romantic partners, strangers, and their families in the context of their online communication activities. The authors show that adolescents are using these communication tools primarily to reinforce existing relationships, both with friends and romantic partners. More and more they are inte-grating these tools into their offline worlds, using, for example, social networking sites to get more information about new entrants into their offline world.

Publication Title

The Future of Children: Children and Media Technology

Volume

18

Issue

1

First Page

119

Last Page

146

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1353/foc.0.0006

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