Abstract
In a cultural context where youth spend almost as much time online as they do participating in any other daily activity, debates have emerged regarding the effects of cellphone and social media use on the well-being of today’s young Internet “addicts.” This research centres the narratives of 15 Canadian high school-aged youth to explore how they utilize cellphones and social media to facilitate (1) social connection, (2) identity expression, and (3) leisure, and consider how youth think about these technologies’ capacities to foster these elements of their lives. Findings reveal that certain online connections are used to strengthen friendships, yet the “always online” quality of social media can result in experiences of “phubbing” that make offline interactions awkward. Online acts of self-expression were described as meticulously edited to protect oneself against negative peer judgement. Finally, youth’s media consumption practices suggested rest and fun are best achieved without cellphones.
Introduction
In a cultural context where high school-aged youth spend almost as much of their time online as they do sleeping – or participating in any other daily activity – serious debates have emerged regarding the effects of cellphone and social media use on the well-being of today’s young Internet “addicts” (boyd, 2014; Vaterlaus et al., 2016). With evolving social media platforms quickly and intensely diversifying the role of cellphones in young people’s lives, these digital artifacts have transformed into flexible tools that offer youth varying opportunities to foster social connection, identity cultivation, and fun in leisure contexts. In turn, these various opportunities for mediated connection have fuelled and challenged contemporary moral panics surrounding young people’s online engagement and media consumption.
Indeed, despite everchanging elements of youth culture and requirements to fit in, mystified parents, educators, and other adult-aged youth “experts” continue to debate, discuss, and determine what is best for youth (boyd, 2014). As outsiders of youth cultural practices, many adults think about cellphones and their affordances through an overly simplistic dystopian and utopian rhetoric, where these technologies, on the one hand, create “addicts” with negative mental health and asocial tendencies or, on the other, spark revolutionary transformations that will help solve social inequalities (boyd, 2014). Unsurprisingly, these ideas are reproduced across media reports and public conversations that often leave out their very subjects (Adorjan & Ricciardelli, 2021) and undermine the value in understanding what draws youth to their cellphones and certain social media. With these considerations in mind, this research sought to explore the following questions: (a) How do contemporary Canadian youth utilize cellphones and social media to facilitate social connection, identity expression, and leisure? and (b) What do these youth think about these technologies’ capacities for connection, identity expression, and leisure?
While existing research has explored how cellphones and social media fit into young people’s everyday lives and interpersonal relationships (Adorjan & Ricciardelli, 2021; boyd, 2014, 2015; Vaterlaus et al., 2016), there is a gap that explicitly explores the way that youth consider the affordances and supposed “freedoms” that cellphones and social media offer them. Accordingly, through one-on-one and focus group interviews, 15 high school-aged youth provided in-depth narratives discussing their thoughts on and experiences with cellphones and social media. By centring youth’s understandings of their own cellphone and social media use, this research reveals how young people’s digital engagements cannot be dichotomously understood as either bad or good, frivolous or required, mindless or demanding, nor uniformly experienced across high school populations.
Reflexive thematic analysis revealed three key themes. First, certain forms of online connection are utilized for specific friends based on their closeness and importance to an individual. At the same time, the “always online” qualities of social media can result in “phubbing” – unsolicited moments where one member of a conversation is “snubbed” or ignored by their counterpart, whether friend, family member, or romantic partner, as they use and become distracted by their phone – that makes some offline interactions feel awkward. Second, online acts of self-expression were described as limited and meticulously edited. Instead of posting their “actual selves,” youth restricted their online acts of self-expression to protect themselves against judgement and saved “authentic” moments for more private online spheres. Finally, youth framed some of their leisurely media consumption practices as “mindless” and obligatory that suggested rest and fun are best achieved without cellphones. This youth-centred research aims to address a gap in existing literature, which often discuss how cellphones and social media impact young people today without including youth’s self-described experiences with these technologies and thoughts on their own digital participation and everyday online practices.
Literature Review
Theorizing about today’s interconnectedness can be tied to the short-story Láncszemek (“Chain-Links”) written by Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy in 1929, which highlighted how evolving communications technologies transform our sociocultural relations and “shrink” how we understand time and space (Seargeant & Tagg, 2014). This “shrink” is due to the fact that these new technologies render geographical boundaries less challenging with asynchronous and dynamic ways to “stay in touch” (Seargeant & Tagg, 2014). Around the time of Láncszemek’s publication, the telegram and transcontinental telephone communications were developing, thereby introducing new communicative possibilities and practices – as well as new fears surrounding the implications of these unfamiliar technologies (boyd, 2014; Seargeant & Tagg, 2014). boyd (2014) notes how, in the same way that rock-and-roll musicians were “seen as sinister figures bent on seducing children into becoming juvenile delinquents” (p. 14), new technologies, such as computers and cellphones, have been surrounded by moral panics associated with the decline of youth’s prosocial behaviours, morals, and intelligence.
Youth are cognizant of such ideas and “screenager” stereotypes associated with their cellphone use. Adorjan and Ricciardelli (2021) found that Canadian youth playfully embrace the label of “addict,” yet critically recognize that they are not the only cellphone and social media “addicts” in their households by noting how their parents’ and young siblings’ digital engagements may have significantly more problematic consequences than their own (e.g., parents’ cellphone use robs quality family time, younger siblings’ tech use results in dependence). Research by Vaterlaus et al. (2016) found that young people use Snapchat to enhance existing relationships with their most “important” friends, which suggests that youth are strategic with their mediated connections and recognize how utilizing one app over another to connect with someone can signify the relationship’s closeness and intimacy. Overall, these findings reveal how youth resist the notion that they are zombified addicts (boyd, 2014) who blindly scroll through social media and instead suggest that youth purposively use their phones and social media to maintain different connections.
