ADOLESCENTS’ ONLINE ACTIVITIES AND DIGITAL SKILLS: VIRTUAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR IDENTITY FORMATION ACROSS EDUCATION AND FRIENDSHIP DOMAINS

ICT use is the daily routine of adolescents, that promotes virtual opportunities for them to explore different roles, values, lifestiles. Based on these explorations, adolescents could make decisions about themselves and form strong and integrated identities that are critical important in increasingly challenging societal circumstances (Mastrotheodoros & Motti-Stefanidi, 2017). However, for some adolescents exploration of identity in digital context autonomously, without supervision of adults, could be challenging and could lead to a sense of fragmented identity (Valkenburg & Peter, 2011). Thus, it seems that not all adolescents take advantage of online opportunities for identity formation equally. This study contributes to better understanding the links between identity development and ICT use in adolescence. Specifically, we are exploring how different patterns of identity across education and friendship domains relate to online activities and digital skills among adolescents. Methods:The sample was drawn from a larger international survey “EU Kinds Online”. Participants were 549 Lithuanian adolescents (46.6 % girls) with the mean age 15.5 years (SD = 1.43). We used the Utrecht-Management Identity Commitments Scale (Crocetti et al., 2008) Lithuanian version to measure identity processes in education and friendship domains. Online activities were assessed asking respondents how often in the last month they have done the specific entertainment (e.g. played games), socialising (e.g. communicated with family or friends) and education (e.g. used the internet for schoolwork) activity online. Digital skills were measured with 6 items adopted from the Internet Skills Scale (van Deursen, Ellen & Eynon, 2016). Results:We utilised a two-stage clustering procedure (Gore, 2000) to empirically specify identity statuses from the configuration of identity processes (i.e. commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment) across the education and friendship domains. The five identity statuses were selected as the most acceptable: Early Closure (N = 95, 17.7%), Moratorium (N = 148, 27.6%), Diffusion (N = 52, 9.7%), Searching moratorium (N = 98, 18.3%), and Achievement (N = 143, 26.7%). The results of ANOVAs revealed that adolescents in achievement and searching moratorium statuses tend to report higher, while the adolescents in early closure, moratorium and diffusion statuses lower engagement in online activities. Only one exception regarding engagement in browsing online to buy thing or see what things costs was observed: not only adolescents in achievement, but also in diffusion status reported higher engagement in this activity comparing to the engagement of adolescents in early closure status. Regarding digital skills, diffused adolescents scored lowest, while there were no differences between the scores of digital skills among adolescents in other statuses. Conclusion: Those adolescents who have a better clarity of who they are make more use of the internet, while those adolescents without a clarity have lower digital skills and mainly use the internet for entertainment. Educators need to take into account the fact that not all adolescents take advantage of online opportunities equally.