Social Media and Youth [ICTs] within wider parent–child relations) that

we now associate with the social media websites

LESLIE HADDON noted above were discussed initially in relation
London School of Economics and Political Science, to these older social media precursors. Exploring
UK a variety of historical antecedents also has the
effect of underlining the fact that social media
are not such a new development and are not even
When examining young people’s experience such a radical break with Web 1.0, for example.
of social media, it is useful to extend the This entry will proceed with the broader under-
notion of social media to appreciate not only standing of the term social media, encompassing
the antecedents of some current youth online all of the above.
practices, but also the development of research In examining social media and youth, it is also
concepts and frameworks related to this topic. important to distinguish what is meant by youth.
For many researchers and media commentators This term can cover different ages in different
the term social media refers principally, and countries; in some societies youth extends into
narrowly, to the more communication and inter- the late twenties, whereas in others such an age
action oriented parts of the internet, including would be considered young adulthood. Mean-
blogs, social networking sites such as Facebook, while, the legal definitions of adulthood, the age
and microblogging sites such as Twitter, as well at which young people are legally allowed to do
as to diverse platforms for sharing audiovisual different things (e.g., have sex, drive, buy alcohol),
material (e.g., YouTube, Flickr). The words “so- vary culturally. But the choice of words is an issue
cial media” first started to be used in 2005 and not just because of definitions and cut-off points,
reflected an interest in the growth of relatively but also because of their connotations. Not only
more recent interrelational parts of the internet, do writings about youth and “young people,” or
sometimes called Web 2.0 (Ito et al., 2010). teenagers, refer to older children, but, arguably,
Yet prior to these more recent applications, they often take a perspective stressing how their
social and communicative elements of the social world and practices are closer to, and mov-
internet predating Web 2.0 had been used by ing toward, adulthood. To refer to some of those
youth – for example, instant messaging (IM), same people as (still) “children” can sometimes
email, and chat rooms. In addition, youth had stress the link to the world of young children, as
developed the forerunners of some current social well as their vulnerabilities, dependencies, and
and communicative practices via other, older need for adult guidance.
media, including texting, as well as the more gen- The new sociology of childhood understands
eral uses of mobile phones. Given the emphasis in childhood and youth as social constructions that
current social media discussions on the creation vary culturally and can change over time (James
and sharing of content, it is worth noting that & Prout, 1997). In practice, only a relatively few
before Web 2.0, mobile phones were being used internet and mobile phone studies have focused
by young people to exchange audiovisual content on young children, and most of the discourse
(e.g., with Bluetooth) as well as to take and post about young people and social media websites has
pictures online. Young people learned about been about their use by older children, normally
creatively fashioning and sharing textual mes- in their teens. This entry will refer to youth or
sages – as well as the symbolic meanings of those young people, and will cover research whose
messages – through their use of texting and IM. object of study is youth, teenagers, adolescents,
Many of the research issues, concepts, and and (older) children. The word “children” is
frameworks (such as understanding the place of used here to denote the children of particular
information and communications technologies parents – that is, a family relationship.

The International Encyclopedia of Digital Communication and Society, First Edition.

Edited by Robin Mansell and Peng Hwa Ang.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118290743.wbiedcs088
2 SOCIAL MEDIA AND YOUTH

Youth and Mobile Phones as Ling (2004) noting how young people could
manage their social life away from the potential
This section examines research on young people’s parental monitoring associated with using the
use of mobile phones, including the origins both fixed, shared telephone in the home. The same
of young people’s social practices and of relevant could be said of smartphones, although there has
research frameworks and concepts. The earliest been less research on this.
