People Are More Likely to Be Your Friend if They Know You From Twitter

Given the thorough integration of social media into the lives of the majority of American teens, it is no surprise that these sites play an important office in the institution of friendships and the everyday back and along of peer relationships. This affiliate takes an in-depth look at the role of social media in teens' friendships, looking at teen friendships more broadly defined.

Social media is an important venue for interaction and conversation among America'southward youth. Fully 76% of all teens utilise social media. Facebook is the dominant platform, with 71% of all teens using it. Instagram and Snapchat also have get increasingly important, with 52% of teens using Instagram and 41% using Snapchat. 1-third of American teens apply Twitter and some other third apply Google Plus. Fewer teens utilize Vine or Tumblr.

Social media plays a critical office in connecting teens to new friends, allowing teens to learn more about new friends and go to know them better. Nearly 2-thirds (64%) of teens who have fabricated a new friend online say they have met new friends on a social media platform. Two-thirds (62%) of teens say they've shared their social media username with a make new friend every bit a mode to stay in touch.

Beyond making new friends, social media is major mode that teens collaborate with their existing friends. More than nine-in-ten teens (94%) say they spend time with friends on social media. Fully 30% say they spend time with friends on social media every 24-hour interval, and another third (37%) say they do so every few days. When asked to rank the ways they communicate with friends, social media sites like Facebook or Twitter are one of the elevation ways of communicating with friends for two-thirds (66%) of teens.

A Majority of Teens Say Social Media Better Connects Them to Their Friends' Feelings and Lives

As discussed earlier in the report, social media is a critical platform for making and staying in touch with friends. Given this, and the frequency with which many teens use social media, information technology is not surprising that teen social media users written report that social media makes them experience better connected to their friends' feelings and to information about what is going on in their friends' lives. More than than eight-in-ten (83%) social media-using teens say social media makes them more connected to information nigh what is happening in their friends' lives and lxx% say these social platforms better connect them to their friends' feelings.

Girls who utilise social media are more likely than boys to say they are "a lot" better connected to information nearly their friends' lives (40% vs. 26% boys) and their friends' feelings (24% vs. 16% of boys) thanks to social media.

While teens of all races and ethnicities are equally probable to feel more connected to information virtually what'due south going on in their friends' lives through social media, black youth are more likely to say they feel "a lot" more connected. Hispanic teens are more likely than whites to say they feel more connected to friends' feelings through social media, with 78% of Hispanic youth saying this compared with 65% of white youth.

Smartphones offering near constant access to friends and for social media users, their friends' online postings. Not surprisingly, teens who take access to smartphones and employ social media are more likely to report that they feel "a lot" more connected to what's happening in their friends lives than teens without a smartphone. While both groups are equally likely to say they feel more connected to friends through their social media apply, 36% of smartphone owners say they feel "a lot" better connected to friends while a quarter (25%) of teens without smartphone access report the same caste of connexion.

Teens from our focus groups told us that they appreciate the way social media keeps them in the loop with friends. I high school boy explained, "I proficient affair to come out it is you can discover out what your friends do and check on them if you're not there. So like detect out who they hooked upwardly with and what they did…"

Teens also enjoy the way social media better connects them to more people. As i high schoolhouse boy said, "And yous tin talk to people a lot more often 'crusade you don't need to see them in person."

Nearly nine-in-x social media-using teens believe people overshare on these platforms

Fifty-fifty as teens often feel better continued to friends' feelings and information most their lives through social media, they also written report that they are sometimes too connected to their friends' lives. Fully 88% of social media-using teens concord that people share too much information about themselves on social media, with 35% agreeing strongly. These information concord true regardless of which social media platforms teens use.

Teens from rural areas are more than likely to concord strongly that people share too much information nigh themselves on social media than their urban or suburban counterparts, with 46% of rural teens strongly agreeing, compared with 31% of suburban teens and 39% of urban youth.

Social media non only connects teens to information and friends, only likewise connects them to opportunities for social support from their friends, peers and broader social networks. Among teens, 68% take received support on social media during challenges or tough times.

Following adult gender patterns around asking for and receiving social support on social media, girls are more likely to report receiving such back up on social media, with about three-quarters (73%) of girls garnering back up, compared with 63% of social media-using boys.

