TY - JOUR
T1 - Revamping Advocacy for the Digital Age
T2 - Approaches for Nurturing Survivor-Centered Digital Resiliency
AU - Storer, Heather L.
AU - Gezinski, Lindsay B.
AU - Shulruff, Toby
AU - Malorni, Angela
AU - Hamby, Sherry
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2024.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - Purpose: Despite the myriad benefits associated with accessing digital technologies, there has been considerable concern regarding the prevalence of digital dating abuse (DDA) in youth dating relationships. Using the resilience portfolio model (Hamby, S., Grych, J., & Banyard, V. (2018). Resilience portfolios and poly strengths: Identifying protective factors associated with thriving after adversity. Psychology of Violence, 8, 172–183. https://doi.org/10.1037/vio0000135.) and digital well-being theory (Büchi, M. (2024). Digital well-being theory and research. New Media & Society, 26(1), 172–189.) as scaffolding, this paper describes survivor-centered and strengths-based advocacy approaches to support youth DDA survivors in developing digital resiliency and subjective well-being. Methods: Using thematic content analysis, this study involved key informant interviews (n = 35) with staff at Intimate Partner Violence organizations in the United States. Data analysis involved multiple rounds of iterative coding. Results: Five thematic domains were constructed, including affirming that survivors are not responsible for tech abuse, optimizing the benefits of digital technologies and reducing the risks, positioning youth digital expertise as a strength, empowering youth to be critically informed users of digital technologies, and emphasizing boundary setting in digital spaces. Conclusions: Accessing technology contributes to DDA youth survivors’ well-being and is critical to fully navigate their social environments in the digital age. Rather than limiting the use of technologies, it is important to support youth in becoming critically conscious, informed, and empowered users of digital technologies. Strengths-based and survivor-centered advocacy approaches to nurturing youth resilience involve honoring youth tech expertise, encouraging survivors to define their boundaries in digital spaces, and fortifying youth survivors’ regulatory, psychosocial, and meaning-making strengths. Future digital literacy curricula should prioritize developing DDA youth survivors’ digital resilience rather than overly emphasizing harm reduction approaches that target users’ digital safety and tech literacy behaviors.
AB - Purpose: Despite the myriad benefits associated with accessing digital technologies, there has been considerable concern regarding the prevalence of digital dating abuse (DDA) in youth dating relationships. Using the resilience portfolio model (Hamby, S., Grych, J., & Banyard, V. (2018). Resilience portfolios and poly strengths: Identifying protective factors associated with thriving after adversity. Psychology of Violence, 8, 172–183. https://doi.org/10.1037/vio0000135.) and digital well-being theory (Büchi, M. (2024). Digital well-being theory and research. New Media & Society, 26(1), 172–189.) as scaffolding, this paper describes survivor-centered and strengths-based advocacy approaches to support youth DDA survivors in developing digital resiliency and subjective well-being. Methods: Using thematic content analysis, this study involved key informant interviews (n = 35) with staff at Intimate Partner Violence organizations in the United States. Data analysis involved multiple rounds of iterative coding. Results: Five thematic domains were constructed, including affirming that survivors are not responsible for tech abuse, optimizing the benefits of digital technologies and reducing the risks, positioning youth digital expertise as a strength, empowering youth to be critically informed users of digital technologies, and emphasizing boundary setting in digital spaces. Conclusions: Accessing technology contributes to DDA youth survivors’ well-being and is critical to fully navigate their social environments in the digital age. Rather than limiting the use of technologies, it is important to support youth in becoming critically conscious, informed, and empowered users of digital technologies. Strengths-based and survivor-centered advocacy approaches to nurturing youth resilience involve honoring youth tech expertise, encouraging survivors to define their boundaries in digital spaces, and fortifying youth survivors’ regulatory, psychosocial, and meaning-making strengths. Future digital literacy curricula should prioritize developing DDA youth survivors’ digital resilience rather than overly emphasizing harm reduction approaches that target users’ digital safety and tech literacy behaviors.
KW - Digital Dating Abuse
KW - Digital Resilience
KW - Resilience Portfolio Model
KW - Technology-facilitated Abuse
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U2 - 10.1007/s10896-024-00712-0
DO - 10.1007/s10896-024-00712-0
M3 - Article
SN - 0885-7482
JO - Journal of Family Violence
JF - Journal of Family Violence
ER -