Adolescence endangered? Teen political activity, digital influencers, and PSRs

James Cochran (Ph.D. student), Joshua Cloudy, Lance Porter, Sara Epps (Ph.D. student) & Jackson Crean (M.A. student). “Adolescence endangered? Teen political activity, digital influencers, and PSRs,” paper to be presented at the 76th Annual International Communication Association Conference, Cape Town, South Africa, June-4-8. Abstract: There's growing parental concern over the radicalization of teen boys online, with angst reaching a fever pitch alongside the internationally popular Netflix series Adolescence. The show demonstrated that even engaged parents can miss their children absorbing toxic attitudes online that translate to real-world attitudes and behaviors. However, while mainstream media rings the alarm bell and parents grapple with another newfound fear regarding their children’s online lives, there is little research on how nefarious social media influencers – such as those in the manosphere – are influencing impressionable teens. We conducted a nationwide online survey of 1,009 teens aged 13-17 years of age in the United States to explore this influence and narratives regarding lonely young men being more susceptible to these influences. We examined teens’ online influence through the lens of parasocial relationships (PSR) and wishful identification with Social Media Influencers (SMI), while also examining political engagement and the influence of teen-parent political alignment. Our findings soften the narrative regarding lonely young men, suggesting there’s no predictive relationship between gender, loneliness, and SMI influence. Regarding party identification, our results challenge the conventional narrative that conservatives are more likely to be susceptible to online influencers, as our findings indicate that liberal leaning teens are more positively related to influence from online influencers.