What do social networks bring to relationships between young people in terms of peer socialisation? What aspects of their lives are shared? Among these, which specific dimensions relate to gender? In this paper, we will examine how young people perceive their social interactions in the digital space, as well as the direct effects on their friendships and romantic relationships, their attitudes towards sexuality, tensions and conflicts between peers, and power relations (social, gender-based, related to the marginalisation of certain groups). The influence of social media on young people's lives is debated in every country around the world at the political, economic, societal and scientific levels. Research on the effects of social media on young people is largely dominated by the fields of neuroscience and health, with references to sociology being rarer. This multiplicity of viewpoints gives rise to an impression of scientific cacophony. This is particularly evident in France, where parliamentarians have just debated a resolution to ban digital social networks for young people under the age of fifteen (January 2026).

While research on digital sociability agrees that digital social networks are essential places for young people to socialise (Pasquier, 2020), where they exchange and share ‘their lives’ widely and even publicly (boyd, 2016), few studies have explored the link between the technical parameters and functionalities of these applications designed to support social interaction.
In this paper, we will discuss how young people use digital social networks, how they produce markers of social interaction in these private spaces, and what underlying tensions exist within their circle of friends. These digitally assisted social relationships weave together sociability, intertwining what is publicly displayed to the wider community and what is shared more intimately. What happens when the intimate escapes control and becomes public, or when communication intended for digital spaces invades and generates tensions with spaces of co-presence sociability (Balleys and Coll, 2015)? In these circumstances, we will ask ourselves what roles friends can play.

To answer these questions, we combined two sets of data from surveys on peer socialising practices, both face-to-face and digital. The first survey concerns young people from urban neighbourhoods and was conducted between 2019 and 2023 (Bortolotti, 2025). Using a mixed methodology, this survey was based on face-to-face interviews with 63 young people (aged 12 to 23) monitored by specialised prevention associations, as well as seven months of online ethnography (Berry, 2012) focusing on the Snapchat accounts of fourteen young people (eight girls and six boys). The second survey focused on the population of a semi-rural secondary school and three primary schools in the same geographical area, with a sample of 850 pupils (aged 8 to 16). The population, which is heterogeneous, tends to come from middle-class and disadvantaged backgrounds and is structured around marked and divisive migratory nuclei, both in the geographical area of the sector and within the schools surveyed. The materials are drawn from a mixed approach in which data are collected successively through questionnaires, focus groups and individual interviews.

With regard to age-related effects, our two areas of research show that young people's digital lives cannot be analysed solely on the basis of fixed categories, but rather as an evolving period marked by socialisation practices that change and become more personalised over time. Young people often have highly organised circles of friends on their accounts, differentiating between public and private stories based on the degree of trust in the friendship. However, younger people are more likely to make ‘mistakes’ or find themselves in embarrassing situations (adding malicious people, sharing images of themselves without consent), often due to a lack of knowledge of the technical features of applications, or a poor understanding of the ‘moral codes’ of youth digital culture (not sending ‘nudes’, not editing photos, not taking screenshots of private stories). Identifying the uses and practices surrounding a form of ‘friend diplomacy’ reflects online and offline exchange strategies. Privacy protection becomes even more fragile when they use their friends' smartphones. Sharing passwords or leaving accounts open on a friend's phone is based on a relationship of trust, which can be betrayed at any time. These situations put girls' reputations at stake, especially when intimate photos have been previously exchanged in a romantic context. On digital social networks, friendships are formed and broken, conquests and games of seduction develop, romantic relationships begin and end, and gender differences are asserted, as illustrated by a few case studies in our presentation (Bortolotti & Couchot-Schiex, 2025).

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