Socially (dis)connected in a connected world: The role of young people's digital maturity

Abstract

Social media offer constant social interactions, but young people do not necessarily benefit from these regarding social connectedness. We investigated whether adolescents with higher digital maturity (Laaber et al., 2023) are better able to use social media to enhance social connectedness, and tested three mechanisms of how, who and why individuals engage with others online. The results of a longitudinal and cross-sectional study with adolescent-parent dyads from three European countries (N_total = 573) showed that with higher digital maturity, adolescents report higher social connectedness. The relation was not explained by higher active use, but engaging with real-life rather than virtual friends online and holding compassionate goals for others mediated the positive relationship between digital maturity and social connectedness. The findings support digital maturity as an important ability when using digital technologies, as it relates to beneficial social interactions, and suggest potential mechanisms to be strengthened to help adolescents experience positive interactions online.