Naffi, N., Davidson, A.-L. (2015). Walking the Tightrope Between Online and Offline Life: What Adolescents Learn about CMC through Interactions in Social Media. In S. Carliner, C. Fulford & N. Ostashewski (Eds.), Proceedings of EdMedia: World Conference on Educational Media and Technology 2015 (pp. 627-632). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).

1. Walking the Tightrope
Between Online and Offline Life:
What Adolescents Learn
About CMC Through Interactions
in Social Media
Nadia Naffi Concordia University
Ann-Louise Davidson Concordia University

2. Adolescents and Social Media
The study
Research question
Participants
Methodology
The Results

3. 0
25
50
75
100
US Youth
Adolescents and Social Media
Online Desktop
or
Laptop
Gaming
Console
Smartphone Tablet
Computer
US Youth
92 87 81 73 58
(Lenhart, 2015)

4. Adolescents and Social Media
Social Media Platforms
0
20
40
60
80
Facebook Instagram Snapchat Twitter Google+ Vine
US Youth
71 41 33 33 2452
(Lenhart, 2015)

5. 0
25
50
75
100
Adolescents and Social Media
Access to the
Internet outside of
school from desktops
and a variety of
mobile devices
Prefer
Youtube
Prefer
Facebook
Prefer
Google
(Steeves, 2014)
Canadian Youth
Prefer
Twitter
Prefer
Instagram
99 57 31 24 1075

6. Adolescents and Social Media
Engage in interactions that go beyond physical boundaries
and move across cultures, spiritualities, and intellectualities
Communicate with those who think differently
Use different forms of digital media to access information
from a plurality of sources, and broaden and diversify their
perspectives
Write themselves into being and control their image in
cyberspace
Thrive to become part of a community, to create, to curate
and to share (Gen C)
Provide and receive feedback about their social behaviour
and personality
Develop emotional support, social connectedness and well-
being

7. The Study- Research Question
How do adolescents explain their behaviors in social
media, and their consequences on their offline life?
Investigate adolescents’ thinking behind their choices and
their interactions in human-computer-human interactions
(HCHI)
Develop an understanding of the relationship between
adolescents’ online life, which happens through computer-
mediated communication (CMC) in social media, and their
offline life.

8. The Study- Participants
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Female Male

9. The Study- Participants
0
1
2
3
4
14 15 16 17 18 Years Old

10. The Study- Participants
Applications used
by the group of
participants
Most used devices
by the group of
participants

11. The Study- Participants
Family
Friends
Other

12. The Study- Methodology
Qualitative interpretive study
1. Semi-structured interview
(narration of interactions in
human-computer-human
interactions (HCHI) and
experiences in social media)
2. Structured interview using
construct analysis (focus on
the characterization of the
experiences)

13. The Study-Methodology-Triadic Elicitation
Facebook
Hotmail
Skype Facetime
WhatsApp Twitter
SnapChat
Instagram

14. The Study-Methodology-Semantic Differentiation Scale
Elements
Constructs
1 5
Emergent Distinct

15. The Results- Some Quotes
“For example, I post my picture, I
receive 35 likes, I check my friend’s picture, she
has 70 likes, so I start screaming, why did she receive all
these likes? In fact, it’s not because she is more beautiful than I
am, it’s simply because they like her more than they like me. So
now, this is transformed into a competition between all of us.
It’s like in real life, if someone gets a better grade
than I do, it’s a competition”
“There are rules. You only
post a picture on Instagram if you feel you look good
in it. It has to be Instagram worthy. You never put a bad picture on
Instagram ‘cause Instagram is how the person is. (…) You only use
Instagram when you capture a great moment or a picture that looks nice in my
opinion because it’s an application where you would view the photos to see
what someone’s appearance is like, whereas Twitter and Snapchat are
personality applications where you would see the persons day-to-
day views or funny stories and pictures that are just
for fun.”
“Without social media, I would
disappear, no one would remember
me anymore”
“The use of social
network applications came in
phases. While I usually use some
applications, I am planning on developing
my professional network in a close future
and I would reuse the skills I developed in
“less serious” social networks to
connect with other professionals
and potential employers.”

16. The Results-Construct Analysis
15 years old 18 years old

17. The Results-Construct Analysis-15 Years Old

18. The Results-Construct Analysis-18 Years Old

19. The Conclusion
RQ: How do adolescents explain their behaviors in
social media, and their consequences on their offline
life?
Participants realized that there were a thin line between their
online interactions and their offline activities.
The use of social media was paramount to participants’ lives
for two reasons: 1) the need to connect with friends and 2) the
need to exist.
Participants learned to [exist] in CMC through acquiring
technical skills.
Participants learned [to exist] in social media through
developing online soft skills
Participants learned to use distinct sets of applications to
communicate with distinct audiences for distinct objectives.

20. Future Plans
Trace back the initial participants to conduct new construct
analysis to document changes in their mental cartography
Conduct a longitudinal study with participants from early
adolescents to young adulthood to document the changes
with regards to HCHI

21. Thank you!