Adolescent use of social online media such as blogs, chat rooms and text messaging has dramatically
increased over the past decade largely due to the accessibility of such technology. For example, a recent
report by Pew foundation (Pewinternet.org, 2007) indicated that approximately 64% of adolescents ages
12 to 17 engaged in at least some type of online social networking, up from 57% of online teens in 2004;
however, about 47% of teens reported posting photos where others can see them and 89% of those who
posted photos said that people comment on the images at least “some of the time.” Posting personally
identifiable information on the Internet is a general public concern and the news media indicates that
online social communication may pose more threats than benefits to adolescents (Isakson, 2007; NBC
Dateline, 2006; PBS Frontline, 2008). Echoing the growing concerns of the media, academia has been
exploring the issues related to this emerging social phenomenon. So far, research on online teen social
communication has been in separate directions, ranging from identifying adolescent cognitive development
characteristics (Greenfield, 2004; Greenfield & Subrahmanyan, 2003), to personality and individual
differences (Amichai-Hamburger, Wainapel, & Fox, 2002; Anolli, Villani, & Riva, 2005; McKenna &
Bargh, 2000), to social communication (Dietz-Uhler & Bishop-Clark, 2005; Eastin, 2005), and to media
characteristics (Hrastinski & Keller, 2007). There has been a failure to provide a coherent and well
organized compendium of adolescent online communication research until now.
We believe that the key to a better understanding of adolescent online communication behavior is
first to develop a unified theoretical framework on this topic (Zheng, Burrow-Sanchez, Donnelly, Call,
& Drew, 2010). A unified theoretical framework of adolescent online social communication research
will provide more guidance to the public in understanding teen online social communication behavior
as well as generating new research in this area. This edited volume is significant in that it presents, for
the first time, a systematic approach to the study of adolescent online social communication undergirded
by a unified theoretical framework.