Transformation of Adolescent Peer Relations in the Social Media Context: Part 2—Application to Peer Group Processes and Future Directions for Research

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Abstract

<p class="first" id="P1">As social media use becomes increasingly widespread among adolescents, research in this area has accumulated rapidly. Researchers have shown a growing interest in the impact of social media on adolescents’ peer experiences, including the ways that the social media context shapes a variety of peer relations constructs. This paper represents Part 2 of a two-part theoretical review. In this review, we offer a new model for understanding the transformative role of social media in adolescents’ peer experiences, with the goal of stimulating future empirical work that is grounded in theory. The <i>transformation framework</i> suggests that the features of the social media context transform adolescents’ peer experiences by changing their frequency or immediacy, amplifying demands, altering their qualitative nature, and/or offering new opportunities for compensatory or novel behaviors. In the current paper, we consider the ways that social media may transform peer relations constructs that often occur at the group level. Our review focuses on three key constructs: peer victimization, peer status, and peer influence. We selectively review and highlight existing evidence for the transformation of these domains through social media. In addition, we discuss methodological considerations and key conceptual principles for future work. The current framework offers a new theoretical perspective through which peer relations researchers may consider adolescent social media use. </p>

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Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks.

Adam D I Kramer, Jamie Guillory, Jeffrey T. Hancock (2014)

Emotional states can be transferred to others via emotional contagion, leading people to experience the same emotions without their awareness. Emotional contagion is well established in laboratory experiments, with people transferring positive and negative emotions to others. Data from a large real-world social network, collected over a 20-y period suggests that longer-lasting moods (e.g., depression, happiness) can be transferred through networks [Fowler JH, Christakis NA (2008) BMJ 337:a2338], although the results are controversial. In an experiment with people who use Facebook, we test whether emotional contagion occurs outside of in-person interaction between individuals by reducing the amount of emotional content in the News Feed. When positive expressions were reduced, people produced fewer positive posts and more negative posts; when negative expressions were reduced, the opposite pattern occurred. These results indicate that emotions expressed by others on Facebook influence our own emotions, constituting experimental evidence for massive-scale contagion via social networks. This work also suggests that, in contrast to prevailing assumptions, in-person interaction and nonverbal cues are not strictly necessary for emotional contagion, and that the observation of others' positive experiences constitutes a positive experience for people.

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Cyberbullying: its nature and impact in secondary school pupils.

Peter K. Smith, Jess Mahdavi, Manuel Carvalho … (2008)

Cyberbullying describes bullying using mobile phones and the internet. Most previous studies have focused on the prevalence of text message and email bullying. Two surveys with pupils aged 11-16 years: (1) 92 pupils from 14 schools, supplemented by focus groups; (2) 533 pupils from 5 schools, to assess the generalisability of findings from the first study, and investigate relationships of cyberbullying to general internet use. Both studies differentiated cyberbullying inside and outside of school, and 7 media of cyberbullying. Both studies found cyberbullying less frequent than traditional bullying, but appreciable, and reported more outside of school than inside. Phone call and text message bullying were most prevalent, with instant messaging bullying in the second study; their impact was perceived as comparable to traditional bullying. Mobile phone/video clip bullying, while rarer, was perceived to have more negative impact. Age and gender differences varied between the two studies. Study 1 found that most cyberbullying was done by one or a few students, usually from the same year group. It often just lasted about a week, but sometimes much longer. The second study found that being a cybervictim, but not a cyberbully, correlated with internet use; many cybervictims were traditional 'bully-victims'. Pupils recommended blocking/avoiding messages, and telling someone, as the best coping strategies; but many cybervictims had told nobody about it. Cyberbullying is an important new kind of bullying, with some different characteristics from traditional bullying. Much happens outside school. Implications for research and practical action are discussed.