Hypermediated Adolescence: Tactical Resilience Through and Against the Digital in Post-Pandemic China

The Covid-19 pandemic intensified the everyday volatility of hypermediated life. Drawing on longitudinal, multi-method qualitative material from Chinese adolescents who entered puberty during the pandemic—including platform observation, repeated interviews, family-based focus groups, and mobile ethnography—this study examines how digital resilience is enacted through routine media practices across disruption and uneven normalization. The analysis identifies four recurring practice clusters through which adolescents modulate affect, manage visibility, and negotiate relational exposure: ritualizing digital routines, narrativizing fear, playful misrecognition, and liquid platform use. These practices are interpreted through a three-layer framework of mediation: infrastructural shaping by platform affordances and algorithmic design; social scaffolding via caregivers and peer networks; and symbolic negotiation through narrative, humor, and affective framing. The study advances communication research on youth and digital media by reconceptualizing digital resilience as a set of situated communicative practices through which everyday livability is sustained within hypermediated, volatile environments.