Digital stress within early adolescents’ friendships : a focus group study from Belgium

Abstract: Social media and constant online connectivity create opportunities, but also new challenges for early adolescents, who are often still developing their social skills. This focus group study aims to explore young teenagers’ perceptions about how digital media is associated with digital stress within their friendships. We held nine focus group interviews, among 51 secondary school students (n = 24 male, 47 %; n = 27 female, 53 %) between the ages of 13 and 16 years old (M = 14.35 years; SD = 0.74) in the Dutch-speaking community of Belgium. The analysis revealed that many early adolesc... Mehr ...