Youth interaction with online strangers: experiences and reactions to unknown people on the Internet

ABSTRACT

Previous research on youths’ experiences with online strangers has mostly utilized quantitative designs which may result in the omission of important parts of the youths’ experiences and perceptions. In this qualitative study, we adopt a child-centred approach and focus on the children’s and adolescents’ experiences with unknown people from the Internet. This is one of the most pronounced parental concerns, despite the fact that an online presence is now normative for most children. We use the data from focus-groups and individual interviews in nine European countries (N = 368) conducted with youths between the ages of 9 and 16 years. Participants were asked about their perceptions of potentially negative or problematic situations while using the Internet and digital technology. Using thematic analysis, we classified youths’ experiences and reactions related to interacting with online strangers in four themes: (1) non-verbal interaction; (2) initiation of contact; (3) communication; and (4) face-to-face meeting. In all four levels of interactions, children and adolescents reported a variety of positive and negative experiences and reactions. We interpret our findings with a co-construction model which perceives children and adolescents as active participants in the online world. We conclude that children are successfully making active decisions to initiate, continue, and stop interactions with unknown people from the Internet. These findings broaden the current perspectives of youths’ meetings with unknown people online.

KEYWORDS:

• Online strangers
• interaction with unknown people
• co-construction model
• online risks

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Martina Cernikova is a Junior Researcher at the Institute for Research on Children, Youth and Family at Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic, and a Ph.D. candidate in Social Psychology. Her main interest is in qualitative data analysis. She has experience with data collection and the data coding of qualitative interviews in several projects, including EU Kids Online III, and Young Children (0–8) and Digital Technology. Her research topics are focused on the online risky behaviour of children and other problematic situations linked with the online world and online privacy. She is also a trainee in systemic psychotherapy [email: [email protected]].

Lenka Dedkova, Ph.D., is a researcher at the Institute for Research of Children, Youth and Family (Masaryk university, Brno, Czech republic) and a member of Interdisciplinary Research Team on Internet and Society (IRTIS) which researches social-psychological implications of the Internet and technology. Her research interests include cyberbullying and meeting online strangers, with focus on children and adolescents, but she is also interested in online security behaviour and SNS [email: [email protected]].

David Smahel, Ph.D. is the Professor at the Institute of Children, Youth and Family Research, Masaryk University, the Czech Republic. He is member of Interdisciplinary Research Team on Internet and Society (IRTIS) which researches social-psychological implications of the Internet and technology. Current research focuses on adolescents’ and adults’ Internet use, the online risks of children and adolescents, the construction of online identities and virtual relationships, and online addictive behaviour. He is editor of Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace and has co-authored book Digital Youth: The Role of Media in Development (Springer, 2011). Smahel also published in several international journals such as Developmental Psychology, Cyberpsychology & Behavior, Zeitschrift für Psychologie, European Journal of Developmental Psychology and others. He is also author of several book chapters, such as in Encyclopedia of Cyber Behavior, Encyclopedia of Adolescence, Internet Addiction: A Handbook and Guide to Evaluation and Treatment, Gesundheit und Neue Medien, etc. [email: [email protected]].

ORCID

Martina Cernikova http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6159-5501

Lenka Dedkova http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0807-1183

David Smahel http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2767-4331

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Masaryk University [MUNI/M/1052/2013].