Abstract: With the development and popularization of the Internet， teenager “gossiping” online is increasingly becoming a common and popular phenomenon. Through online ethnography， online text analysis and interviews with teenage netizens， we found that teenagers’ online “gossiping” can be summarized as consumption and immersion of emotion， sharing and interaction in behavior， neutrality and observation in cognition， snooping and truth seeking in psychology. The online “gossiping” of teenagers is the result of the joint function of herding effect， bystander effect， sour grape effect and looking glass self， which may lead to social risks of indifference in morality， polarization of opinions， subject disorientation and collective unconsciousness. To prevent the risks， institutional efforts are needed to intervene by social workers through case work or group work etc. to provide teenagers with services in emotion management and self-identity.

Key words: teenagers, society in the internet era, “gossiping”, psychosocial mechanisms, emotion management