Replying too quickly can be seen as over-eager, especially when the friendship is new or not close. Read receipts are implicated here they signal that a message has been “Read.” To many teens, the time between a message being Read and reciprocated matters a lot.
“Then I have to comment like three times…,” she explained, “And I get really nervous about it too, because I have to think of something quick, and it has to be something really good.”Īnother pressure is responding the ‘right’ way and in the ‘right’ amount of time, which differs from one relationship to another. A seventeen-year-old recounted how liking a friend’s post immediately triggered a direct message asking her why she hadn’t commented yet. Once posts appear, friends are expected to step up-and fast. Even before a social media post is made public, close friends can be pulled into photo selection, editing, and final vetting. Friendship requires both public and behind-the-scenes support. Teens tell us about significant stresses that come with trying to be a “good friend” in the age of social media, too. This builds a kind of metacognitive awareness, which the fast-pace and clever design features of apps otherwise undermine at nearly every turn. What’s more, asking teens genuine questions creates space for them to reflect on their connected lives. They’re also more inclined to actually listen to advice we have to share.
Ask questions like, “What is it like to be able to see where your friends are all the time? Are there times when it’s helpful? Are there times when it’s hard?”, and then follow-up with validating statements such as, “I can see how that helps you stay connected, but also how it could make you feel left out.” When we take this tack, teens keep talking-and we keep learning. We’ve seen firsthand that combining genuine curiosity with empathy and validation is a magic formula. It’s especially intense for adolescents whose developmental sensitivities drive them to care deeply about what their peers are doing and thinking. The result is an overwhelming water hose of social information. Prepare yourself: it’s (only) 150! Social media platforms thus make it technically possible to “maintain” more relationships than we are historically actually wired to track and manage. Perhaps you’ve heard of “Dunbar’s number,” representing the number of individuals with whom humans can maintain stable relationships. But it may be that the very architecture of our brains is the reason we have defaulted to the same average network size throughout history. Today, apps like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter make it easier to keep up more connections at a lower cost in terms of time investment. Teens tell us, “I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings if I can’t stay in touch with them.” And it’s not just staying connected-it’s keeping up with what others post, too.Įvidence from both human beings and primates indicates that we have a natural capacity to limit our social networks. We often tell teens not to connect with strangers, yet we overlook the complexities of staying connected to anyone and everyone they meet. Here’s what they told us: Their networks are ever-expanding, in no small part because there’s a sense that being “nice” means by default accepting follow requests from acquaintances and friends-of-friends.
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