research on youth and mobile phones was con- Many mobile phone studies contextualized such
ducted around 2000, with studies of youth and efforts at control and resistance within broader
texting appearing by 2001, reflecting the relatively parent–child power relations, as exemplified
early adoption of mobile phones by youth in some in the rules parents tried to impose on their
countries during the late 1990s. Much of the early children’s mobile phone usage. Others stressed
mobile phone research, including research on actual conflict less, referring more to managed
youth, took place in Europe and later in Asia, in autonomy as parents supported their children’s
large part because of the earlier developments increasing independence. While some research
of the mobile phone market in those regions identified conflicts over the cost of children’s
compared with North America, where studies of mobile phone use (arguments that had previ-
youth and cellphones appear from about 2005. ously existed about the costs of fixed line use),
Some of these early studies of youth and mobile other studies noted how encouraging children
phones took place in Finland and Norway, where to pay some of these costs was a new form of
penetration rates were generally higher, and also training to help them manage their financial
in the United Kingdom, Japan, and, later, Italy. independence. Allowing their children to have a
Japanese studies of youth and mobile phones phone was at one time itself identified as a rite
(ketiai in Japanese) emerged out of studies of of passage – leading in one Norwegian study to
paging technology in the late 1990s, first appear- parents reflecting on the “right” age for a child
ing in an English volume in 2005 (Ito, Okabe, & to have a phone, as younger and younger chil-
Matsuda, 2005). dren acquired them (Ling & Helmersen, 2000).
One early and ongoing focus of studies was Equivalent discussions later appeared in relation
on how the mobile phone fitted into relations to young people’s access to smartphones.
between young people and their parents. Given Certain writings about parents managing their
that parents often provided their children with children’s mobile phone use also framed these
mobile phones and subsequently financed much practices within general changes in family life
of their use, one question concerned parents’ itself, including changes in the social construc-
motivations for doing so. In the European tion of childhood. Broadly using Giddens’s (1991)
research, the motivation seemed to have been notion of the detraditionalization of institutions
chiefly to monitor where their children were, such as the family, various writers had discussed
hence the use of the early “umbilical cord” the increasing elements of democracy in many
metaphor. Yet, just as some parents later checked families with (especially older) children being
their children’s social media websites to find allowed to express their views and negotiate
out what they were doing, that surveillance was with parents. The general point, also relevant
always regarded as problematic. Research had for the narrower understanding of social media,
already established that, at times, youth wanted is that not only are new technologies, facilities,
some privacy from their parents. Those studies and applications constantly being developed, but
also identified some resistance, especially among this is occurring when family relationships may
older children, to total monitoring, noting young themselves be changing.
people’s “parent management strategies” (such The other major focus of research was on
as saying the battery had run out or they could how mobile phones fitted into and changed inter-
not find the signal). The equivalent strategies actions between peers. This included observations
were later to be found in some of the research on about the fashionable or symbolic dimension of
youth use of social media websites. The mobile this technology and how the choice of brand
phone provided a personalized and portable was a part of young people’s presentation of self.
means of communication, with researchers such Japanese studies noted how youth in Japan took
 SOCIAL MEDIA AND YOUTH 3

this a stage further by customizing mobile phones developed in Japan, it proved very popular with
through accessories and ring tones. Another young people because it was silent and led to
example of symbolic meaning was how, at one practices such as sending a written message first
time, the number of entries in the phone’s address to check where the person being contacted was
book and the number of calls and texts received and whether they were free to take a voice call.
were used as indicators of popularity among Although even early research mentioned school
peers. The later internet version of this occurred rules about mobile use (and resistance to these,
when the number of “buddies” on IM and the such as youth phoning from the school toilets),
number of “friends” on social networking site there have been few studies of such institutional
profiles, including visits to those profiles and constraints.
“likes” expressed by others, were all taken to Finally, research reflected the fact that mobile
indicate popularity. phones were themselves evolving since, even
As regards communications, texting received before smartphones, mobile phones had become
a substantial amount of research attention, espe- “platforms” for an increasing number of func-
cially since youth – or rather a specific cohort of tions. The one that received the most attention
youth in the late 1990s – were seen as pioneering was the photo (and, subsequently, video) cam-
the practice. There was early work on the devel- era on the mobile phone, with research noting
opment of texting etiquette, how young people the practice of taking pictures on the phone
shared texts (allowing others to look at them) and posting these images online, sometimes
and how they could experiment with the affor- after some process of decoration. This was
dances of this application – the lack of nonverbal one early form of youth producing user gen-
clues and its asynchronous nature – especially in erated content involving mostly pictures from
sensitive communications such as dating. Given everyday life (as opposed to special occasions).
