"I Don't Conversate With Those I Don't Know": The Role of Trust in Online Engagement

• In Event: 66.057 - Roundtable Session 27
  In Roundtable Session: 66.057-9 - Exploring Time, Place, and Space With Digital Media

Abstract

Digital spaces are populated by youth who navigate, consume, create, and distribute information. Key to collaboration, participation and distributed knowledge is trust. This paper draws on sociological theories of generalized trust to examine the impact that trust/distrust had on the digital space engagement of six, low income, urban youth, 16-18 years of age. Participants were observed, interviewed, kept journals, and had remote monitoring software installed on their devices. I argue that trust as a continuum (high-low) develops in relation to one’s experiences and varies with context/environment. Secondly, distrust is a separate and distinct construct from trust. These bifurcations of trust have different implications for the engagement and collaborative practices in both on- and offline spaces.

Author

• Martha Joanne Hoff, University of Rochester