Introduction
The spread of digital technologies and social networks has transformed how people interact, communicate, learn, share information, and engage in social activism. Through social platforms, users can build virtual relationships, take part in civic activities, and share their information and experiences with others. At the same time, widespread use of technology has brought not only new opportunities but also outcomes such as digital fatigue, stress, burnout, cyberbullying, cybercrime, the spread of misinformation, and threats related to privacy. In such conditions, digital resilience refers to individuals' capacity to adjust their behaviors and psychological states in response to risks and pressures arising from digital technologies (Sun et al., 2022).
Digital resilience is not simply a return to a prior state after a crisis; it is an ongoing process of awareness, confrontation, adaptation, learning, and rebuilding one's online presence (Lestari et al., 2025). A resilient person in the digital environment does not only resist threats; they use crisis experience to rethink their behavior, identity, and relationship with technology. Social networks, especially for civic activists and media practitioners, are both tools for informing and mobilizing society and contexts that can enable targeted cyber threats, content removal, account hacking, phishing, organized harassment, and algorithmic pressures.
The central research problem is why users, despite being aware of the need for self-protection and the importance of digital resilience, cannot always put safe and adaptive behaviors into practice. In other words, there is a gap between what users know and what they do. Focusing on this gap, the present study examined the factors that produced the knowledge and performance gaps and the active coping strategies users employed when facing digital crises.
Literature Review
Previous studies show that digital technology can both increase social connection and social capital and be associated with stress, dependency, fatigue, and psychological harm. Some research has examined digital resilience in relation to healthy technology use, education, mental health, and the ability to adapt to technological change (Sharma et al., 2021). Recent work also emphasizes the role of algorithm design, personalized feeds, endless scrolling, social rewards, and continual changes in platform policies.
Within this framework, coping is a set of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral strategies that people use to manage stressful situations (Folkman & Moskowitz, 2004; Abbas et al., 2020). Problem-focused coping, emotion-focused coping, and avoidance are among the main coping styles. In the digital context, active coping strategies include actions such as learning from threat experiences, using security tools, rebuilding online identity, managing emotions, and drawing on supportive networks (Wenting et al., 2024; Park et al., 2024). Moving beyond a purely preventive or passive view, the present study stressed user agency and the ability to learn, rebuild, and act effectively.
Methodology
This study used a qualitative approach based on the Straussian grounded theory paradigm (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). This method was chosen because of the interpretive nature of the topic and the need to understand people's lived experience when facing digital crises. Participants were selected through purposive sampling. The sample consisted of 25 civic activists and media practitioners on the social network Instagram, people who interact actively with the digital environment and have personal experience of digital threats or challenges.
Data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Interviews were first read line by line and given initial codes. Similar codes were then organized into categories and subcategories, and in the final stage, main categories and relationships among them were extracted. Data analysis followed three stages: open, axial, and selective coding. In axial coding, relationships among causal conditions, context, the central phenomenon, action/interaction strategies, intervening conditions, and consequences were examined. Data collection continued until theoretical saturation. For validation, findings were reviewed by five experts in media studies and library and information science.
Results
Findings showed that the central phenomenon of the study was active digital resilience in the face of threats. This resilience was a cyclical process that began with recognizing a threat and continued through confrontation, adaptation, learning, and rebuilding online presence. Thus, digital resilience was neither a fixed state nor merely the outcome of formal education; it was a continuous process of learning and re-creation.
The knowledge gap arose mainly from three factors: first, a superficial understanding of technology-related risks; second, cognitive and practical dependence on platforms; and third, limited algorithmic literacy (Mackey & Jacobson, 2011). Many users reduce digital risks to hacking or data theft and lack adequate awareness of how algorithmic mechanisms work, how platform policies change, and pressures linked to visibility. Dependence of economic, social, or professional activity on a single platform also reduces the possibility of critical distance from it. The performance gap became visible when people knew about security measures but did not carry them out in time. For example, some participants knew they should use two-factor authentication, backups, and security settings, but continuous pressure to produce content, anxiety about declining views, and psychological fatigue prevented them from doing so. As a result, knowing does not necessarily lead to action. Weak digital emotion regulation, fear of content removal, worry about losing followers, and inability to rebuild adaptive behaviors were main drivers of this performance gap.
Three main dimensions of active coping strategies were identified:
1. Reflective learning and self-regulation: Users draw on experiences such as content removal, hacking, or account restrictions to better understand platform mechanisms (Hassoun et al., 2025). Changing publishing practices, revising problematic content, pausing before posting, and documenting threats were examples of this strategy.
2. Rebuilding digital identity in the face of a data crisis: A crisis could push users to redefine their goals, roles, and modes of presence on social networks. After content removal or loss of an account, some rebuilt their online identity on other platforms or drew new boundaries among professional, civic, and personal activity (Lupton, 2023).
3. Use of supportive networks and technological mutual aid: Participants said they gained practical knowledge more from friends, colleagues, and other users than from formal training. Exchanging experience in comments, forming mutual-aid groups, sharing solutions, and helping recover accounts were examples of digital social capital (Eri et al., 2021; Zayed, 2024). Alongside these strategies, technical measures such as two-factor authentication, backups, security checklists, and threat documentation were also used.
Conclusion
The results indicated that digital resilience literacy combines knowledge, skills, attitudes, emotional self-regulation, technological agency, and social support. The distance between knowledge and performance related not only to lack of information but also to platform dependence, content-production pressure, algorithmic anxiety, psychological fatigue, and weak support networks. In this model, digital resilience is a cognitive, social, and identity-related process in which the individual moves from perceiving a threat to learning, rebuilding, and teaching others.
On this basis, digital literacy education should go beyond transmitting general information and include adaptive skills, emotion management, algorithmic literacy, practical security, and reflection on digital identity. Workshops designed by educational institutions, innovation hubs, and digital entrepreneurship associations can better prepare users to engage actively with cyber threats. Ultimately, digital resilience is not a simple return to the pre-crisis state but a form of reconstructive coexistence with technology and the ability to turn threat experience into learning and effective action.