Characteristics and motives of adolescents talking with strangers on the internet.

Full Abstract

Despite widespread concerns about the dangers of adolescents' online communication with strangers, we know little about (a) which types of adolescents talk with strangers and (b) what motivates them to do so. Drawing on a survey among 412 Dutch adolescents, we found that early adolescents (12-14-year-olds) were most prone to talk with strangers on the internet. If adolescents communicated online more frequently, they less often talked with strangers on the internet. However, if adolescents engaged in long chat sessions, they tended to talk with strangers on the internet more often. In contrast to earlier research, introversion was not related to adolescents' tendency to talk with strangers. The motives of entertainment, meeting new people, and social compensation increased adolescents' online communication with strangers.

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Author information

Author/s: Peter, Jochen (J); Valkenburg, Patti M (PM); Schouten, Alexander P (AP);

Affiliation: Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Cyberpsychology & behavior : the impact of the Internet, multimedia and virtual reality on behavior and society (Cyberpsychol Behav), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Oct; vol 9 (issue 5) : pp 526-30

Dates: Created 2006/10/12; Completed 2007/02/12;

PMID: 17034318, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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