Adolescent Coping Strategies in the Face Of Their “Worst Online Experience”

Introduction

The Internet plays an important role in adolescents’ daily lives (Pew Research, 2013). Over 95% of youth in the United States aged 12-17 use the Internet and 80% of this group use virtual environments¹ such as Facebook and Twitter (Madden et al., 2013). These online contexts provide new platforms for adolescents to carry out developmental tasks and to engage in social interaction (Michikyan & Subrahmanyam, 2012; Subrahmanyam & Šmahel, 2011). While there are many benefits to these interactions (Subrahmanyam & Šmahel, 2011), there is a growing body of work that shows that their experiences often include negative social encounters such as online harassment victimization (Jones, Mitchell, & Finkelhor, 2013). Research suggests that victimization online is associated with poor well-being (Barchia & Bussey, 2010; Schenk & Fremouw, 2012; Ybarra, 2004) and problem behavior (Hinduja & Patchin, 2007; Suzuki, Asaga, Sourander, Hoven, & Mandell, 2012). These negative outcomes are likely due to adolescents’ negative affect and perception of a devalued social identity (Beran & Li, 2005; DeHue, Bolman, & Volink, 2008). Despite the concern for the impact of online harassment on adolescent health and adjustment (Mitchell, Ybarra, & Finkelhor, 2007; Jones et al., 2013), we know little about the coping strategies this population chooses to use to negotiate social experiences in virtual environments. Using adolescents’ own words, the present study explored their negative online experiences and the array of coping strategies they employed to navigate these events. Such an in-depth analysis of youth’s online social interactions can provide a unique window into their psychological world (Greenfield & Yan, 2006), and illuminate their perceived ability to “hold their own” in these virtual spaces.