Besides their affordances for connectedness and communication, another element that makes social media so appealing to youth are their capacity for identity management via the creation of users’ unique member profiles. While users are prompted to answer the same type of biographical questions (e.g., age, location, interests) and upload photos, videos, and media that eventually make up their profile, it is at the user’s discretion whether they create a profile that expresses themselves in a way that closely aligns with their “actual” physical self or, perhaps, “stretch the truth” to create an “ideal” self (boyd & Ellison, 2008; Zhao et al., 2008). Thus, online identities are greatly mediated in a way that is not possible in face-to-face interactions: the corporal body is not limited to its physical characteristics and a user’s personality and background may not be known to its online audience, thereby inviting opportunities for reinvention, role-play, and play pretend (Zhao et al., 2008).
Mediated identities in online environments can arguably help some marginalized youth feel liberated, as the online sphere “enables certain disadvantaged people to bypass the usual obstacles that prevent them from constructing desired identities in face-to-face settings” (Zhao et al., 2008, p. 1818). For instance, in their own online communities, queer girls and “birls” (boyish girls), who may be marginalized offline for their nonheterosexuality and androgyny, can express and embrace their “hidden selves” by participating in flirty and casual conversations, advice sharing about dating and fashion, as well as supportive and caring relations “precisely because they are addressed to other lesbian or bisexual girls who can relate and share feelings” (Driver, 2006, p. 235). Other examples include pro-ana/mia websites for youth with eating disorders, who utilize these platforms to seek emotional support that is unavailable to them offline and even “negotiate, manage, and develop a sense of identity. . . because of the support and approval of the online community” (Schott & Langan, 2015, p. 1163).
Despite these various online possibilities for play pretend and reinvention, more recent online identity portrayals are deeply anchored in young people’s offline worlds (boyd, 2014), resulting in an online setting that is primarily “nonymous,” where people are non-anonymous and connected with peers they know offline (Zhao et al., 2008). Accordingly, one’s successful and appropriate impression management through their careful curation of their online self-presentations – to look cool, successful, or confident, as youth understand it today – is a priority for many young people participating on social media. As Goffman (1959) suggested in his seminal work years before the everydayness of social media, impression management involves the decisions, behaviours, and actions one adopts in an attempt to foster and uphold a certain impression for the people around them. Despite one’s purposeful choices and activities toward creating a selected performance for their audience, however, explicit content provides implicit information that the audience may read as embarrassing, inauthentic, or otherwise “phony” (Goffman, 1959). The challenge of managing impressions and convincing one’s audience of the certainty and realness of their performance is amplified in online settings: while impression management was previously conceptualized as the performances one expresses during specific interactions – perhaps even just for a “split second” (Goffman, 1959) in momentary communications – online identities hold a permanency and heightened level of exposure that isolated conversations and attendance at events do not. Furthermore, online presentations of the self can serve as a mirror to the individual publishing content of (or relating to) themselves, creating a form of self-scrutiny that, similar to the content being shared, is “always on.” With this, a young person’s risk of facing peer backlash, critique, or (self-)doubt increases, which can manifest into insecurity and bullying in both online and offline settings. Here, mediated identities are not only venues for self-expression, but also potential targets for inadvertent and unwarranted judgement from others and, potentially, the self.
Since the early 1990s, mediated practices of leisure among youth have shifted across the online sphere. Those who embraced early Internet technologies were not imagined as the young “addicts” we might picture today; instead, online participation “was often viewed as an esoteric practice for geeks and other social outcasts” (boyd, 2014, p. 7). With the rise of social media websites in the mid-2000s (e.g., Myspace, Facebook), however, online participation moved from a peculiar subcultural practice to a normative expectation (boyd, 2014). With capacities for “always on” connections and identity expressions, today’s cellphones and social media also allow youth to access various entertainment media, such as YouTube and Netflix, thereby turning cellphones and social media into contemporary symbols of both connection and isolation, as one does not need to be in the physical presence of others to be connected.
Importantly, cellphones have not only impacted one’s capacity to participate in offline/online leisure, but also engage in online leisure that is active or passive. Traditional social network sites (e.g., Facebook and MySpace) and more recent social media apps (e.g., TikTok and Instagram) offer their users different affordances “because they make possible – and, in some cases, are used to encourage – certain types of practices” (boyd, 2014, p. 10). The encouragement of some online platforms to communicate with people already within their circle (i.e., friends or acquaintances rather than strangers) or consume and monitor other people’s lives and online content have led scholars to distinguish these online activities into active usage and passive usage (Verduyn et al., 2017). Active usage is made up of online activities which facilitate communication and self-disclosure with others, whether these communications are targeted (via one-on-one conversations) or nontargeted (via broadcasting, such as posting a “status update” on Facebook or a picture on Instagram) (Verduyn et al., 2017). Passive usage consists of reserved activities that do not involve any forms of self-disclosure or communication but, rather, the consumption of information (e.g., one’s Twitter feed) or other users’ profiles and related user-generated content (Verduyn et al., 2017). Unsurprisingly, these usages result in different levels of subjective well-being: active use increases feelings of connectedness and overall social capital – the benefits and resources obtained through an individual’s social relationships, such as emotional support and new perspectives or ideas – while passive use negatively impacts well-being by sparking upward social comparison, envy, and lower levels of belonging (Verduyn et al., 2017).