that the content of many texts was often not Some research also noted the shared listening
substantial in terms of the information conveyed, to music on mobile phones and practices of
attention also turned to the nature of certain exchanging both audio and visual material via
communications as gifts, implying reciprocity, Bluetooth.
where the symbolic nature of the gesture of
sending a text was important for maintaining
peer relationships. Sometimes this was referred Youth and the Internet
to as “lightweight” contact (Ito, 2005). Again,
these characterizations were later applied to some There was a pioneering study of the internet in
of young people’s communications via internet the United States in the mid-1990s that included
based social media. More specifically, there was young people’s experiences online (Turkle 1995),
also some research on youth and social capi- and observations about interactions in families
tal. This focused on whether the use of mobile with children were made in some general studies
phones to stay in nearly perpetual contact with of internet use from 1996 to 1998. The first dedi-
closer networks of friends led to the formation cated empirical studies of young people’s internet
of cliques (Ling, 2004) – that is, it strength- practices, however, were conducted from about
ened bonding capital at the potential expense of 1998 to 2000. This included studies in North
bridging capital. America (in the United States and Canada),
Although most research on young people’s Europe (in the United Kingdom, Belgium, and
use of mobile phones dealt with their rela- Norway), and in Asia (in Singapore and Taiwan),
tions with parents and peers, there were other and there was one Israeli study. Apart from
strands, such as studies drawing attention to descriptions of children’s early adoption of online
the social constraints on young people’s use of activities, these studies covered themes such as
mobiles. For instance, one study noted wider the extent of, and motivations for, identity play
social discourses about the growing unruliness (later discussed in relation to young people’s
of youth in Japan and how calling in certain self-presentation on social media websites), the
public spaces, such as transport, was prohib- consequences of children’s use of the internet
ited (Ito, 2005). When mobile email was first for sociability, how the offline world influenced
4 SOCIAL MEDIA AND YOUTH

behavior online, and whether internet use dis- have to share access to the online world (Horst,
placed time for other activities which were, in 2010).
turn, responses to some claims and concerns at Bovill and Livingstone’s (2001) research in the
the time. United Kingdom identified a “bedroom culture”
The first report on youth and online victimiza- as an increasingly media rich private space in
tion was published in 2000 and lists of parental which ICTs, including the internet, were being
concerns and strategies for influencing their chil- used. One caveat is that sometimes the nature
dren’s experiences date from 2001. As regards the of the housing means there are fewer relatively
particular aspects of the internet that we might private spaces from which young people can go
conceptualize as social media, the first research online, that is, where they do not have their own
on home pages in the United States (predating bedrooms. This has been noted both in the more
social networking service [SNS] profiles) was recent qualitative studies of poorer households
published in 2000, IM (and email) following and also in observations about cross-cultural
in 2001, and chat rooms in 2003 – again, the differences – for example, in the lack of private
latter two reflected the aspects of the internet spaces in Japanese homes. Even where children
that were popular among youth at the time. The had their own bedrooms, parents were encour-
first published work on SNSs appeared by 2006, aged by parental organizations and government
and, of all social media, these sites, especially the advice to use the location of computers as a means
more high-profile ones like Myspace and Face- to check and control their children’s internet use,
book, are the ones where the social networking for example by putting the personal computer
practices of youth have been most researched. in a shared space like the living room, where its
As a result, there are gaps in the research base use could be casually and physically monitored
as regards practices on other platforms such as by parents. Research in the United Kingdom and
virtual worlds (e.g., Habbo Hotel), gaming sites, the United States has shown that some parents,
and audiovisual platforms such as YouTube, even but by no means all, have adopted this policy.
