The Promise and Peril of Social Media: How Context Shapes Online Risks and Digital Literacy Among Marginalised Adolescents

Debates about online risks often overlook the realities of young people navigating structural adversity and inequality. This qualitative study explores how adolescents in a low-income, semi- rural South African community navigate the double-edged nature of social media. Drawing on in-depth interviews, we show how offline violence, gendered power dynamics, and structural inequalities are entangled with online experiences, creating overlapping risks that amplify existing vulnerabilities. Simultaneously, social media is a source of entertainment, belonging, and glimpses of alternative futures, particularly for adolescents with personal smartphone access. Digital literacy in this context is informal and reactive, shaped by peers and trusted adults rather than formal education. These findings show how local contexts structure both the benefits and harms of social media as well as the forms of digital literacy that develop.