A philosophical assessment of social networks impact on adolescents’ development in conditions of unlimited access to information

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to implement a philosophical assessment of social networks impact on adolescents’ development in the context of unlimited access to information. The study is a philosophical and methodological structuring of the modern worldview paradigm of gender identification fundamental and innovative elements. While the fundamental clusters of the information worldview are similar to the paradigmatic elements of previous eras, the innovative dimensions of perception of the information flow have new socio-cultural characteristics. The study also aimed to examine the relationship between social media and changes in the sexual behavior, as well as to find out whether the disclosure of adolescent sexuality is influenced by unlimited use of social media in the absence or in strict parental control. Methodology: in this broader context, the analysis was narrowed to a philosophical assessment of adolescent socialisation, articulating two dimensions of this process: gender identification and the impact of unrestricted use of social media on communication, which leads to adolescent sexual risk behaviour. Adolescent sexual risk behaviour on social media and its consequences remain global. There is little empirical evidence on the impact of social media on youth sexual disclosure behaviour. The study involved 555 Albanian adolescents who completed a baseline and follow-up a survey in 12 Albanian public high schools as part of a sexual education intervention. The linear mixed-effects regression was used to examine the relationship between social media and gender identification as well as social media risk behaviours. The results showed that the sexual risk behaviours significantly increased between baseline and follow-up (12 months), (mean = 0.432 vs. mean = 0.734, P<0.001). Adolescents who watched more than 100 videos of sexual content per day had significantly higher rates of sexual risk, i.e., ways of socialising in relation to gender differ (beta=1.008, P<.001), and a significantly greater reduction in sexual risk, i.e., sexual performance on social media, was observed with higher levels of parental control (beta=-.237, P=.009). A separate methodological approach in the study of the information picture of the world is the philosophical revelation of gender philosophy, designed to use an interdisciplinary approach. The results of the work led the authors to two epistemological stages: first, the concept of the context where adolescents are socialised is revealed, and second, the concept of the context where adolescent identity is constructed is proposed to understand the issues on the agenda in the construction of today’s youth identity in terms of the old and new social realities. The study helped penetrating the essence of adolescent practices of staging and discussing the gender identity on social networks in order to show the processes by which gender is perceived as an integrating dimension of self-identity in adolescence, within identification niches that are becoming increasingly exclusive and multiple.