though these often have communications options Although there has been little research on the
and the equivalent of profiles. efficacy of this strategy, if any rule breaking, or
Although a substantial amount of research indeed any intimate communications exchanged
on children’s internet use concerns what they between young people, is potentially more visible
do online, the offline context in which they to their parents, this may have a bearing on
live has a bearing on their behavior in virtual how youth behave online. It remains to be seen
spaces. In particular, as in the case of the mobile what impact more portable platforms for access,
phone, it is important to consider the influence of such as tablets and smartphones, might have in
parent–child relations. Some of the early research undermining such parental monitoring strategies
looked at what form of internet access parents within the home.
granted (or were able to grant) children, in what Parents’ management of their children’s time
spaces, and under what time constraints. has, for a long while, received more research
As regards the nature of access, the literature attention. Even before the internet, there had
on adults’ own use has shown the limitations of been a longstanding concern about ICTs such as
poorer (i.e., more unreliable, slower) connections, TV, games, and even computers taking up “too
sometimes related to the costs of internet access much” of children’s time – taking time away from
(especially when pay-per-use tariffs were first the other things they could be doing. In contrast
used for narrowband access). Although there has to the term “social media,” one of the earliest dis-
been little discussion of how this affected young cussions related to concerns about the “asocial”
people’s use, it clearly could (e.g., for stream- internet, that is, its negative effect on sociability.
ing videos from YouTube nowadays) – and, Although this was a more general debate about all
in part, can – reflect the overall economic cir- internet users, the discussions included whether
cumstances and socioeconomic status of the internet use specifically encouraged children
different households in which children live. to spend less time with family members and
Household composition can also be a factor friends. Even when (adults and) young people
shaping children’s experiences where siblings used the internet to communicate – that is, to
 SOCIAL MEDIA AND YOUTH 5

be sociable – the quality of this interaction was orientated discussion drawing on the social
still sometimes seen as inferior to face-to-face construction of childhood noted that peer rela-
interaction with peers (Haddon, 2004). tionships had themselves been shaped by age
While many such parental concerns were about stratification in schooling, increased years of
their children finding a “balance” in their lives, dependency through exclusion from the labor
some parents were more critical of entertain- market, and the commercialization of youth
ment and communications activities because (Ito et al., 2010). This was the social context in
they distracted children from their educational which young people interacted, and one of the
commitments. Studies repeatedly show one of the more recent changes in their circumstances was
key parental rules to be a limit on how much time the increasing pressure in some countries like
young people are allowed to spend online overall, the United Kingdom and the United States to
and how much time they can spend on particular exclude youth-only groups from certain public
online activities (e.g., on social networking sites spaces, such as streets, parks, libraries, and shop-
as opposed to looking things up for schoolwork). ping malls (Buckingham, 2000). While, in some
They also show that parents often try to con- countries, there are adult supervised spaces for
trol the timing of online activities, for example youth, such as after school sports activities, this
allowing their children to participate in gaming is not the same as unsupervised spaces where
online only after, and as a reward for, doing young people can “negotiate identity, gossip,
homework, or allowing no external online com- support one another, jockey for status, collabo-
munications during “family times,” for example rate, share information, flirt, joke and goof off”
mealtimes. (boyd, 2010, p. 78). Even before social media
By 2001, a large empirical study (Lenhart, websites appeared, the metaphor of young people
Rainie, & Lewis, 2001) in the United States “hanging out” in virtual spaces with their peers
was already listing the other parental concerns had been coined, and this parallel to physically
under a risk agenda (e.g., meeting strangers, “hanging out” in public spaces was drawn upon
encountering porn) as well as parental mediation in studies of the way SNSs were taken up by
strategies (e.g., monitoring what children did youth. This work supported the argument that
online, sitting with them when they were online). part of the appeal of the online world in general,
One key theme in discussions of parent–children including online social media, is that there are
relationships was that of young people’s privacy, fewer opportunities for young people to engage
specifically privacy from parents (but sometimes with each other beyond the surveillance of adults
also from siblings). Young people had talked in the physical world.
