Social competence of digital natives: Impact of social networking sites use

The digital natives of today are the first generation to grow up immersed in information and communication technologies and in particular social networking sites (SNSs). There is much hype in the media about the negative effects of SNSs, at the same time there are concerted efforts to reach these digital natives through social media by politicians, advertisers, organisations, and agencies. There is much isolated research on social media, digital natives, youth well-being, etc. But there is very little research that brings these diverse disciplinary threads together in a holistic manner. The purpose of our research is to address this lacuna by exploring the impact of social networking sites on digital native well-being in particular social competence. In this paper we explore this area and come up with three propositions that could become the foundation for future research.