With this context, “the way that people use social media matters” (Verduyn et al., 2017, p. 288). Today, youth have access and are exposed to incessant amounts of information, advice, content about others’ lifestyles, covertly incentivized product recommendations, face-altering filters, and more. Novel concepts such as “mindless scrolling” and “phubbing” find themselves in conversations about day-to-day activities in ways that were not possible before the growing role of cellphones and social media in people’s lives today, yet little is understood about what content is purposefully or absentmindedly interacted with, skipped, or shared. It is particularly valuable, then, that youth studies research works to understand young people’s online activities and how youth themselves think about these mediated engagements.
Methods and Methodology
Qualitative methods were used to develop an in-depth assortment of ideas, opinions, and understandings from youth themselves about their own and other young people’s cellphone and social media use. Semi-structured one-on-one and focus group interviews were conducted, as they encourage storytelling, meaning making, and opinion sharing by prioritizing the participants’ narratives while also holding the qualities of a good conversation, making the research experience fulfilling for all members. Conversation among focus group participants, moreover, provided social context (Ricciardelli & Adorjan, 2019) and spontaneous elaboration that might not have been possible in a one-on-one interview.
Recruitment
Using convenient and snowball sampling, initial contacts made through a participant indicating their interest via recruitment posters or referral through extended relationships allowed for a diverse sample of 15 high school-aged participants with varying personalities and social statuses among their peers at school. Upon indicating their interest to participate in the project over text or email, the researcher asked if the participant would like to invite any other high school-aged family members (i.e., siblings or cousins), friends, or romantic partners to join them in their interview, or if they would prefer to chat in a one-on-one setting. Using this snowball recruitment method resulted in eight one-on-one interviews and two focus groups, one made up of three participants (the primary contact, her best friend, and her cousin) and another of four participants (the primary contact and three of her close friends).
Interviews lasted approximately 1 hr and, after gathering demographic information, began by asking participants to reflect on the last 2 weeks and describe their “typical” day and note where screentime made its way in. This seamlessly led to conversation about communication and leisure, and eventual questions about identity practices and authenticity online. Interviews were conducted in-person (at a location of the participant’s choosing, primarily coffee shops close to their home/school) or online (i.e., Zoom or Google Teams), depending on the participant’s preference. Prioritizing participants’ preference resulted in one in-person focus group, one online focus group, three in-person interviews, and five online interviews. Interviews were conducted from October 2023 to April 2024, and all participants are referred to using pseudonyms.
Sample
The inclusion criteria invited those who are currently enrolled in an Ontario high school or who have recently graduated from an Ontario high school in the summer of 2023, and resulted in a primarily female sample (12 girls and 3 boys) aged 14 to 18 (average age of 15.8). Two participants were in Grade 9, four were in Grade 10, seven were in Grade 11, one was in Grade 12, and one was a recent graduate who had been in university for less than a month when interviewed. Most participants were white, two were Asian-Canadian, and one did not say. Most participants identified as straight, while one identified as bisexual, and two said they did not know or yet explore their sexuality.
When asked how many hours they are on their cellphones a day, participants were invited to provide an approximation or check their phone’s “Screen Time” data for an exact number. Here, all participants who took part in a one-on-one interview pulled up their phone’s “Screen Time” data, while those who took part in a focus group interview provided estimated ranges (e.g., “4 to 5 hr a day” (Tatiana”); “seven to eight” (Lux)). While these screentime hours referred to all daily cellphone activities, some participants would further break down where, exactly, these hours were spent on different apps. This was especially true for those participants who checked their phone’s “Screen Time” data:
(looking at Screen Time app on cellphone) Last week, I had an average of five hours. And most of that time is spent on Instagram. . . and then the other portion of that is spent on TikTok.
(looking at Screen Time app on cellphone) Yeah, I have–I usually spend about two hours on Instagram and then the rest of them [screentime hours] are, like, on other apps. . . so, today, it was Instagram and then Libby, like, the library app. . . and then I have a game that I sometimes like to play.
In total, two participants said they have less than 2 hr of screentime; four participants said they have 2 to 3 hr of screentime; three said they have 4 to 5 hr of screentime; and six participants said they had over 5 hr of screentime (with the max cited screentime capping at 8 hr). Only one participant mentioned setting up notifications to tell him when his screentime went over 2 hr.
The most common app discussed by participants was Snapchat, which was often used as a text messaging app. Almost all participants mentioned “scrolling through” TikTok and Instagram; specifically, browsing Instagram’s “Reels” (short-form videos) feature was frequently noted as an everyday online activity. This reveals how watching short-form videos is a common practice among youth today: in fact, it was cited as the most “addictive” and “mindless” activity among all participants. Perhaps this is why three participants made a point to note how they do not have TikTok, as if it is a badge of honour:
You can scroll on TikTok for an hour, but do you remember a single post?. . . I had [TikTok] for a couple of weeks before I had to delete it. That’s definitely the most addictive social media I’ve ever had.
I was scrolling on TikTok and [a video] was like, ‘stop! Wait a minute. Can you actually remember the last 10 things you watched?’ . . . I was like, ‘I can’t remember the last thing I watched before! What am I doing on this?!’
It never really, like, appealed to me.
