THE USE OF SOCIAL NETWORKS ONLINE: A REASON OF INTERGENERATIONAL CONFLICTS? Maria Apparecida Campos Mamede-Neves Dr. in Psychology Emeritus Professor of Department of Education - PUC-Rio Stella Maria Peixoto de Azevedo Pedrosa Dr. in Education Project coordinator at the Coordination Center for Distance Education - PUC-Rio This work is based on results of a research carried out by the Youth Network directory of PUC-Rio 1 (Department of Education), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, finished in 2013, and supported by CNPq, 2 superior agency of research support in Brazil. It aimed to determine if use of social networking sites by young people would be a significant element in intergenerational conflict, restricted to members of the same family, more specifically between children and parents. So, first of all, we need to define the concept of the family adopted by this research. The term family was considered to be the central unit of social organization, ranging in various forms and types, assuming essential social functions for the existence of collective life.(Pestana 2011) One of the major changes taking place in the profile of the Brazilian family was because when was Brazil approved divorce law (Law 6.515/1977), there was a significant change in the 70s, through which new families of second marriage of either spouse began to be formed and be legally recognized by generating legitimate children within these new unions. According to the Brazilian common sense, the prevailing belief is that urban families with father, mother and children are not the model anymore. One can find consanguineous siblings, but having in common only one parent; families from second marriage, in which both parts of the couple bring its own children from previous relationships, children living with brothers and sisters from different fathers, besides the so-called "independent productions". It is long gone the time when it was believed that these new family arrangements would not hold up without the male provider. Nowadays, these families, including single parents, are able to support their children as well as traditional families did. "Families are structured in different ways depending on the place, time, and so inheritances. It is from that tangles of wires which emerge the functions of the family group. Today, we see in this group as many forms of expression as the units analyzed. "(Passos, 205.16) Thus we assume that family is the whole set of people united by social interactions with certain cohesion among its members, with degrees of parenthood, concrete or artificial, declared or concealed, with or without genetical links. 1 From now, we will call Research JER 2 Conselho Nacional Científico e Tecnológico (IBGE) Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistical is a public foundation of the Brazilian federal administration. IBGE has responsibilities related to geosciences and social, demographic and economic statistics, which includes conduct censuses and organize the information obtained from these censuses, to supply organs of federal, state and local government levels, and other institutions and the general public.