Research Question: In what ways do both the presence and the absence of compassion manifest themselves among youth in digital settings?

To investigate this question, I will conduct qualitative research through a combination of digital and face-to-face interviews with 8-10 youth in Alberta, between the ages of 13-17. I will seek participants who have their own personal computer, Smartphone, tablet, or other device with internet access, with which they have some measure of freedom, and who spend at least 30 minutes a day online.

Source: Tom Daccord

I have selected interviews as the best research method to address this question, because they are most useful when the research objectives focus on better understanding experiences, opinions, attitudes, and values, and when there is insufficient known about the subject to be able to draft a questionnaire (Rowley, 2012). Being that at this stage I am still investigating what digital compassion might look like, and because there is little to no scholarly work on it, my research area clearly has the aforementioned attributes that are best explored through interviews.

Because my research deals with activities and interactions youth carry out on and with digital technologies, it would be advantageous to utilize these technologies for at least part of the research process. Benefits of this might include the fact that with such technologies, I would be able to interview people who may be shy in face-to-face interviews, or I could reach out to those who cannot express themselves as well in discussion as they do in writing (Olubunmi, 2013).  My initial semi-structured interviews, then, will be conducted via some kind of instant messaging (IM) interface, or even email. Since these technologies need at least a certain level of literacy, however, and because not all interview questions can be effectively expressed or answered using IM, this could result in some low or incomplete responses (Olubunmi, 2013), I will not solely rely on “digital” interviews.

Following this initial interview, then, I will ask participants to keep a diary of their daily digital interactions for one week. This diary would be a first-person account, documented through regular, candid entries in some kind of personal journal (again, use of digital technology would be welcome), which will then be analyzed for recurring patterns or salient events (Gkonou, 2013). With the inclusion of this step in my research, I will have access to concrete details that might otherwise get lost if I were only conducting interviews. A diary study will hopefully give me a glimpse into micro-level details about how some young people use and feel about digital technology in their everyday lives. These are often private matters that adult researchers do not have access to (Pascoe, 2012). Although diary data is sometimes subject to memory gaps on the part of the diarist (Gkonou, 2013), this step in my research would add another valuable facet of information I could gather.

Finally, I will conclude the data collection portion of my research through the use of unstructured, face-to-face interviews with each participant. This interview, then, would be based on a limited number of topics or issues that emerge from examining the participant’s diary, and the emphasis would be on encouraging each respondent to talk around the themes that emerged as most important or interesting to them. An unstructured interview, in which I would take a constructionist stance whereby knowledge is constructed between the researcher and the interviewee, would also allow me to adapt questions and the order we discuss themes in accordance to what each interviewee says (Rowley, 2012). Additionally, I foresee that the affect resulting from digital interactions will be an important aspect of this study, and physical, inter-personal interaction will most likely be more effective at conveying affect than purely online interviews would be (Pascoe, 2012). Thus, this final interview stage will be another necessary aspect of data collection.

Source: Jerome Stone

Using this type of qualitative research would mean that my “results” would not be generalizable to the more widespread population (Creswell, 2014).  But, by implementing a combination of these three qualitative methods and studying the data that emerges, I will be able to gain some primary insight into how compassionate feelings, responses, and relationships already exist among youth in digital settings, and in what ways compassion is manifested, felt, and expressed. I also hope to begin to better understand the digital situations youth encounter where there is a lack of compassion, and what kinds of affect can result, and how young people deal with those feelings.