Data Analysis
Informed by youth studies and critical Internet research, the author recognizes and acknowledges her previous exposure to and intimate knowledge of the topics discussed. As a young “millennial” adult, the author is no stranger to having a cellphone and was previously a user of the primary social media apps discussed by her participants. Accordingly, this research’s qualitative methodology can further be considered semi-auto-ethnographic. The author’s familiarity and knowledge of the social media used by youth can be considered a form of online participant-observation; her various relationships with youth due to her work as a teacher and part-time barista (e.g., as coworkers, customers, and students) can be considered a form of offline participant-observation, where affluent youth use their phones as they order Frappuccinos on their lunch breaks and informally discuss topics surrounding cellphones and social media trends, lingo, and influencers with young classmates. This “deep hanging out” (Geertz, 1998, as cited in boyd, 2015) informs this research’s critical approach and provides some reflexive context to the findings below.
All interviews were transcribed verbatim and then coded using an open, inductive schema, where codes and themes were derived from the data themselves. In other words, codes were not predetermined; instead, they emerged when the interview data was analyzed. While no strict data analysis procedure guided this holistic process, by virtue of the author bringing her subjective understandings of her data and project into the analysis process, this analysis aligns with the tenets of reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2021). Early theme development was an inevitable outcome of data collection and familiarization (i.e., by independently collecting and therefore subjectively “sculpting” interview data, “deep hanging out,” listening to interview recordings, and verbatim transcription). Following this, a thorough and ongoing analysis of all transcribed interview data resulted in the repetition of those “earlier” themes, which are discussed below.
Findings and Discussion
Findings are organized into three sections, which work to reveal how understandings and practices of digitally mediated connections, identities, and leisure are understood by a sample of high school-aged youth. The first finding reveals how online forms of connection may demonstrate the strength of a friendship depending on the social media used, and how the “always on” quality of social media can result in “phubbing” that makes offline interactions feel awkward. The second finding outlines how online identities and acts of self-expression were meticulously edited in order for youth to protect themselves against peer judgement, and “being yourself” was reserved for more private online spheres (e.g., one-on-one text conversations). The third and final finding discusses how youth framed some of their leisurely cellphone and social media activities as “mindless” and obligatory, thereby suggesting rest and fun are best achieved without cellphones.
Social Media(ted) Connections: Shifting Communications and “Always Online” Challenges
Cellphones and social media invite youth to participate in both new and familiar ways to stay in touch with one another. Snapchat, for instance, has taken reign over text messaging due in part by its ability for youth to conveniently participate in one-on-one conversations and group chats while also sending “snaps” – of their breakfast, the movie they are watching, or a playfully-filtered selfie – to friends, family, or crushes all at once. These photo messages, which can be overlaid with text, are often considered more personal and personalized than a text message alone and lessen opportunity for miscommunication (Vaterlaus et al., 2016).
Previous research found that Snapchat was reserved for youth’s closest friends, rather than random people and larger social networks, and used for private conversations (Vaterlaus et al., 2016). However, as noted above, the significance of and meaning assigned to social media connections shifts across time and within youth culture, and this shift was noted across all participants, who spoke about how Snapchat has become the “default” social media that youth ask each other for after meeting and to communicate. Felix elaborated on this: “Every kid has Snapchat, so if you don’t have it, then, you know, it’s harder to make friends and stuff. Everyone asks for each other’s Snapchat. That’s, like, the default thing, so that’s why I have Snapchat.” Fourteen-year-old Cosima similarly noted how “everyone exchanges their Snapchat nowadays.”
When talking about Snapchat’s popularity among youth today, Elena (age 16) suggested that it might be preferred for safety reasons: “when you meet someone, you ask for their Snapchat, not their phone number, because that might not be entirely safe.” However, the idea of Snapchat being “safer” than text was quickly trampled by several participants’ stories of Snapchat’s “Quick Add” function, which allows a user to add another user – usually strangers – with the swift click of a button, the consequences of meeting with a “Quick Add,” and the anonymity that comes with Snapchat. For instance, both Marceline (age 16) and Zoey noted that they knew of someone who actively dealt drugs using Snapchat and even pretended to sell drugs to scam users for money.
With the growing prevalence and unexpected negative consequences of Snapchat use, it should not be surprising to learn that some youth are turning away from Snapchat to make or maintain meaningful connections. After noting that she hates Snapchat, Cleo said “it doesn’t make for good conversation.” Fourteen-year-old Max succinctly highlighted the impersonal quality of snapping: “I can just open up Snapchat and send out one massive snap. . . I don’t think I’d count that as staying in contact, because it’s not even like you’re fully communicating.” Marceline expanded on this: “I usually [snap] friends that I’m not close to because I’ll just text my close friends. . . a text seems kind of, like, more formal and more important.”
In their focus group, Tatiana (age 18), Elena, and Athena spoke about the ways in which the app someone asks for upon meeting allows one to “see their intentions, because if they ask for a snap, maybe they’re not that serious” (Elena). Tatiana, a recent high school graduate who had been in university for less than a month when interviewed, provided further insight on this: It’s so funny. . . you go out to maybe a bar or a party and the guys will ask you for your Snapchat. And, back then, it was like, ‘give me your number. Give me your number so I can call you, so I can text you.’ But now, it’s your Snapchat. And maybe it’s taken a different side where it’s like, ‘why are you asking me for my Snapchat? Be a man, ask for my number.’ . . . Asking for someone’s number is, like, the ultimate.
