Social Media and Changing Patterns of Interpersonal Relationships among Urban Youth
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.63345/Keywords:
Social media use, interpersonal relationships, urban youth, relational reconfiguration, digital well-being, explainable machine learningAbstract
Social media has become embedded in the everyday relational environment of urban youth, changing not only how frequently individuals communicate but also how interpersonal closeness, reciprocity, trust, and availability are negotiated. Existing research has concentrated predominantly on screen time, problematic social media use, loneliness, and mental-health outcomes, leaving the structural transformation of interpersonal relationships comparatively underexamined. This study conceptualizes social media influence as relational reconfiguration, in which digitally maintained network breadth may coexist with changes in emotional depth, offline reciprocity, perceived support, and interpersonal interruption. A multidimensional Digital–Interpersonal Reconfiguration Framework is proposed to distinguish active reciprocal communication, passive consumption, public interaction, private messaging, phubbing, online social support, and online-to-offline relational continuity. The study focuses on urban youth aged 18–29 because their interpersonal networks commonly span educational, professional, familial, friendship, and digitally initiated relationships simultaneously.
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