Following teens on different social media, especially the private world of dating apps, gave me extraordinary rich and interesting data. The participatory observation, however, led to some new issues, particularly regarding privacy.
For almost two years now, I have conducted an ethnographic fieldwork where I have followed six teenage boys online and offline, with the – quite ambitious – research aim of understanding how the smartphone matters to them in their everyday life. I have done quite a lot of classical participatory observation “IRL”, from taking the school bus, to sitting next to them in class, to participating in large graduation parties (when they were “Russ”, the Norwegian high school graduation tradition made internationally famous by the teen serial SKAM). However, lots of contemporary teenage life happens online – so I had to follow them there as well. I followed them on their TikToks and Instagrams, befriended them on Facebook (together with all the other old people in their lives), and added them on Snapchat. Following the same teens over time, in online as well as offline contexts, gave me some insights that would have been impossible to gain doing “pure” offline participatory observation or online ethnography alone. I could, for example, see on the Snapchat map or in the Instagram chat how research participants claiming to stay offline in the evenings and weekends would actually be constantly connected, or how the self-presentation on their YouTube and TikTok was related to their everyday school life.
This kind of “double” participatory observation did, however, lead to some new issues, particularly regarding privacy. The teens of course knew that I would follow them online as well as offline, but I do not think either they or myself understood the scope of this. All teenagers of course know that content on social media sticks, it is durable, and that they can be followed and observed by people they are not aware are following or observing them. It is, however, rarer that your online stalker makes notes of what he sees with the aim of publishing it, and even more rare that he also follows you around in your offline life and gets to know you quite well. I felt like I was being invasive, and I am pretty sure some of the boys felt the same.
This issue was particularly salient in the case of following them on dating apps. Not all teens use dating apps, but those who do (and who do not do it to prank their mates) do it quite extensively and probably in ways that would scare their parents. This made observing the teens on these apps extremely interesting for my project – and particularly ethically challenging.
Almost all interactions with the teens regarding these apps felt like an ethical minefield. Already on my second meeting with the first participant I recruited, he showed me the dating app profile of an older man who he – who was underage – used to buy booze from. I had some discussions with my research group, and quite soon chose to report this profile to the police. This was an explosive ethical challenge in the very beginning of my fieldwork – but it would not stop there.
In interviews and conversations with the teens, they would show me their Tinder conversations – thus exposing third parties, and being on a dating app, just the existence of their conversation was inherently sensitive. Should I say stop, or continue the interview? On other dating apps, the 17-year-old teens would suddenly change their profile photo to a shirtless one, sometimes even showing underwear. Was this unethical or borderline illegal for me to see and take notes of? It did indeed sometimes feel like I was peeping. This feeling became particularly salient when one of my participants suddenly blocked me on one of the dating apps, one using geolocation, when I randomly happened to be in his proximity and had looked at the last edits on his profile. I felt like I had been very invasive into his private romantic and sexual life. This also made it challenging to talk about the issue with him. How to you talk about the fact that somebody blocked you in social media? How do you address privacy precautions made against yourself? This particular instance ended with the participant and I losing contact – he started to respond to my requests for a meeting that he was “busy” before stopping to respond at all – never explicitly withdrawing from the research. I cannot know for sure, of course, but I am quite convinced that he experiencing me as an online stalker was a big part of the issue.
I did of course need to be open with my participants about using these dating apps, creating accounts that made it clear it was me that was there. That was complicit with ethical demands for informed consent – but this did not, as the example above shows, solve the problem of stalking: Sometimes, the presence of a researcher feels invasive – and you cannot really close your door online.
Following teens on different social media, particularly the private world of dating apps, gave me extraordinary rich and interesting data that almost made me a bit “hooked” – I wanted more of it. It is also very convenient – there is no need to explain who you are to the teenagers’ friends or teachers, and you can do it in-between teaching duties, grant writing, or meetings – even from the sofa. However, it does come with certain new privacy issues: The problem of stalking, and of compiling different social contexts that the teen tries to keep separate. As with most ethical issues, there is no quick fix, but being mindful about how even things that seem trivial or innocent, like being online on a dating app, are actually private matters for the one you are observing, is a good start.