Characteristics and Motives of Adolescents Talking with Strangers on the Internet
Generate an AI Snapshot to get a quick, structured summary of this paper.
A concise AI-generated summary of the paper will appear here once you click Generate AI Snapshot.
TL;DR
It is found that early adolescents (12-14-year-olds) were most prone to talk with strangers on the internet, and the motives of entertainment, meeting new people, and social compensation increased adolescents' online communication with strangers.
Abstract
Despite widespread concerns about the dangers of adolescents' online communication with strangers, we know little about (a) which types of adolescents talk with strangers and (b) what motivates them to do so. Drawing on a survey among 412 Dutch adolescents, we found that early adolescents (12-14-year-olds) were most prone to talk with strangers on the internet. If adolescents communicated online more frequently, they less often talked with strangers on the internet. However, if adolescents engaged in long chat sessions, they tended to talk with strangers on the internet more often. In contrast to earlier research, introversion was not related to adolescents' tendency to talk with strangers. The motives of entertainment, meeting new people, and social compensation increased adolescents' online communication with strangers.