Digital stress: Adolescents’ personal accounts

Based on a thematic content analysis of 2000 anonymous posts to the website AThinLine.org , this article explores adolescents’ personal accounts of digital stress. Six kinds of digital stressors that engender two distinctive types of digital stress are identified. Type 1 stressors—“mean and harassing personal attacks,” “public shaming and humiliation,” and “impersonation”—reflect the migration of common forms of relational hostility onto the online space and echo discussions of harassment, drama, and bullying. Type 2 stressors stem from adolescents’ use of digital technologies in the service of seeking relational connection. These lesser-discussed Type 2 stressors—“feeling smothered,” “pressure to comply with requests for access,” and “breaking and entering into digital accounts and devices”—transpire in the context of adolescents’ attempts to form and maintain intimacy or close connections with others.

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