Open Competition Large and XS: Social media and adolescent delinquency
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The social world of adolescents has changed profoundly since the early 2000s. Social networking sites and smartphone apps are now used by almost everyone, and youths spend substantial parts of their time on their smartphones, consuming and producing content and interacting with peers on social media.
A pivotal question for the study of juvenile delinquency is, then, whether and how the rise of social media has impacted the relation between peers and delinquency. Do online peer interactions provide an additional and independent effect on delinquent behavior or are they just a new way of communicating? Together with my colleagues Frank Weerman and Jean-Louis van Gelder, we received an Open Competition Large grant from NWO for a large-scale research project to address these and related questions. We started in October 2024. In this project we aim to conduct a longitudinal survey among a large group of youth, a smartphone study and a VR experimental study. For more information, see our recent factsheet (in Dutch). |
In addition to this larger project, I received an Open Competition XS grant from NWO to also conduct research among parents of adolescents. With this, I aim to develop new theoretical conceptualizations and related operationalizations of parental media strategies specifically tailored to addressing online criminogenic content (e.g., visuals of fights or fast money). Ultimately, I intend to shed light on effective strategies and challenges that parents encounter when talking to adolescents about social media use and the criminogenic content adolescents may encounter.
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VENI project: Situational peer influence and adolescent decision-making
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Most deviant acts committed by adolescents are carried out with peers. Despite abundant evidence that peer influence is a driving force in adolescent risk-taking, it remains unclear how adolescents influence each other’s behavior.
In January 2020, I started a research project in which I use observational and experimental methods to break down 'peer influence' into specific verbal and nonverbal cues. Participants are 489 adolescents (aged 11-22) who were recruited from middle schools, high schools, and a public university in New York State (USA). Listen here to my webinar on 'Adolescent delinquency and peer influence', organized by the NYS Youth Justice Institute.
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Een Nederlandstalige samenvatting van dit project vindt u hier, in de nieuwsbrief van de Nederlandse Vereniging voor Criminologie.
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PhD project: Unstructured socializing and adolescent delinquency
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On March 9th 2016, I have defended my dissertation at VU University Amsterdam (cum laude). You can download my dissertation here.
Nederlandse samenvatting: hier downloaden.
Lekenpraatje: hier bekijken. Review van mijn proefschrift door Hanneke Palmen in het Tijdschrift voor Criminologie: hier lezen. Radio interview NPO Radio 1
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