about the “invasion of their privacy” when their One of the earliest themes explored in research
parents entered their bedrooms without asking, was that of identity play and indeed, at times,
or checked on the histories of their online use many youth have pretended to be someone they
in terms of websites visited. In the case of social are not (usually someone older). But research
network sites where youth have constructed very suggests that this often has been done as a joke,
personal spaces, however, when parents seek to as a means of dealing with requests for personal
find out what is on those spaces, studies suggest information, as a way of avoiding adult surveil-
that a sense of invasion of privacy is even more lance, or to open accounts on social network
acute, and sometimes met by making profiles sites like Facebook when the young people are
private to keep parents out (Horst, 2010). underage (i.e., under 13 years old). In practice
As in the mobile phone literature, a consid- it seems that most youth have contact online,
erable amount of internet research deals with especially via SNS, with peers whom they already
interactions among peers, often citing the same know offline, or who are at least friends of friends,
frameworks from the psychology of child devel- developing “friendship-driven practices” online
opment that indicated how important social (boyd, 2010). In this context they tend to post
networks of peers are at this life stage, espe- profiles with real details about their lives (i.e.,
cially for the formation of identity. Just as in name, interests, what they are doing). At one
the material looking at social constraints in the stage there had been speculation about the degree
case of mobile phone use, a more sociologically to which the internet enabled people, including
6 SOCIAL MEDIA AND YOUTH

youth, to make new online contacts based around Apart from privacy from parents, privacy online
communities of interest and develop “interest- in general was another early theme in internet
driven practices” online. While this happens, research, although when first investigated in a
for most it appears that online contact via social 1998 study in the United States, this concerned
media supplements (and potentially enhances) children giving personal information to commer-
relationships offline. One strand of research that cial companies. Attention subsequently turned
began looking at whether SNSs increase (bridging to what information youth made public about
and bonding) social capital subsequently looked themselves, both narrowly in terms of personal
specifically at this process in the online social details that identified them offline (relevant for
networks of young people. the dangers involved in meeting strangers) and,
Perhaps even more so than in the case of more broadly, in terms of what they were willing
texting on mobile phones, from the first studies to reveal about themselves which could have
of IM, chat rooms, and home pages, internet subsequent implications for their reputations.
research focused on ways in which the virtual In the eyes of media commentators, parents,
world supported new channels and forms of and some researchers, young people sometimes
experimentation and display by young people in seemed to reveal more about themselves than
the presentation of self and in the formation of previous generations. Yet studies have noted that
identity through the feedback received online. while they provide enough information to remain
When SNSs appeared, this process continued, interesting to visitors and, sometimes, to create
arguably expanding because of the greater ease a sense of intimacy, young people in practice
of creating profiles on these sites (compared, e.g., often have a refined sense of privacy, expressing
to older home pages and blogs). The affordances a concern, for example, about who should see
of this medium with public and private settings what they post. In this respect, the simplified
meant that privacy could be controlled (including SNS notion of “friends” who can access profiles
maintaining privacy from parents). While most does not do justice to the more refined gradations
of the underlying motivations for young people of friendship with which youth operate offline
to communicate in general are not new, it has (Livingstone, 2009).
been repeatedly argued that this more physically
disembodied space allows for more flexible and
creative forms of sociability (Livingstone, 2009). The Risk Agenda
To put this into perspective, however, the lack
of nonverbal clues in the virtual world, as with The literature on youth and the internet, per-
texting, can also lead young people to prefer to haps more than that on mobile phones, provides
use the phone or face-to-face meetings for certain examples of the benefits from and opportuni-
types of communication. ties related to social media, including creativity,
Communication on social media networks developing more social skills, and facilitating
has been characterized as a form of “virtual socializing among young people. However, such
co-presence,” a “sustained conversation,” again positive comments are sometimes a precursor
involving “lightweight” communication such as to listing concerns about what young people
providing status updates on SNSs. It has also experience online. This has been framed in terms
been regarded as a continuation of the process of the concept of “risk.” There is a substantial
whereby young people “keep tabs” on each other body of writing about potential negative aspects
(as in the case of texting). While researchers of youth online, but to put that in perspective,
have commented on the gossip and related social researchers have pointed out that these echo a
dramas that predated the internet, social media, long history of concerns about youth generally,
especially social networking sites, through their and, specifically, about their experience of each
affordances can make these interactions more new ICT (Critcher, 2008).
