' I Don't Want to Break His Heart. What Should I Do?': Teens Seeking out Relationship Advice on Reddit

Background and Purpose: Teens are highly active on social media and use these platforms for myriad purposes, including communication, relationship building, and information seeking. While research has documented how commonly teens search the internet for sex education, little work has examined their use of online platforms for general information about dating relationships. The social media platform, Reddit, offers a wide range of communities specifically designed for people to ask questions and share knowledge about various topics, including teen relationships. To expand on existing research, we asked: What types of information or advice about dating relationships are teens asking about on the social media platform, Reddit?

Methods: We performed qualitative content analysis using “top rated” (i.e., most popular) posts from a large Reddit community (over 15,000 members) dedicated to teens asking about relationships. We extracted 150 posts and excluded 9 for the following reasons: no question asked (n=4), posted by third-person (n=3), and questions not involving dating relationships (n=2), yielding a final sample of 141 posts for analysis. Posts ranged in length from 430-14,000+ characters (M=1559). Our team engaged in iterative coding, meeting after reviewing 25% and 50% of the data to discuss codes and begin organizing into subcategories and categories. We met again after coding all data to resolve disagreements and finalize code applications. Each post could have multiple codes applied as relevant.

Results: Posters self-identified as female (52%), male (48%), and non-binary (<1%). Most posts referenced heterosexual dynamics (9% asked questions about queer relationships). Poster ages ranged from 13-18, with most being 15-17-years old (81%). We identified 5 primary categories of information/advice being asked for, with a total of 22 subcategories. The primary categories, examples of subcategories, and proportions of categories within the sample are as follows: 1) How to initiate or maintain a relationship (e.g., how to communicate with partner; how to deal with parental interference in relationship; 38%); 2) Break-up advice (e.g., how to cope with a break-up; validation for reason to break-up; 26%); 3) How to handle cheating and jealousy (e.g., partner spending time with other people; issues with partner's past; 18%); 4) How to respond to unhealthy, questionable, or abusive situations (e.g., age gaps, unwanted sexual behaviors; 18%); and 5) Sex education questions (e.g., pregnancy scares/concerns; 11%).

Conclusions and Implications: Teens are using the social media platform, Reddit, to ask peers for guidance related to their dating relationships. “Top” posts from this community were dominated by questions about heterosexual/cisgender relationships. Most posts were asking how to handle complex socioemotional situations in their relationships (e.g., how to better communicate with their partner), while a minority were related to sexual behaviors. Notably, one-fifth of posts were teens trying to identify or understand how to respond to abusive situations (e.g., unwanted sexual behaviors). These findings suggest many teens are eager for more comprehensive information about interpersonal relationships (beyond basic “sex ed”). Additionally, communities such as this could benefit from social media-based interventions for detecting and responding to abuse with psychoeducation and resource referrals.