Valkenburg P.M. et al. (2005) “Adolescents’ identity experiments on the internet” New Media & Society, Vol. 7 (Issue. 3) P383-402
This article examines the prevalence of teenagers conducting internet-based identity experiments, the motives behind this and the methods used. 600 adolescents filled in a questionnaire which assessed their level of introversion, and the methods they used to masquerade as someone else online, if they stated that they had. The most popular ways in which the teenagers adapted themselves was to be older, to be pretend to be an acquaintance, to be more flirtatious and to have an elaborated, fantasy personality. It was found that the largest motive for doing so was to investigate how others would react, followed by attempting to overcome shyness and to facilitate relationship formation. The findings therefore imply that the Internet can facilitate identity formation amongst younger teenagers, which is in line with adolescent identity formation and friendship theories.
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