visible. Hence they can increase the scope and The mobile phone literature from time to time
scale of such acts of drama – for example, argu- touched upon potentially negative practices
ments and even bullying – in effect amplifying such as using mobiles to video “happy slapping”
them (boyd, 2010). events (hitting someone to get a reaction and
 SOCIAL MEDIA AND YOUTH 7

then posting the video online) and tensions though there are gray areas between the three
around taking “embarrassing” still pictures with terms (Livingstone & Haddon, 2009). Content
the phone, posting them, and teasing the vic- (such as seeing pornography or violence online)
tim about it. But it is mainly in relation to the was at one stage largely related to the World Wide
internet that worries about children’s experi- Web, but young people encountering especially
ences online have been raised. Although this violent content on YouTube also has made it an
research includes academic studies, the literature issue for social media.
also has institutional support from nongovern- There has been a longstanding concern about
mental organizations (NGOs) and other bodies the contact issue with respect to firms marketing
interested more generally in children’s safety to children online, including on social media
or behavior to others (e.g., Save the Children, sites. The most high-profile contact issue is
Anti-Bullying Alliance). These bodies have being “groomed” by strangers and worries about
commissioned research to show the extent and pedophiles, although contact also encompasses
consequences of potential problems, conducted being harassed. While potentially serious in its
awareness programs, and organized training consequences, such grooming is relatively rare
to raise their public visibility. In Europe, state and US research has shown that youth interact
and regional governments have also supported with unknown others usually with very few neg-
such initiatives. The most influential support ative outcomes (Wolak, Finkelhor, & Mitchell,
was from the European Commission’s Safer 2008).
Internet Programme (with the Family Online The most high-profile conduct issue, cover-
Safety Institute, a private sector-led initiative, ing what potentially negative things children
being the equivalent national focal body in the do themselves online, is cyberbullying others,
United States). As it moved to more evidence but conduct may also include hacking (often
based policy, the European Commission program experienced as others getting into young people’s
commissioned research involving the academic accounts and sending messages pretending to be
community (in the European Union Kids Online from the victim) and sexting (which has multi-
Project: www.eukifdsonline.net) both as a basis ple definitions, but often means young people,
for negotiating with the relevant parts of the for whatever reason, sending each other sexual
internet industry but also to develop a critical images of themselves).
assessment of potential issues, in contrast to the The relevance for social media is that contact
moral panic style of reporting that sometimes and conduct issues can occur in and through
appears in the media. virtual places where youth socialize, hence the
A wide variety of disparate concerns had been earliest concern was about chat rooms. As they
voiced about online dangers to “children” (occa- went out of fashion, attention shifted to the risks
sionally to “youth”). One issue, voiced about of social networking sites, as these are the more
previous ICTs such as TVs and home computers, popular online spaces among young people. One
concerned time spent online. In its most acute US report, discussing some of these issues under
form this was framed in terms of internet “ad- the heading of “victimization,” appeared in 2000
diction,” although many researchers resist the (Finkelhor, Mitchell, & Wolak, 2000), but much
medicalization of the issue implied by that term. of the research related to these concerns was
The key focus in this research is not just the sheer published from about 2005.
amount of time spent online, but whether, in Although there had been research on rules set
some sense, use becomes obsessive, and even by parents related to use of the fixed telephone
young people have sometimes noted how tempt- in the mid-1990s, studies dealing specifically
ing social media like Facebook can be. Hence one with what later was termed “parental mediation”
focus is on aspects of the internet that are very appear in 2001 and cover a range of ICTs such
engaging, such as gaming, or various SNSs. as TV, phones, and home computers. While this
The EU Kids Online research drew up a typ- strand of research is principally concerned with
ology of the concerns, classifying them as con- the different strategies used by parents to mediate
tent, contact, and conduct issues. This has been their children’s experiences of technologies, and
adopted widely in the research community, even now social media, it has also addressed related
8 SOCIAL MEDIA AND YOUTH

issues. These include how much parents actually about the radical newness of each new technology
know about how ICTs work, how much they or service, ICT researchers often find precursors
know about their children’s experiences online, to emphasize the continuities that exist with what
especially negative experiences, and how the has gone before. When domesticating new ICTs
children react to the interest shown or rules set (Silverstone, 2005), people in general often build
by parents. on their experiences of older ICTs, and this entry
With the arrival of internet based social media, has indicated that this also holds true for youth.