This paradoxical shift from Snapchat being “more personal” to “not that serious” is worthy of attention. Indeed, while Snapchat allows its users to share more intimate content (such as selfies and other glimpses into one’s personal life) with the peers they are closest to, it is perhaps Snapchat’s temporary and ephemeral nature (van Essen & Van Ouytsel, 2023) that has turned its once preferred casualness into a newly denounced form of superficiality among some youth. Participants like Tatiana and Elena preferred the intentional and long-term quality of texting, which prompted them and others to find new platforms for connection. Both Darius (age 16) and Felix shared that they have been using Discord, which allows them to use its audio call function to participate in spontaneous get-togethers online, where friends can join hands-free group conversations at any time while they play video games together. The benefits of these Discord voice calls, however, seemed limited to boys. When asked if Discord is what most youth are talking on these days, Felix answered, “I think mostly just guys use that. . . mostly just guys talking to guys.” Marceline shared that she is often on FaceTime with her best friend for most hours after school, while Molly (age 15) and Gwen (age 15) shared that they often stay up late on calls with friends as well. With this, there seems to be gendered differences that shape where youth “flock to” (boyd, 2014) for digitally mediated connection.
The “always online” quality of digitally mediated connections were not always positive and sometimes resulted in moments of disconnect and awkwardness offline. A paradoxical yet common experience of dis/connection seemed to happen when friends were together offline, yet a member of the group was simultaneously online, scrolling on their phone. Molly elaborated on this: Being in a conversation with someone and they are always checking their phone, it feels like you’re just being ignored or not listened to. It’s just, like, aggravating. And I tell them, ‘what are you doing on your phone? What’s so important?’ . . . They just say ‘nothing’ and then put it down, or we’ll just, like, end the conversation.
Due to the ubiquitous nature of cellphones, the frequency of a harmful cellphone-driven behaviour termed phubbing, “a portmanteau composed of the words phone and snubbing” (Schneider & Hitzfeld, 2021, p. 1077), has increased. To “phub” someone – to prioritize, use, and become distracted by your phone in the presence of others – is considered inappropriate and a disruption to conversation and connection, regardless of the frequency and duration. To be “phubbed” can be painful, resulting in feelings of being ignored or excluded, and interpreted as a lack of care and interest from the “phubber” (Schneider & Hitzfeld, 2021).
While youth like Molly seemed to be diplomatic in their reactions to being phubbed by friends, it is valuable to consider how phubbing behaviours may impact youth’s friendships, as well as their behaviours and practices with friends, across time. Indeed, what seemed especially painful about being “phubbed” was the fact that something or someone else seemed “better” or more important (Schneider & Hitzfeld, 2021) than a participant’s presence and conversation. With the fear of missing out (FOMO) discussed as a “pervasive apprehension” that compels youth to use their phones to stay connected and seemingly be part of “rewarding experiences” that others are doing (Przybylski et al., 2013 as cited in Adorjan & Ricciardelli, 2021), the unprompted act of “phubbing” may ultimately signal to the “phubbed”: I wish I were there, with someone else, rather than here with you. This section reveals how young people’s online practices of connection cannot simply be understood as good or bad, or socializing or isolating. Instead, participants reveal a tension that suggests how mediated connections must be carefully managed to maintain closeness and avoid unintentional harms.
Social Media(ted) Identities: “It’s Always Based on What Other People are Okay With”
All participants said that the mediated identities youth compose and publish online through their social media profiles are never a completely accurate or honest reflection of a user. Instead, these widely visible online identities and acts of self-expression are limited and meticulously edited to both fit in and protect one’s well-being and self-esteem. Arguably, online identities serve as contemporary and mediated acts of impression management across youth peer groups and cultures today, which were discussed as distinct from impression management practices made offline. Indeed, some participants shared that online identities required a level of intentional curation and restriction that almost transformed one’s online self and “real life” self into different personalities, making one’s “real life” self unknowable until offline connection is made. Molly shared that “being yourself” is “a lot different. . . in real life. Like, when I hang out with [my best friends], it’s like a completely different person than what you would see on the Internet.” Adding to this, Max noted that, without offline, “real life” connection, “you can’t really grasp what someone’s personality is like.” Here, mediated impression management and self-expression via profile curation and posting decisions revealed how “being yourself” online was limited: it restricted one’s own capacity to “show your true self” (Molly) while also limiting how much you can “grasp” about someone else.
Not all online acts of self-expression were positioned as activities necessary of careful restriction, however. When asked “do you feel like you can ‘be yourself’ on social media?” Elena was quick to point out that “it depends on what you mean by ‘being yourself’” and noted that public acts of online self-expression, such as making a post on one’s Instagram profile, result in self-restriction, whereas private acts of online self-expression, such as texting or “snapping” a friend, fundamentally allow one to be themselves: “if I’m texting a friend through Snapchat, yeah, I’m being myself because I’m just talking to them.” Intimate interactions, as Elena suggests, do not demand the self-control required for impression management. This may be due to the fact that these private activities are not performances orchestrated to exemplify any idealized roles or values, nor to influence or convince any audience of the truthfulness of such acts.
In a focus group of best friends, 15-year-olds Claudia, Molly, Gwen, and Lux discussed how, when creating an online identity or deciding what to share online, “it’s always about what other people are okay with” (Molly). Claudia said, “I wish I could be myself and express my personality more. . . but I feel like a lot of people are very judgemental and they have very strong opinions on, like, how other people act.” For Claudia, being selective about what she shares about herself online saves her from potential judgement from people who might “think it’s embarrassing.” Gwen agreed with her friend, sharing, “I feel like a lot of people our age form strong and negative opinions based on how you show yourself online and they’ll be really judgmental.” Molly continued this topic, stating that if “someone didn’t approve of what you posted, it would be talked about throughout, like, a whole bunch of different friend groups. . . so you have to put an image out that you feel everyone else can accept.” Here, Claudia, Molly, and Gwen’s online audiences, in the form of their classmates and other followers, guided how they chose to present themselves, which usually resulted in self-imposed restrictions on how they expressed themselves – if they did at all.
