Mediated risk: A qualitative exploration of students’ experiences flirting online

Abstract

Based on qualitative interviews with 53 college students, this article explores how digitally mediated communication is seen as a tool for risk reduction by college students when it comes to their flirtatious interactions. I conclude that college students perceive the affordances of digital communication technologies as helping them manage the anxieties and vulnerabilities inherent in the flirtation process, an idea I refer to as “mediated risk.” My findings suggest that partly due to “mediated risk,” digital communication has become a normative mode of flirtatious interactions for young people as they experiment with romance, courtship, and sexuality. My findings offer a counter-narrative to popular media images, as well as scholarly accounts of adolescents’ use of social media, which tend to highlight risk.