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The double-edged nature of modern technology, continuously balancing between risks and opportunities, manifests itself clearly in an emerging societal problem known as cyberbullying. To analyse the extent and nature of the issue in Belgium, 1318 adolescents were questioned explicitly about their involvement in cyberbullying, as well as implicitly about their experience with specific types of cyberbullying-related behaviour. This alternate questioning revealed higher victimisation and perpetration rates. The study also provides better insight into predictors associated with victimisation or perpetration in cyberbullying. Especially past involvement in cyberbullying and engaging in online risk behaviour increase the likelihood of victimisation; non-rejection of cyberbullying and online identity experimentation augment the likelihood of perpetration. Girls are more likely to become victims of cyberbullying, whereas boys are more inclined to engage in electronic bullying. Moreover, the incidence of cyberbullying increases slightly with age. Finally, teens spending much time on the Internet, reporting higher ICT expertise and owning a computer with privileged online access share an increased likelihood of online bullying behaviour. (Contains 4 tables.)

Becoming friends on Facebook does not always guarantee long-term friendships as users have the possibility to unfriend people. This unfriending behaviour is frequently occurring and might have negative consequences for both parties. To gain insight into the factors influencing adolescents' unfriending, the current study made use of an extended version of the theory of planned behaviour. To enrich the theoretical framework, we included antecedents related to adolescents' friendship management on Facebook, namely their number of friends, their friendship acceptance threshold, and their degree of public communication. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 1.117 adolescents. SEM analyses indicated that both subjective norm and attitude were related to behavioural intention, which in turn was related to adolescents' unfriending behaviour. Perceived behavioural control was only associated with adolescents' unfriending behaviour. Regarding the additional factors, the size of adolescents' friend network was positively related to their confidence in the ability to unfriend people. Adolescents' friendship acceptance threshold was negatively related to their attitude, whereas adolescents' degree of public communication was positively associated with their perceived behavioural control and the experienced social pressure to unfriend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is the first to examine adolescents' reasons for unfriending people on Facebook. By means of open-end questions, 419 participants described the primary online (i.e., arising from friends' behavior on Facebook) or offline (i.e., emerging from Facebook friends' offline behavior) reason for which they recently unfriended someone. Two researchers took part in the coding process. Qualitative analyses revealed that unfriending happened mainly for online reasons, such as posting (too much) inappropriate, polarizing, or uninteresting posts; seeking attention, bragging, or stalking; and other irritating behaviors (e.g., using bad grammar). Some adolescents indicated that they unfriended people because of online reasons related to replacing friendships or interests, quarrels, and incompatible friends/family. In previous studies among adults, quarrels and incompatible friends/family were reported solely as offline reasons. These findings suggest that adolescents potentially argue more often online or that their quarrel is so intense it leads to unfriending decisions. Adults in turn, also unfriend people because of posts related to everyday life (e.g., jobs and children). Such everyday life events seemed to be less relevant for adolescents' unfriending. The practical value of this study is that it provides a typology of adolescents' online and offline reasons for unfriending. This typology can be used for further research or by practitioners developing awareness campaigns as it indicates which behavior/events mostly provoke unfriending. Although viewing a post as inappropriate or polarizing might be subjective, general guidelines on how to respectfully address sensitive issues (e.g., political, religious, or other societal issues) can be given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social network sites (SNSs) provide adolescents with the opportunity to expand their social circle, which is associated with increased social capital. However, the social capital adolescents built depends on the quality of their friendships on SNSs. As no instruments are available to capture the quality of friendships on SNSs, this study designed and validated the Friendship Quality on Social Network Sites questionnaire ( FQSNS-questionnaire) . The questionnaire consists of five dimensions: satisfaction, companionship, help, intimacy, and self-validation. Explorative and confirmative factor analyses were applied on data of 1.695 friendships (i.e., offline-to-online, online-to-offline, and online friendships) gathered from 1.087 adolescents. Results pointed to a five-factor solution, applicable to any kind of friendship on SNSs and reflecting the proposed five dimensions of friendship quality. Multiple group confirmatory factor analyses supported measurement invariance across younger and older adolescents, and across boys and girls, at the levels of equal factor structure and loadings. Cronbach's alphas indicated a good internal consistency of each dimension. Correlation analysis indicated that the dimensions were strongly correlated to each other, which is unsurprising because they reflect the overall friendship quality. Based upon these results, we can conclude that dimensions of friendship quality can validly and reliably be assessed using the FQSNS-questionnaire . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the strategies which parents employ in order to mediate their adolescent child's internet use, thereby including the perspectives from the mother, the father and an adolescent child aged 13 to 18. Data from 357 families (n = 1071) were analyzed. Parental mediation strategies were inductively derived from a wide range of concrete mediation practices. Factor analysis yielded the same six factor solution for each informant, resulting in the identification of six distinct parental mediation strategies. Differences occurred between the three informants in terms of the quantity of mediation taking place. Parental mediation was predicted by the child's age, but less by the parents' age and the child's gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Users of social network sites (SNSs) use three main strategies that help to manage the privacy of their profile information: (1)limiting the level of data revealed, (2)using privacy settingsto exert control over data and (3)audience/friendship managementby being restrictive about whom to accept as a ‘friend’. Extant research does not show whether these strategies operate as independent mechanisms or whether they are interdependent and work as asystem. Given what offline privacy theorist Irwin Altman (1977) designates as themulti-mechanic natureof privacy protection, we test a model in which we expect to find that the three discerned strategies are related to one another. Structural equation modelling analysis performed on the subsample (n = 1564) of our study’s data – collected among 1743 adolescents by means of a paper-and-pencil survey – demonstrates that, in line with Altman’s vision of privacy protection, the three discerned strategies effectively operate as an interdependent