Indeed, this perceived sense of judgement from fellow youth had limiting consequences, which Gwen succinctly described: “you go to school and then people make fun of what you posted, so you just post like you have no personality, like the same as everyone. . . you just feel like you have to put out this fake persona and not really show any personality.” While Boyd and Ellison (2008) argue that online profiles can never be “real” and some participants echoed that you can never “be yourself fully through social media” (Tatiana), Gwen’s implication that accepted online identities have “no personality” is stark and stands in tension against hopeful ideas that position social media as a positive avenue for self-expression and empowerment. With these findings, it seems that “being yourself,” or even one’s best, “ideal self,” is no longer encouraged (Zhao et al., 2008).
Drawing on Goffman (1959), it is possible that youth felt some reservations about expressing and presenting themselves online for two reasons. First, performers place themselves in highly precarious situations, where they invite an audience’s careful attention to themselves that may very well be made up of begrudging audience members who are ready to judge and discredit the performance overall (as Claudia, Molly, and Gwen suggested) and, specifically, feel reluctance about the authority and authenticity of the performer themselves. This leads to the second reason youth may feel skeptical about publishing their online acts of self-expressions: young people are aware that their authentic performances may be readily deemed phony, where their audiences – and they themselves – may question if they are authorized to give such a performance. Goffman suggests that imposters who impersonate upward, esteemed statuses are more likely to face an immediate humiliation and loss of reputation than sympathetic understanding and even indifference from their audiences (1959). Accordingly, youth may feel hesitant to claim favourable social statuses, such as “the athlete” or “the music lover,” as these statuses are not explicit and, therefore, only more-or-less confirmable (Goffman, 1959). Perhaps this is why youth like Marceline shared that they “wouldn’t post certain things that I’d actually like to,” like her vinyl collection, because “it’s super scary to post on Instagram. . . people are gonna make fun of you.” While it is impossible to formally discredit someone as an authentic or fake music lover, youth may still be penalized through sneers and snide remarks from their audience of peers upon sharing themselves online, or may limit this sharing altogether due to an inflated insecurity and lack of inward belief toward one’s own “performance.”
Even Vincent, who considered himself “a pretty confident, open guy,” shared a story about his own practices of self-regulation and management before publishing his thoughts and celebratory moments online: Before I post something, I’m definitely thinking, ‘is this a normal thing to post? Whatever I put as the caption, is it, like, weird?’. . . Here’s a good example: I posted for my best buddy’s birthday a couple weeks ago and I put on the [caption]: ‘Happy birthday, buddy. Love ya, can’t wait for more great memories. <3’ And then I put a red heart at the end. And then, when I went to post it, and I was like, ‘will people think it’s weird if I say ‘love you’ and put a red heart? Should I take the red heart away? Should I take the ‘love you’ away and keep the red heart?’ . . . Just, like–who cares, man?! Like, I do love that guy! He’s my best friend. I should just post it.
Previous research has argued that youth are “obsessed” with peer status because “they have so little real economic or political power” (Milner, 2004, p. 4, as cited in boyd, 2010, p. 83); instead, youth can use friendship, dating, and their grasp and utilization of popular culture and other “markers of cool” to develop and maintain peer status (boyd, 2010). Further, these practices allow youth to “do” gender, race, class, and sexuality, especially in ways that exemplify socially idealized values (Goffman, 1959), while also placing themselves in “teen-specific identity categories” (e.g., nerds, jocks, burnouts, freaks, skaters, preppy) (Pomerantz, 2008). Here, Vincent reveals how successfully utilizing social media required him to reflect on assumed and idealized “norms” among his peers, which further required him to “do” gender and sexuality in alignment with hegemonic masculinity and heteronormativity.
Social Media(ted) Leisure: Recharging or Disorienting?
Participants had mixed feelings about being on their cellphones and social media in their free time. Some participants highlighted how “going on their phone” was a relaxing activity that offered them moments to recharge. Indeed, this rest often took place in bed, where participants would engage in passive, sedentary online engagements, such as “scrolling” or “watching.” Molly said, “when I’m home and I’m not doing anything, I’ll just go in bed and go on my phone” and noted that when she stays up late, she is usually “mindlessly scrolling.” Max echoed this: “when I have free time, I kinda just sit in my bed and watch TikTok.” Reflecting on young people’s phone use when they are already with friends offline, Gwen explained, “I feel like. . . we go on our phones for a little bit just to, like, recharge, so you’re not constantly having to be social.”
In contrast, Lux did not see her cellphone use as a relaxing break from “having to be social.” Instead, she stated: “Usually when I go on my phone, it’s to catch up with people I don’t really talk to. It’s just so much work, I don’t enjoy it at all. Like, text people and update yourself with them, when it’s just, like, I can meet you in person.” While online interactions are often positioned as low cost (Verduyn et al., 2017) and with low-stakes – in that there is little risk involved in sending and responding to texts and sharing memes, TikToks, and other digital content, and little energy or time required to do these communication activities – Lux’s statement suggests otherwise. Indeed, while a key and seemingly favourable element of cellphones and social media are their capacity to increase and maintain one’s social network, some participants noted how the ability to stay in touch and “always on” often became a pressure or requirement, thereby diminishing the playful spontaneity that many youth hope for in their leisure time and practices. This may very well be a reason why youth often find themselves passively scrolling rather than actively participating while online.