the list of research questions expanded to cover Taking a wider view of social media, there are
whether parents electronically monitor what continuities in the practices developed by youth,
their children do, whether they technologically in concerns shown about youth and technologies
block or restrict certain activities or specifically and in the research themes, research questions
examine safety issues. The results of that research asked, frameworks used, and characterizations
have shown how finding out about what their of social processes, as in repeated discussions of
children do, especially talking to the children, is “lightweight” communications dating from early
still a key form of parental mediation along with mobile phone studies. An important aspect high-
rule making, especially for younger youth, the lighted by this work is that we need to appreciate
main rule being about the disclosure of personal the context in which young children go online to
information. Research focusing on how ICTs understand the issues and practices and, specif-
mediate these relationships also expanded to ask ically, the sometimes changing circumstances in
whether other agents, such as peers and teachers, which they live their lives in the offline world.
could play a mediating role and it seems that in
the case of some sensitive experiences, young
SEE ALSO: Children, Protection of; One Lap-
people often choose to discuss any problems with
top Per Child (OLPC) Strategy; Online Games,
peers slightly more than they do with parents.
Addiction and Overuse of; Online Games and
As the technology has developed, so too has the
Children; Online Games, Effects of; Privacy and
risk agenda. In the mid-2000s, when the mobile
Social Media; Social Media; Social Media and
phone first enabled internet access, there was
Literacy; Social Media Ownership; Social Media
some policy discussion and related research on
and Social Capital
whether this increased risks because it increased
young people’s ability to evade their parents’
surveillance when they went online. At the time,
the cost of doing so meant that young people References
generally used the mobile phone very little to
access the internet. Five years later, the appear-
Bovill, M., & Livingstone, S. (2001). Bedroom culture
ance and growth in popularity of smartphones
and the privatization of media use. In S. Livingstone
among youth led to another wave of research, and M. Bovill (Eds.), Children and their changing
mostly focused on the implications of mobile media environment: A European comparative study
access to the internet, including social media like (pp. 179–200). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
SNSs, in terms of whether this increased risks or
boyd, d. (2010). Friendship. In M. Ito, J. Antin, M.
led to new ones (e.g., in relation to the location Finn, A. Law, & A. Manion (Eds.), Hanging out, mess-
applications on smartphones). ing around, and geeking out: Kids living and learning
with new media (pp. 79–116). Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Conclusions Buckingham, D. (2000). After the death of childhood:
Growing up in the age of electronic media. Cambridge,
Social media in the narrower sense have their own UK: Polity.
specific affordances and histories; for example, Critcher, C. (2008). Making waves: Historical aspects
SNSs achieved far greater popularity among of public debates about children and mass media.
youth than earlier home pages ever did, and this In K. Drotner & S. Livingstone (Eds.), The inter-
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sociological study of children. London, UK: Falmer. Leslie Haddon is a senior researcher and part-
Lenhart, A., Rainie, L., & Lewis, O. (2001). Teenage life time lecturer in the Department of Media and
on-line. The rise of instant messaging and the internet’s Communications at the London School of Eco-
impact on friendship and family relationships, Wash- nomics and Political Science. His research, over
ington, DC: Pew Internet and American Life Project. 25 years, has focused on the social shaping and
Ling, R. (2004). The mobile connection: The cell phone’s
consumption of ICTs. He is currently working on
impact on society. San Francisco, CA: Morgan
Kaufmann.
the EU Kids Online project.