Social Networking and Friendships

     It is impossible to fully understand any aspect of adolescent identity development without considering the influence of friends. During adolescence, teens begin to emancipate themselves from their parents and associate more with their peers. This is most likely the stage of life where friends are the most influential. Adolescents often find their identity in the social group to which they belong. Studies have shown that friends can determine the success or demise of adolescents. The desire for friends can be explained by William Schutez’s concept of the 3 interpersonal needs: control, inclusion, and affection. Friends meet all three of these needs and so does social networking. Adolescents can control their perceived identity on social networks. Also, in order to be relevant to and included in youth culture, teens must engage in online activity. Lastly, adolescents receive affection and are confirmed or disconfirmed based on the reactions to their online perceived identity (i.e. comments on walls and pictures.) Erikson also acknowledged the influence of friends on development. He claimed that, “An adolescent must struggle to discover and find his or her own identity, while negotiating and struggling with social interactions and “fitting in”, and developing a sense of morality and right from wrong” (Erikson). The Digital Youth Project did a study on the impact of social networks on friendships in the lives of adolescents and found that:

         “Most youth use online networks to extend the friendships that they navigate in the familiar contexts of school, religious organizations, sports, and other local activities. They can be “always on,” in constant contact with their friends through private communications like instant messaging or mobile phones, as well as in public ways through social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook” (Youth Safety). If adolescents are made more available to each other, then the already high influence that friends have on adolescent development will most likely increase. Consequently, the social pressure to fit in with a specific friend group will increase, possibly resulting in more motivation for falsifying an online identity. Unfortunately, adolescents are not only made more available to friends online, but they are also available to bullies, which leads into the last issue of adolescents’ social networking.