Impediments to and affordances of creating trust over the internet: The case of Israeli youth

In spite of obstacles to trust-building over the Internet, as well as continuous warnings on the part of educators, parents and social movements about the dangers of unsupervised web surfing by children and adolescents, an avid culture of youth has emerged over the Internet and created spaces for trust-building. This paper aims to display the key impediments encountered in the formation of trust relations over the Internet among youth, and the ways that these obstacles are engaged. Observations and conversations with Israeli adolescents yielded three intertwined impediments to online trust: (1) Lies and truths. (2) Anonymity/Disclosure (3) Transparency/Opacity. Uncovering the ways that youth create and maintain trust may illuminate our understanding of how youth communicate and fraternize in today's Information and Communication Technology society. Basing itself on these findings, this study contributes to the understanding of challenges and bridges for instilling social integration through computer-mediatedcommunication (CMC).