When examining overall back up on social media during tough times, white social media-using teens are more likely than Hispanic teens to report receiving support on the platforms. Almost three-quarters (72%) of white teens who use social media receive support for tough times on these platforms, while 59% of Hispanics receive similar encouragement. Digging downwards into the information, black teens who use social media are only as probable overall as white and Hispanic teens to garner support on social media in these situations. Still, they are more likely than white youth who use social media to say they receive that support frequently – with 28% of black teens reporting frequent back up, while 15% of white teens report similar boosting from their online network during tough times.

Social media-using teens from households with more modest incomes are more likely than teens from the wealthiest families to say people frequently support them through challenges on social media. While 23% of teens from families earning less than $50,000 annually say they ofttimes take people supporting them on social media, 14% of teens from families earning more than $75,000 per year written report frequent support.

Smartphone users are more likely than teens without access to smartphones to say people support them through challenges or tough times through social media. Fully 71% of smartphone-using teens who utilize social media say people back up them through tough times on those platforms, while 58% of teens without a smartphone say the aforementioned.

Even as social media connects teens to friends' feelings and experiences in ways both positive and excessive, that same sharing can reveal events and activities to which teens weren't invited, and tin can lead to negative comparisons between their own lives and the lives of those they are continued to on social media.

53% of social media-using teens have seen people posting to social media about events to which they were not invited

A fleck more than half (53%) of social media-using teens accept witnessed others posting to social media about gatherings, events or parties that they weren't invited to. Most teens don't experience this very frequently, with the majority of teens (42%) saying information technology happens occasionally and only eleven% saying it happens often.

Teens from households with more highly educated parents are more than likely to say they oasis't been invited to events they afterward saw posted on social media. Two-thirds (65%) of teen social media users with parents with a college education or more than say they've seen postings for events they weren't invited to, equally accept one-half (l%) of teens whose parents accept completed some college and 47% of teens whose parents have a high schoolhouse diploma or less.

Almost teens don't feel worse most their lives based on what they see from others on social media

Social media exposes teens and adults to data about the lives of their friends. Given what we know about how teens curate and manage data posted to their social media platforms, some profiles post a highlight reel of individual lives, rather than a fuller picture of ups and downs. And while some youth experience worse about their ain lives considering of what they see on friends' social media postings, the majority of teen social media users say they generally do not experience bad about their lives based on what they see on these platforms.

More than three-quarters (78%) of teens say they do not experience worse about their own lives based on what others post to social media, while 21% of teens say they do. Amongst those who practice experience worse about their lives based on what they see on social media, near practice not feel this particularly acutely; 17% say they feel "a little" worse and 4% say they feel "a lot" worse.

Hispanic youth are somewhat more than likely to written report that they feel worse about their own lives because of social media

More a quarter (28%) of Hispanic teens report feeling worse nearly their lives because of social media postings, significantly more the 12% of black youth who experience this style. The difference between these two groups and the 21% of white teens who say they feel worse is not statistically significant.

Self-Presentation and Curation of Social Media Presence

Teens as well as adults spend time curating and planning how to nowadays themselves in online social spaces. Adults have often admonished teens to think carefully about what they mail and share online, and in many cases, teens have taken this to centre. Online profiles and presence are synthetic things for youth. With this need to be careful comes a need to present themselves to multiple audiences – to exist authentic and compelling to peers and to simultaneously present a potentially sanitized and appropriate digital persona to adults like parents, teachers, future employers and college admissions officers.

Teens struggle to balance the needs of their dissimilar audiences and it shows in the pressures they experience and the attitudes they express about how their peers present themselves.

A large majority of teen social media users agree that people go to testify dissimilar sides of themselves on social media that they cannot show offline

Some 85% of teen social media users agree that people go to testify different sides of themselves on social media that they cannot bear witness offline. This sentiment is consistent across virtually major demographic groups.

Teens with access to smartphones are also more likely to say people prove different sides of themselves on social media, with 88% of smartphone owners like-minded with that statement, compared with 76% of teens without a smartphone.

In one of our focus groups, a high school daughter explains what she considers a positive side of social media: "Information technology allows yous to bear witness, like, a different side of yourself. … I mean, you can talk almost different things. If you're in person with them, you can joke around. Just and so like if you lot're texting with them or talking about something serious, yous tin talk about serious things and politics and stuff, and it shows a dissimilar side of yourself that you might not talk about with them in person."