Furthermore, despite its apparent low-stakes, the consequences of how one responds to or chooses not to respond to online communications can be relatively high. Zoey noted that, because Instagram is her “main messaging platform,” she is “reliant” on it to maintain friendships: Because I use group chats on Instagram, I feel like it’s easier to just do all the chats on Instagram, which just made me really reliant and dependent on Instagram. I’m at the point where I feel like I couldn’t delete Instagram without kind of losing some friendships because it’ll be harder to communicate with people.
Here, Zoey does not frame Instagram use as a fun, relaxing, and recharging way to spend her free time. Instead, it is a requirement to maintain some friendships, much like how studying is required to pass a test.
Most participants underscored how unintentionally using their cellphones and social media for long amounts of time in their free time after school or work and on the weekends resulted in procrastination, disorientation, and feelings of guilt, shame, and anxiety. Max and Cleo felt that they ought to be doing something – if not anything – else besides being on their phones in their leisure time.
Sometimes I take a step back and I’m like, ‘am I wasting my life right now? . . . Should I be reading a book? Like, should I be doing something else?’ . . . I kind of get mad at myself for being on [my phone] so much during the day because it’s, like, what am I accomplishing?
I spend so much time on TikTok. I would so much rather–like, if I’m spending two and a half hours a day on TikTok, I would much rather be watching one movie a day, because then at least I’m getting an understanding of film. You know, I have an interest in film, I plan on studying film. . . Or, like, I get a strong enjoyment out of playing video games. I feel like these are all, you know, they’re at least hobbies, they’re interests. Going on TikTok isn’t a hobby or an interest. It’s just a completely mindless activity.
The participants’ narratives above suggest that passive leisure time spent on one’s cellphone and social media was not time well spent.
Recent research by Sofija et al. (2021) reveals how older youth (aged 19 to 26) manage their well-being, typically through their engagement in leisurely activities outside of work and school. These well-being promoting activities were organized into five primary themes: maintaining supportive relationships, looking after yourself, accepting yourself, progressing yourself, and centring yourself. With some participants’ cellphone activities characterized as “mindless” (see Molly and Cleo’s narratives above), and typically made up of passive scrolling, leisure time punctuated by cellphone use did not often foster relationship maintenance, nor intentional opportunities to look after one’s psychological, emotional, or physical well-being toward self-acceptance. On the contrary, leisure involvement characterized by cellphone and social media activity, especially mindless scrolling – that is, rapidly consuming consecutive online content in an aimless and often dissociative manner (de Segovia Vicente et al., 2024) – seemed to result in moments of self-hate, guilt, and disorientation. This finding aligns with recent research by de Segovia Vicente et al. (2024), who found that “mindless scrolling is associated with feeling guilt about one’s smartphone use” (p. 10), whether one has goals they are – or feel they should be – actively working toward or not (e.g., homework, studying, exercise). Drawing on the final two themes from Sofija’s et al.’s (2021) findings, Max and Cleo – along with other participants – seemed to feel most dissatisfied about their cellphone and social media use due to its ability to halt one’s capacity to progress and centre oneself. Indeed, cellphone and social media use did not offer youth “a sense of purpose and development of self” (Sofija et al., 2021, p. 293). This online activity, moreover, did not usually provide fulfilling escapist experiences, where youth could intentionally withdraw from daily, external worries toward a positive state of solitude that enhanced relief, freedom, and relaxation (Schellewald, 2023; Sofija et al., 2021). Perhaps this is precisely why Cleo stated that she would rather watch a movie or play a video game: the former activity contributes to her interest and knowledge of film, which would benefit her future goal of studying film at university, while the latter would provide her a moment of reprieve, as well as cognitive stimulation, agency, and achievement (see also Barr & Copeland-Stewart, 2022, for video games’ effects on well-being).
Many participants who recognized their online activity as mindless or unproductive felt frustrations about these habitual engagements and worked to change them. Tatiana shared that, when her first semester at university started, she “made a shift” to stop using social media as much as she used to. She stated that her entrance into university “was a huge reality check, that life is happening. . . and your life cannot be your phone. Your life cannot be these social media apps. . . Your life is going to work, going to school, going to the gym.” Here, Tatiana echoes Cleo’s notion that “TikTok isn’t a hobby.” But what about those youth who successfully go to work, school, and the gym, but do not have the freedoms (e.g., a driver’s license, expected/accepted time away from the home and family) that older youth like Tatiana have?
As one of the youngest participants in this research, Max (age 14) found herself in a different situation. Succeeding as freshman student-athlete, Max saw herself as someone overachieving what was expected of her: she received good grades, played hockey almost every day of the week, and spent her weekends at “get-togethers” and sleepovers with friends. The phone use that made its way in between her everyday busyness, however, was rarely acknowledged as a relaxing break but, rather, a habit that made her feel “bad” and “guilty.” Despite how her phone use made her feel, Max did not accept her online engagements as fundamentally wrong. In fact, she was quite critical of what else was expected of her, arguably revealing the limitations that her youth prescribes onto her. When exams and homework are complete, when sports games and practices are done, when friends have returned home, Max succinctly asks: “What else are you gonna do? . . . Like, what else are you supposed to do when you’re at home alone?” While Max’s attitude toward her online activity is informed by the widely accepted and internalized ideology that cellphone and social media use is an “inherently inferior” and unproductive activity (de Segovia Vicente et al., 2024), she thoughtfully questioned the accuracy of this belief in relation to her experience and circumstances as a young person who has accomplished what is expected of her as a high school student.
