Interviewing 15-year-old *Coraline about her Online Behaviors
*Coraline is a made up name, changed for privacy concerns
For my Adolescent Interview Assignment, I interviewed *Coraline, a 15-year-old high school student who uses she/her pronouns. *Coraline defines her internet use as pretty average in comparison to what she would rate of her peers use, although her Iphone stated that her average screen time use for the past week was as high as 9 hours per day. In this article, I will be interviewing *Coraline about her activities and experiences online, as well as her opinions on certain aspects of internet usage.
Coraline tells me about some of her favorite things to do online, specifically communicating with her friends, and learning about new things that spark her curiosity. Her favorite cell phone apps to use consist of mostly social networking sites, such as twitter and Instagram, which she tends to use for a news source about what is going on in general, keeping up with her friends and keeping tabs on what others are doing. *Coraline believes to use her favorite apps every single day, multiple times throughout the day, most likely taking up a lot of her screen time usage. After learning about how often she uses social media sites, I asked her whether or not she feels like the social media websites she uses have an impact on her self-view, and/or self-confidence. Unsurprisingly, *Coraline confided that sometimes the constant usage of such apps DO have an impact, due to the fact that she finds herself comparing her own life to the lives of others, and in turn feel as if her life is not as fun or important. Additionally, *Coraline believes that now the app usage does not have much effect on her physical self-view, although she believes it did when she was younger, as she hadn’t known that the models and people they commonly represent in media aren’t “what people actually look like”.
Digital dependency is a very real thing, and is now a reality for many “internet natives”, who have grown up to rely on technology for information, communication, and other means. When asked how reliant *Coraline believes herself to be on the internet for certain things, she told me that she does rely on the internet (specifically social media sites and communication apps) for communication with most of her friends, and also believes to be reliant on the internet (more so than books or other means) for knowledge and obtaining information. When posed if she could live without internet, *Coraline believes if the internet was taken away, she would be sad but “fine” (which I believe to be an under-exaggeration). I also was curious to know, as *Coraline has diagnosed bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety, if she believes her use of technology and the internet has had any effect on her mental health. She took a few moments to consider the question, to which she answered that she believes her internet use does have an effect on her motivation, by distracting her to the point where she feels unmotivated and doesn’t not want to do her daily tasks. She also believes long hours of internet use can contribute to her depressive episodes, and feels more addictive to using her digital devices when she is depressed. According to an article published on the Guardian’s website, it was found that out of 5 social media apps studied, Instagram has the most negative impact on young people and children's’ well-being, by deepening their feeling of inadequacy, as well as exacerbated body image worries, worsened bullying, and feelings of anxiety, depression, and loneliness (Campbell, 2017). *Coraline’s heavy usage of social media apps may definitely have an effect on her mental health and well-being, and most likely contribute to worsening some of the mental disorders she suffers from.
I was curious to find out if *Coraline had ever felt that she had been on certain digital apps or websites in which she didn’t feel safe. One website she mentioned that is somewhat well-known, is the “Omegle.com: Talk To Strangers!” website, an online video chat room that pairs you up with users around the world based on shared interests. This website also features an “18+ chat room” where users don’t have to verify age by any means to join. *Coraline felt unsafe on this app, due to the fact that she “never really knew who she was talking to”, as well as being non consensually exposed to sexual images of other users privates on multiple occasions, even though she did not enter the 18+ chatroom. Because of the level of anonymity that can be achieved on the app, users on Omegle may feel more comfortable sexually exposing themselves, unworried about any consequences happening to them, because most likely none will. In the “Risky Contacts” article, the authors express issues that were found to be associated with anonymity, for example they write: “The greater the anonymity people perceived, the greater the intent for sexual disclosure. Anonymity was hence found to lead to less inhibited, and often socially unacceptable, behaviors” (p. 128, 2009). Users on digital websites and apps similar to Omegle that offer anonymity protection, are more likely to take part in behaviors that are socially unacceptable, as the risk for consequence is extremely low, making them somewhat unsafe for children and teenagers to be using. Interestingly enough, using the Omegle chat room was a staple of my middle school years, as everyone I knew had used it at some point, and that continues to happen today: children and young people may be more attracted to using the website due to the risky behaviors that users partake in on the app. According to the Connected Learning article, 1 in 5 children and young people surveyed had reported being exposed to sexual content (2017), which leads me to believe that apps with high anonymity such as Omegle and similar chat rooms, may be contributing to that statistic, especially since they are somewhat popular among curious teens exploring and risk-taking in the online world.
