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Wired Youth

The Social World of Adolescence in the Information Age

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Part of the Adolescence and Society Series series

The debate on the social impact of information and communication technologies is particularly important for the study of adolescent life, because in their close association with friends and peers, adolescents develop life expectations, school aspirations, world views, and behaviors. Wired Youth investigates the driving forces of social interaction, such as shared interests and adolescents’ need of diversification of their social circle, and shows how online activities are closely associated with offline social behavior.

This book presents an up-to-date review of the literature on youth sociability, relationship formation, and online communication, examining the way young people use the internet to construct or maintain their inter-personal relationships. Using a social network perspective, the book systematically explores the various effects of internet access and use on adolescents’ involvement in social, leisure and extracurricular activities, evaluating the arguments that suggest the internet is displacing other forms of social ties. The core of the book investigates the motivations for online relationship formation and the use of online communication for relationship maintenance. The final part of the book focuses on the consequences, both positive and negative, of the use of online communication, such as increased social capital and online bullying.

Wired Youth is suitable for undergraduate and graduate students of adolescent psychology, youth studies, media studies and the psychology and sociology of interpersonal relationships.

Table of Contents

1. The information age, youth and social networks 2. The Internet at Home 3. Sociability and Internet Use 4. Online relationship formation 5. ICT and existing ties 6. The impact of ICT on social network structure 7. Online communication and negative social ties 8. Summary and discussion

Reviews

"This book stands apart from a flood of hyperbole about 'born digital children.' The authors provide an empirically anchored and analytically rigorous perspective on the role of the Internet in the social lives of adolescents. This is must reading for anyone with a serious concern over children and the Internet." - Professor William Dutton, Director, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, UK

"This book offers a thought-provoking view on the role of the web in young peoples’ lives, and is a must for every behavioural and social scientist interested in how adolescents deal with the rapid technological and social change of our times. " – Rainer K. Silbereisen, Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Jena, Germany

"Are teens really different in the Age of the Internet? What's going on beneath the buds of their smartphones and under the fingers of their keyboards? This book uses sound, empirically-based methods to show how life on the internet and life in real life are intertwined." - Barry Wellman, University of Toronto, Canada

"Accessible, clear, and illuminating, this overview integrates research worldwide and across disciplines, whilst avoiding the traps of celebratory as well as moral panic approaches. It offers an intelligent and useful perspective of contemporary adolescents' off- and on-line lives." - Dafna Lemish, Professor of Communication, Tel Aviv University, Israel