Wired Youth

This fully updated new edition offers a research-based analysis of the online social world of adolescence, incorporating additional research findings that have appeared during the last decade. Talmud and Mesch take a realistic, sociological approach to online adolescents' communication, demonstrating how online sociability is embedded in the larger social structure and in technological affordances. Combining perspectives from sociology, psychology, and education with a focus on social constructionism, technological determinism, and social networking, the authors present an empirically anchored review of the field. The book covers topics such as youth sociability, relationship formation, online communication, and cyberbullying to examine how young people use the Internet to construct or maintain their inter-personal relationships. This new edition also incorporates new research findings on online adolescents' behaviour in general, and specifically in relation to social apps, providing a more updated outlook regarding various dimensions of adolescents' online interactions. Wired Youth is essential reading for advanced students of adolescent psychology, youth studies, media studies, and the psychology and sociology of interpersonal relationships, as well as undergraduate students in developmental psychology, social psychology, youth studies, media studies, and sociology.

Ilan Talmud is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Haifa, Israel. Gustavo Mesch is a Professor of Sociology and the Rector of the University of Haifa, Israel.

Preface Chapter 1: The Information Age, Youth and Social Networks Chapter 2: The Internet at Home Chapter 3: Sociability and Internet Use Chapter 4: Online Relationship Formation Chapter 5: ICT And Existing Social Ties Chapter 6: The Impact of ICT On Social Network Structure Chapter 7: Online Communication and Negative Social Ties Chapter 8: Conclusion Bibliography Index