Same incident, different story? Investigating early adolescents’ negative online peer interactions from different perspectives

The goal of this chapter was to describe lessons that can be learned from a qualitative study that aimed to gather perceptions that classmates have on the same negative online peer interactions within their peer group, such as online conflicts, online aggression, and cyberbullying. In order to gather these perspectives a combination of photo diaries and semistructured interviews (i.e., photo-elicitation interviewing) among a sample of 34 participants between 13 and 14 years old was used. A thematic analysis provided examples of different perceptions on the same events that happened within their peer group and demonstrated that early adolescents do not always realize that certain interactions online are labeled as “negative” or “hurtful” by others. Based on the findings and the experience of conducting this research, a checklist with guidelines on how to integrate and understand different perspectives was formulated.