Los vínculos y la conversación 2.0. Miradas de adolescentes argentinos sobre Facebook

Abstract

This paper analyzes how teenagers from different neighborhoods of Buenos Aires (Argentina) use Facebook in order to keep in touch with their friends and other people. Several 17 and 18-year-old adolescents were in-depth interviewed in order to explore how the relationships they hold with their friends have been affected by the new possibilities of interaction that the social network offers. This article deals as well with the difference between virtual and “real” interactions, in a life stage that is defined by the search for self-identity and the importance of peer relationships. The qualitative analysis of the interviews revealed that the physical aspects of friendship and face-to-face encounters are still crucial for teenagers. Furthermore, the constant conversation that social networks have introduced in everyday life appears as a way of keeping permanent contact, in which the phatic function of communication prevails over the content of messages. Peer approval –condensed in the “Like” button– is critically important for adolescents, who find in this virtual spaces new ways of sociability, along with the persistence of other ways of building friendship prior to the emergence of Facebook.