Conference Program

Some research tends to portray adolescents as inexperienced and vulnerable navigators of the cyberworld. Our research, however, proposes the perspective of agency to understand the factors that cause adolescents to trust others despite having no direct knowledge of them (Krabbendam et al., 2024). We know that early interactions of trust during childhood form the basis for subsequent interactions of trust with peers and strangers (Erikson, 1963; Stolle, 2002): the attachment and trust experienced in parent-child relationships translate and can be modified by subsequent social experience during childhood and adolescence (Rotenberg et al., 2005). What do we trust in friendship? In symmetrical interpersonal relationships, trust is built purely on emotions (Đorđević, 2025); initial trust is the first indicator of the level of trustworthiness confirmed by other people, whether known or unknown, and signals a desire to engage in potentially mutually beneficial interactions (Krabbendam et al., 2024). Not many studies explore the trust building in everyday contexts, which nowadays fully include cyberspace (Brunori & Pediconi, 2025; Pediconi & Brunori, 2019, 2021; Pediconi et al., 2024).

The present research sheds light on characteristics in developing trust in adolescents' online social interactions. Our research involved 99 adolescents (24 males and 75 females) attending the second year of high school in two schools in central Italy. Participants were asked to draw an imaginary Instagram profile of a user with which it can be easy to exchange friendship, to fill a chat conversation with this imaginary user and to describe both the photo-profile and posts included within his/her profile. Qualitative research using visual methods opens up new perspectives on complex phenomena (Agha et al., 2024; LaMarre & Chamberlain, 2022), allows to “materialize bodies, social practices, and interactions between individuals and structures” useful for studying social experience (MacIsaac 2021, p. 1). The results reveal an identikit of the trusted digital other, based on the exploration of otherness through gender, name, biography, profile photo and chat exchanges.

Our adolescents showed a willingness to imagine trusted peers of either gender who would have no problem revealing their first and last names, with a personal photo; they reveal their place of residence or school, ready to meet others in person to share common interests and positive qualities. Young people want to know who they are dealing with; this digital friend is described as helpful, outgoing and transparent teenager who is as authentic as a favourite friend in the offline world. This model of digital otherness is based on offline friendships, revealing a certain caution and prudence on the part of adolescents when they encounter the digital world (Kelly & Burkell, 2025). These personal resources should be utilised as an experiential evaluative dimension in the construction of digital policies and pedagogical strategies. Formal and informal educational settings are places where trust and democratic engagement are closely linked and mutually reinforcing. Strategic actions in these settings can strongly support teenagers' sense of agency, fostering resilience against the polarisation of the digital ecosystem.