I then wanted to find out about *Coraline’s perceptions of her own risk-taking online, and found if she also ever took part in socially unacceptable behavior. I started by questioning whether she believed her overall internet use to be positive or negative, and *Coraline happily explained that her internet use is positive now, however as a younger child, *Coraline uses the term “wilding” to describe how she would act on the internet; for example she would purposefully look up sensitive and desensitizing content, mostly because she was curious and she could (*Coraline also confides that her parents did not take action to monitor her online activity or block certain websites online- at least not before it was too late). For example, when asked about an image or video she had seen that was especially desensitizing as a child, she told me about “ISIS beheading videos” she would look up and view, which were obviously not suitable for a child to be seeing. In addition to that, *Coraline had also seen a lot of content portraying death and killing (to which she believes was real), a lot of online pornographic content, and other “messed up things” she referred to. This was extremely alarming to learn, especially due to the fact that her parents had never taken action to protect her from viewing such content, nor had she learned much about digital literacy and safety online from her school.
In addition to viewing explicit content, *Coraline had confessed to taking part in cyberbullying before. She explained that she has cyberbullied other individuals online who “deserved it”, such as individuals who would post/share hateful comments and opinions. *Coraline described her cyberbullying activities as “joining the mob mentality”, in which her and her peers from school would regularly attack people online for mistakes “all at once”, for something the individual did that was thought of as dumb or offensive. The Risky Contacts article brings up a good point about how when people online feel that their identity is somewhat concealed, they showed greater tendency to exchange “flaming behavior”, including but not limited to, sending hostile and threatening messages online (p. 128, 2009). It makes sense that this behavior could be even more so exacerbated by the “mob mentality” *Coraline mentioned, where everyone’s (especially a young person/child) peers are taking part in the group behavior, and the responsibility on the individual cyberbullying, and therefore risk of consequence, is lowered. In accordance to the Connected Learning article, 1 in 5 children surveyed also reported seeing cyberbullying online, in addition to the 1 in 3 children seeing violence/hatred online (2017). So we can understand that cyberbullying continues to be an issue among children and young people, and can be exacerbated by anonymity as well as group dynamics, especially when the group contains peers.
As the interview came to an end, I began to realize that *Coraline and I, only about 6.5 years apart, both had very different experiences with growing up in a digital culture, with part of our lives being online and how we deal with online presences. I definitely believe *Coraline, as well as many other teenagers and children today, have some degree of dependence on the internet, especially as we are living through a global pandemic, where we are safest keeping communications virtual and online. However, I do believe *Coraline’s internet use may contribute to the severity of her mental health disorders, as well as the frequency of depressive episodes she experiences, as it may similarly affect other developing young adults as well. After interviewing *Coraline, I think it is important that all parents teach their children about risks and dangers that are associated with social media websites and the internet in general. I also believe that SNS platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. acknowledge their responsibility in the toll these apps are taking on developing children and teenager’s mental health and well-being, and should figure out ways to lessen this toll, or not allow children to use such apps at all.
Works Cited:
Luders, M. H., Brandtzaeg, P. B., & Dunkels, E. (2009). Risky contacts.Preview the document In S. Livingstone & L. Haddon (Eds.), Kids online: Opportunities and risks for children (pp. 123–134).
Connected Learning Research Network. (2017 June 6). Young people online: Encounters with inappropriate content. Retrieved from https://clrn.dmlhub.net/content/young-people-online-encounters-inappropriate-content
Campbell, Denis. “Facebook and Twitter ‘Harm Young People’s Mental Health’.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 19 May 2017, www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/19/popular-social-media-sites-harm-young-peoples-mental-health
