Designed for Good: Community Well-Being Oriented Online Databases for Youth - Community-Built Databases: Research and Development - page 291

indicated that aspects of the self and their relationships were more important to their
well-being, while youth workers focused on social contexts and emotions. This
implies that young people may be uncritical or unaware of the role of their social
contexts and are therefore unlikely to seek to address structural dimensions that
impact upon their well-being. The findings also suggest that young people felt they
could control their well-being, while youth workers felt that young people's well-
being was connected to, if not produced by, their social environments [ 6 ].
Family and friends dominate the social environments of youth. Consequently,
loneliness and perceived social support from family and close friends [ 77 ], a
socially supportive network [ 2 , 39 ], the level of emotional support [ 13 ], relation-
ships and friendships [ 2 ] as well as a feeling of closeness and connectedness to
others on a daily basis have all been found to contribute to youth well-being [ 36 ].
Moreover, feeling understood and appreciated and sharing pleasant interactions
with friends and family are especially strong predictors of well-being [ 68 ]. The
importance of having friends and more significantly having good quality friend-
ships is an important developmental element for adolescents [ 36 ]. These findings
underscore the importance of schools as a primary source of connectedness with
adults and with the broader community as perceived and experienced by the
adolescent [ 70 ]. Resnick et al. [ 70 ] assert that family connectedness still plays an
important role in youth's well-being.
Eckersley et al. [ 27 ] assert that adolescence is a period of difficult metamorpho-
sis where youth are deciding who they and what they believe and begin to accept
responsibility for their own lives. One of the phenomena that is occurring at this
time is the construction of a coherent self-identity [ 59 ]. According to popular
psychologists, a coherent self-identity is directly linked to their psychological
well-being [ 18 , 48 , 78 ], as well as their subjective sense of well-being [ 78 ]. A study
done by Suh [ 79 ] found that adolescents who had successfully achieved a coherent
and consistent self-identity required less affirmation from external sources [ 23 ] and
therefore had a stronger sense of subjective well-being.
Adolescence is a period of many questions: questions about oneself and
questions about changing relationships with the outside world. In this phase of
life, there is a struggle for independence from parents and an increased reliance on
peers for support [ 10 , 50 ]. However, there are some areas of a young person's life
that she or he does not feel comfortable sharing with even the closest friends. For
these reasons, the Internet as a form of digital media has become increasingly
popular among youth [ 65 , 82 ]. The Internet accommodates the increased need to
communicate with existing friends and the creation of new social relationships
as well as the need for anonymity when looking for information on sensitive
topics [ 4 ].
Youth are not only exposed to a plethora of technological tools that allow them
to connect to the Internet; they are equally surrounded by friends and family who
go online. According to a survey done by the PEW Online American Study [ 41 ],
83% of all the youth surveyed stated that most of the people they know use the
Internet while only 6% said that very few or none of the people they know use the
Internet [ 51 ].