Young people’s digital lives: The impact of interpersonal relationships and digital media use on adolescents’ sense of identity

•Online peer communication had a positive, indirect effect on self-concept clarity.•Online identity exploration had a negative, direct and indirect effect on SCC.•Mother relationship quality had a positive, direct and indirect effect on SCC.•Friendship quality had a positive, direct effect on SCC.•Friendship quality mediated the effects of the three exogenous predictors on SCC.

The current study investigates the joint effects of interpersonal relationships and digital media use on adolescents’ sense of identity. Questionnaires were administered to a sample of 2079 students (57% female) between the ages of 11 and 19 years (M = 15.4 years) attending one of seven secondary schools in Bermuda. Using structural equation modeling, the author found that mothers and friends play an important role in adolescents’ lives, with both relationships contributing in positive ways to respondents’ self-concept clarity. Further, the results showed that mother relationship quality affected adolescents’ self-concept clarity both directly and indirectly, through the positive impact it had on friendship quality. Friends also played a mediating role in relation to aspects of adolescents’ digital media use. Specifically, the negative association detected between online identity expression/exploration and self-concept clarity was mediated partially by low friendship quality. Going online to communicate with one’s friends appeared to play a more positive role in adolescents’ sense of identity. The results showed that online peer communication affected self-concept clarity indirectly through its positive impact on friendship quality.