system. In congruence with the hypotheses derived from extant research, we found that adolescents’ level of disclosure influences adolescents’ involvement in the two other discerned strategies: Adolescents with high levels of personal information disclosure share an increased tendency to have many friends on SNSs and a lower level of using privacy settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexting has received increasing scholarly and media attention. Especially, minors’ engagement in this behaviour is a source of concern. As adolescents are highly sensitive about their image among peers and prone to peer influence, the present study implemented the prototype willingness model in order to assess how perceptions of peers engaging in sexting possibly influence adolescents’ willingness to send sexting messages. A survey was conducted among 217 15- to 19-year-olds. A total of 18% of respondents had engaged in sexting in the 2 months preceding the study. Analyses further revealed that the subjective norm was the strongest predictor of sexting intention, followed by behavioural willingness and attitude towards sexting. Additionally, the more favourable young people evaluated the prototype of a person engaging in sexting and the higher they assessed their similarity with this prototype, the more they were willing to send sexting messages. Differences were also found based on gender, relationship status and need for popularity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adolescent sexting – the electronic swapping of sexually intimate texts or images – has attracted significant media and policy attention. However, questions remain about the predictors of this phenomenon, in which mobile phones play a central role in adolescents’ exploration of sexuality. Therefore, a survey involving 498 adolescents aged between 15 and 18 years was conducted. The first aim of this study is to determine the predictive value of personal attitudes, subjective norm (SN) and perceived behavioural control by applying the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). As the second aim, we wish to assess the relative importance of the most salient beliefs underpinning the TPB components, since this will allow us to gain a more nuanced insight into the characteristics of adolescent sexting. Analyses reveal that SN is the most important predictor, followed by adolescents’ attitudes towards sexting. Perceived behavioural control is significantly but weakly associated with teenagers’ sexting intentions. Within SN, friends and romantic partners represent the most important sources of social pressure, while only positive behavioural outcomes are found to affect adolescents’ sexting intentions. The most important control belief affecting adolescents’ intention to sext is the belief that it occurs relatively more often among those whom adolescents feel they can trust entirely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims at exploring which factors predict the willingness of adolescents to disclose personal information in response to online marketing requests. Our analyses show that especially privacy concerns and perceived benefits explain a considerable portion of variance in both willingness to disclose profile data (e.g. age, hobbies, favourite products) and contact data (e.g. phone number, e-mail address, home address). An interesting interrelationship was found between profile data and contact data disclosure. Contrary to our expectations, parental mediation strategies were only a weak predictor of teenagers' willingness to disclose contact information. Policy implications that emerge from the central findings of this study are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although social media offer adolescents new possibilities for emotion regulation, little is known about how adolescents use different platforms to this end. This study adds to the emotion regulation literature and affordances-of-technologies perspective by describing whether and how adolescents use different social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, 9Gag, and blogs) for emotion sharing and how technical, social, and contextual factors influence these practices. In-depth interviews with 22 adolescents aged 14 to 18 show that adolescents share emotions on multiple of these platforms. Although the different platforms have similar affordances, their social norms clearly differ and influence adolescents’ online behavior. Facebook statuses, Instagram, and Snapchat are mostly used for sharing positive emotions, if emotions are shared at all. Twitter and Messenger, on the other hand, are also used for sharing negative emotions, albeit for different reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study serves two purposes. First, we explore how adolescents and adults approach the disclosure of personal information and the application of privacy settings on social network sites (SNS). Second, we investigate whether the factors that predict these two privacy-management strategies differ for adolescents and adults. To achieve the goals of this study, an online survey was conducted among a sample of 1484 SNS users ranging in age from 10 to 65 years. In addition to gender and age, we investigated the following predictors: frequency of and motives for SNS use, trust in other users, peer influence and concerns related to privacy and contact risks. The results show that adolescents disclose more personal data and apply more lenient privacy settings to these data than adults do. Several factors were found to affect disclosure and profile-access management, with differences between adolescents and adults in some cases. Finally, we discuss implications emerging from the study,s findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is common nowadays for parents to share information about their children on social network sites (SNSs). However, little is known on how adolescents think and feel about this sharenting behavior. Therefore, this study explores adolescents' perception of the reasons why parents share information about their adolescent children on SNSs, and adolescents' attitudes toward sharenting. A survey study was conducted among 817 adolescents. Factor analyses pointed toward four perceived sharenting motives: parental advice motives, social motives, impression management motives, and informative-archiving motives. Adolescents believed that parents mainly shared information about their children due to informative-archiving motives. They believed that parental advice motives were less common. Preliminary analyses pointed out that adolescents largely disapproved of sharenting. They mainly considered it as embarrassing and useless. Regression analysis indicated that when adolescents perceived sharenting as an impression management issue, the more negative their attitudes were toward sharenting. Conversely, the more adolescents thought that parents shared information about their children due to informative-archiving motives, the less they disapproved of sharenting. Additionally, when adolescents themselves disclosed more personal information or when they were more often confronted with sharenting, they had more positive attitudes toward sharenting. Adolescents who were more concerned about their online privacy, were more likely to disapprove of sharenting. • Adolescents believe that parents have four motives for sharenting. • Parental advice, social, impression management, and informative-archiving motives • Adolescents largely disapprove of sharenting (i.e., embarrassing and useless). • Informative-archiving motives lead to more positive attitudes among adolescents. • Impression management motives lead to more negative attitudes among adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]