Implications, Limitations, and Future Research
Drawing on the narratives of 15 high school-aged youth, this research found that shifting modes of online communication allow youth to understand and demonstrate the importance of their friendships to others. However, the ubiquitous presence of cellphones and “always online” quality of social media resulted in “phubbing” and awkwardness that negatively impacted connection among friends offline. Mediated identities were understood as meticulously edited to avoid peer judgement, and moments where youth could “be themselves” were reserved for private online spaces with close friends. Finally, time spent on one’s phone was rarely recognized as a positive use of leisure time; instead, it often resulted in feelings of disorientation and shame that, for some, could worsen into self-hate.
Strengths and Limitations
Despite its in-depth, youth-centred contributions to research on young people’s cellphone use and attitudes about their online activities, this research holds some limitations. One notable limitation of this work is its predominantly female sample (12 girls and 3 boys). However, the findings presented in this specific research reveal that both female and male participants felt similar pressures, pleasures, and pains related to cellphone and social media use: all participants were at risk of being phubbed by peers, noted that they feel some hesitancy before expressing themselves online, and held mixed feelings about going on their phones in their free time.
Another possible limitation of this research is its small sample size and, relatedly, possibilities of generalizability. However, while this research draws on a rather intimate sample of 15 youth, its findings about young people’s screentime and cellphone activities align with recent Canadian longitudinal research, which found that youth’s (aged 13 to 18) most frequently used social media apps were TikTok and Snapchat, and just under half of their sample held a screentime of over 4 hr (Al-Jbouri et al., 2024). Accordingly, despite its sample size, this research possesses a valuable strength by providing narrative accounts from youth themselves to offer important context and insight to current and evolving statistics about young people’s cellphone use, especially in relationship to their well-being.
Implications and Future Research
While longitudinal, quantitative research provides important associations between cellphone use, self-esteem, social connectedness, asocial behaviours, and more, there is a historical and ongoing need to create space for young voices in research, especially on topics that may directly impact the services and policies developed “for” them, as well as the assumptions and ideas “about” them. The integration of young people’s perspectives and realities in future research will create more meaningful outcomes and conversations on how to best support youth as they navigate and understand the role of contemporary technologies in their everyday lives.
With cellphones and social media’s ubiquitous presence and far-reaching effects, it is more important than ever to learn about young people’s technologically mediated practices and understand how their online engagement fosters or erodes beneficial social connections, identity practices, and leisure across the youth period today. Located in our current techno-sociocultural climate, this youth-centred research has valuable education and health policy implications that may help address rising rates of loneliness, cyberbullying, and panicked ideas surrounding “Internet addiction” among young people today. In their focus group, 15-year-olds Claudia, Molly, Gwen, and Lux noted how “a lot of people our age” are judgemental, strongly and negatively opinionated, and disagreeable to online self-expressions that allow fellow youth to share their individuality. This perspective from a group of Gen Zs themselves felt especially striking and should garner further attention. Ultimately, future research requires young people’s engagement so as not to institutionally “phub” youth’s valuable perspectives and ideas.
Conclusion
Informed by critical Internet and youth studies literature, this research examined the ways that contemporary Canadian youth utilize cellphones and social media to facilitate social connection, identity expression, and leisure, and considered how youth think about these technologies’ capacities to foster these elements of their lives. By centring its young participants’ voices, this research aimed to resist simplistic, utopian/dystopian understandings of youth’s digital participation. Indeed, the participants’ narratives revealed how youth culture results in an understanding and use of technology that is hardly similar across time and generations, let alone across youth themselves. Furthermore, participants’ perspectives reveal tensions in themselves – scrolling on social media, for instance, might be recharging for some and guilt-ridden for others – that demand scholarly attention among youth and Internet researchers alike. Most important, perhaps, is the need to create opportunities for youth to reflect and speak on these tensions existing across young people’s cellphone and social media use. For instance, when, if ever, can social media use be an avenue for comprehensive social connection or candid self-expression, or engaged with as a hobby?
This research contributes to youth and Internet studies research by recognizing how the distinct locations youth find themselves in – socially and culturally, and even geographically and temporally – shape their online activities and the way they understand these mediated engagements. The young participants’ narratives reveal how youth are often using their cellphones and social media in similar ways, yet their emotions and thoughts about these online engagements are convoluted and influenced by where they are. Aligning with research by Schellewald (2023), one’s welcomed and positive use of social media is more about “right time, right place” – that is, socioculturally and ideologically – than anything else. For example, Max’s situation revealed that, even when all mandatory and socially expected activities are done, cellphone and social media use are still not always positively perceived. In fact, social expectations (informed by contemporary youth culture) to use certain social media apps did not inherently make engaging with these apps fun and carefree. As noted by Felix, Cleo, Vincent, Zoey, Cosima, and others, “default” apps like Snapchat and Instagram almost force youth into engaging in social connection, identity expression, and leisure practices that go against their “true” instincts (i.e., to disengage from and delete apps, to express more vulnerability and honesty than expected/accepted). Despite this, youth found ways to enjoy their online practices. Some participants moved to other apps – or offline – for more intentional connection and self-expression (e.g., Discord, FaceTime, in-person “get-togethers”). Some did not engage with less socially-mandatory, “default” social media apps in their free time (e.g., TikTok) and others shrugged off the need to act a certain way online. Altogether, this research contributes to a more youth-centred, nuanced way of understanding young people’s cellphone and social media activity.
Footnotes
Data Availability Statement
Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the Ontario Graduate Scholarship.