Roughly three-quarters of teens think people are less accurate and real on social media than they are offline

Even as teens have the opportunity to share parts of themselves on social media that they can't share in person, those same self-presentations don't always feel authentic to their peers. Roughly three-quarters (77%) of social media-using teens agree people are less authentic and real on social media than they are offline.

Again, there are few major differences among unlike groups of teens in their understanding with this statement.

Many teens feel pressure to curate positive and well-liked content

While a majority of teens practise non experience pressure to post content that makes them wait good to others (such as parents or peers), twoscore% of teens practice written report feeling pressure to post positive and attractive content about themselves. The bulk of teens (xxx%) written report feeling "a petty" pressure, while simply ten% say they feel "a lot" of pressure.

Teens with more highly educated parents are essentially more likely than teens who have parents with less education to study pressure to only post content that makes them await practiced. More than half (54%) of social media-using teens whose parents have a college degree or more than report such pressure, while nigh of third of teens whose parents accept some college experience or a high school diploma or less say the same. The bulk of teens whose parents accept a higher degree (42%) report feeling the pressure "a niggling" – just 12% feel "a lot" of force per unit area to postal service only positive content about themselves to social media. There are no significant differences between boys and girls, different ages or races and ethnicities in feeling this pressure.

Teens who are mostly more interactive with others in a digital space – using it to make friends or play games with people they have never met – are all more than likely to experience pressure to only post content that makes them look good to others.

Many teens want to be liked by friends and peers and that extends to digital "likes" likewise.

In addition to the pressure some teens feel to mail service content that makes them look good, teens besides experience pressure to post content that others similar and annotate on. Similar to the percentage of teens who feel force per unit area to post content that makes them look good, 39% of teens on social media say they feel pressure to post content that will exist pop and get lots of comments or likes.

One center schoolhouse daughter in our focus groups explained the pressure level to post cool content to Instagram and how that led to the end of a friendship: "And then it's on Instagram. In my school, it'southward like so you post quality pictures, I judge, and that makes you cool. I don't know. It's like a lot of girls take … they purchase cameras just to exercise this – expensive cameras. So anyhow, I guess 1000 was accusing C of like being besides much like her, and one of the reasons was because C was posting pictures. So she would edit her pictures similar in such a style that information technology would look absurd. … I don't know how to describe it. It's just a quality cool affair, I guess. So like they lost their friendship, and part of the reason was because of her social media business relationship."

Teens with more highly educated parents are more likely to study feeling pressure to post content that volition garner likes or comments on social media. Nearly half (47%) of teens with parents with a higher degree or more report feeling such force per unit area, while just 36% of teens whose parents have some higher experience and 35% of teens whose parents have a loftier schoolhouse diploma or less study feeling pressure to mail service well-liked content.

Nevertheless, there are no differences between boys and girls, younger and older teens, or those of different racial or ethnic backgrounds when information technology comes to feeling pressure effectually posting content that others will like or annotate on.

Teens who feel pressure to post content that garners likes or comments frequently feel that they must post only content that makes them await good. Fully 59% of teens who feel "a lot" of pressure to post pop content feel similarly pressured to post content that makes them look good to others.

42% of teens have had someone post things most them that they cannot change or command; older teens and white teens are especially likely to report this

The pressure to postal service content that others like and find highly-seasoned may exist, in part, to counteract some other challenge that teens and adults face up on social media platforms: People posting content about them that they cannot command. Some 42% of teen social media users experience people posting things about them that they tin't change or control, with 9% indicating that this happens to them "frequently."

Older teen social media users are more likely to say they've experienced this: 46% of teens ages 15 to 17 say they've had people posting things well-nigh them that they can't alter, compared with just over a 3rd (35%) of teens ages 13 to xiv. Broadly, there are no differences between boys and girls in their likelihood of having people posting things near them that they can't change or control.

White teen social media users are more likely than Hispanic teens to written report that people have posted things about them that they can't control: 45% of white teens have experienced this, as take 32% of Hispanic teens. The 38% of black youth who have experienced this is not significantly different than white or Hispanic teens. All groups, but especially white teens, are likely to say this happens occasionally rather than often.

Amongst social media-using teens, those with more highly educated parents are more likely than teens with parents with lower levels of educational attainment to experience people posting things about them that they can't change or control. About one-half (48%) of social media-using teens whose parents accept a college caste or more say content has been posted nearly them on social media that they tin can't control, while 38% of teens whose parents have a high school diploma or less report similar experiences.

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Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2015/08/06/chapter-4-social-media-and-friendships/

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