Wattpad is a cultural artefact representing and changing current youth culture. This book is a self-reflexive attempt to unpack the social and cultural influence this artefact has on adolescents. In this study attempts will be made to describe some...
Wattpad as seen through the lens of adolescent developmental theories throws light on human development, female identity and diversity.
Human development and identity confusion
Although adolescence is a developmental stage with some common characteristics as elaborated by the work of Erikson, it also consists of a "socially non-homogeneous group of individuals who adopt different components of the Internet for different purposes." (Mesch, 2009). Erikson's theory proposes that at the adolescent stage of life the central issue is identity vs identity confusion (Arnett, 2007).
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
On Wattpad, identity moratorium through the exploration of identity formation occurs as readers and writers shift through possible worlds and "try out" different jobs, roles and ideologies through stories. At the same time, groups of fans form around different books, authors, genres or fandoms such as Star Wars or Anime. Each fan group is quite distinct from the other. So joining many fandoms increases a fan's online networks and friendships. One example is @LongingForYesterday who has written a total of 29 books ranging from fanfiction stories to personal emotive narratives regarding ADD, rants about growing up, depression etc. For her Wattpad is a place to express thoughts and emotions to 1800 followers who share a passion for the same type of fan fiction: Drama Island and Harry Potter. In her book "Rant", we see that Wattpad is where she expresses "unresolved conflicts, to play and replay difficulties, to work on significant personal issues" (Mesch, 2009). As a digital native, she is able to produce and share what is inside her inner world anonymously expressing her identity. Another example is @personpersonperson13 who is a reader of only romance stories, which constitute the most popular genre on Wattpad. The stories in her library allow her to explore the idea of romantic relationships through fantasy.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Wattpad writers construct possible worlds in their stories in the process exploring possible selves, such as "hoped for selves", "expected selves and "feared selves". This exploration could lead to the forming of "positive expected selves" which prevents teens from "drifting into unproductive, antisocial" and "self-destructive" behaviour (Dolgin, 2014). This is illustrated in the video below where Caitlin reads out her Wattpad stories written when she was thirteen. Her books explore the world of a teenage parent(feared self) and other romantic encounters(hoped for and expected self). As she reads, her tone of voice and her comments show that she has attained the maturity of an 18 year old (positive expected self) and developed an integrated understanding of her identity-confused younger self.
