Lost in facebook: individual and social correlates of problematic facebook use in adolescents and young adults

Over the last decade, Social Networking Sites (SNSs) have become increasingly important in the way people interact with others and social groups (Ryan, Chester, Reece, & Xenos, 2014). Facebook is the most popular SNS in the world, with about 2 billion users. Despite the resources and the innovative social features offered by Facebook (Lee, Cheung, & Thadani, 2012), research has been indicating that its use may become problematic especially amongst adolescents and young adults (Kuss & Griffiths, 2011a) suggesting that the problematic use of Facebook may manifest as a new potential mental health problem (Kuss & Griffiths, 2011a). However, there are currently no accepted diagnostic criteria nor theories assessing Problematic Facebook Use. Therefore, for the purpose of the current thesis, we adapted Caplan’s Generalized Problematic Internet Use model (2010) to the Facebook context. We conceptualized Problematic Facebook Use as the maladaptive use of Facebook characterized by cognitive and behavioural factors which negatively impact users’ well-being. While in recent years researchers have been showing an increasing interest in the conceptualization of Problematic Facebook Use, and its associations with individual characteristics and psychological adjustment, it is becoming difficult to have a full picture of its correlates and specific characteristics. Therefore, the first aim of this work is to systematically synthesize findings from research on Problematic Facebook Use. Study 1: The meta-analysis aimed to understand the specific features of Problematic Facebook Use (that is, the associations with the time spent online and the broader concept of Internet addiction), the individual characteristics of problematic Facebook users (including gender differences, personality traits, self-esteem levels, and motivations for using Facebook), and the associations between Problematic Facebook Use and psychological distress and well-being. Fifty-four independent samples with a total of 26707 participants (59.49% females; mean age = 25.31 years, SD = 4.75) were included. Briefly, results showed a small gender effect favoring females and a positive association between Problematic Facebook Use, time spent online and Internet addiction, whereas a negative association was found with self-esteem. Neuroticism and conscientiousness were the most clearly personality traits associated with Problematic Facebook Use, and the strongest associations were observed between Problematic Facebook Use and motives with internal source and motives with negative valence. Finally, Problematic Facebook Use was positively correlated with signs of psychological distress, including anxiety and depression, whereas a comparatively smaller negative correlation between Problematic Facebook Use and well-being (including life satisfaction and other indices of subjective well-being) emerged. This comprehensive meta-analysis makes contributions to understanding the phenomenon of Problematic Facebook Use and its correlates. As a second aim, three studies have been conducted with the purpose of clarifying some debated results emerged in the meta-analysis. Study 2: The aim of the second study was to examine the unique role of personality traits and social influence processes (i.e., subjective norms, group norms, and social identity) to frequency of Facebook Use and Problematic Facebook Use in a sample of adolescents. A total of 968 Italian adolescents (37.7% females; mean age = 17.19, SD = 1.48) participated in the study. Structural equation modeling showed that emotional stability, extraversion, conscientiousness and subjective norms directly predicted Problematic Facebook Use, whereas group norms and social identity predicted frequency of Facebook use. In conclusion, both personal and social variables appear to explain frequency of Facebook use and Problematic Facebook Use among adolescents. Study 3: The third study aimed to test a model designed to assess the unique contribution of personality traits, motives for using Facebook and metacognitions on Problematic Facebook Use among young adults. A total of 815 Italian university students (77.2% females; mean age = 21.17, SD = 2.16) participated in the study. Path analysis revealed that three of the four motives to use Facebook, and two of the five metacognitions, predicted Problematic Facebook Use. Moreover, only one personality trait (extraversion) appeared to be directly linked to Problematic Facebook Use, while emotional stability indirectly influenced Problematic Facebook Use via motives (coping and conformity) and metacognitions (negative beliefs about worry and cognitive confidence). Study 4: The aim of the fourth study was to test whether, and how much, specific objective Facebook behaviours are more frequent in problematic than in non-problematic Facebook users. Differences between problematic and non-problematic Facebook users in objective Facebook behaviours were examined using both frequentist and Bayesian t-tests. Participants were 297 undergraduate students (80.8% females; mean age = 21.05, SD = 1.88). A specific R package was developed to obtain information about objective Facebook behaviours (friendship activities, events, wall activities, and text messages). T-tests indicated that non-problematic and problematic users significantly differ in several objective Facebook behaviours. Bayesian analyses confirmed t-test results and supported that problematic users scored higher than non-problematic users in several dependent variables, such as number of friendships established, number of events attended, all wall activities (e.g., number of “like”), and private messages sent. The analysis of data about objective Facebook behaviours goes beyond the self-reported information about such activities, and helps to understand the role of its potentially addictive activities in predicting Problematic Facebook Use. In conclusion, taken together, the findings of the four studies suggested possible emotional and behavioural (dis)regulation mechanisms underlying Problematic Facebook Use. Therefore, the current thesis may have some important implications for the theoretical conceptualization of Problematic Facebook Use, for clinical interventions tackling problematic Facebook use, and for prevention programmes for young users

Understanding and Measuring Psychological Stress using Social Media

A body of literature has demonstrated that users' mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety, can be predicted from their social media language. There is still a gap in the scientific understanding of how psychological stress is expressed on social media. Stress is one of the primary underlying causes and correlates of chronic physical illnesses and mental health conditions. In this paper, we explore the language of psychological stress with a dataset of 601 social media users, who answered the Perceived Stress Scale questionnaire and also consented to share their Facebook and Twitter data. Firstly, we find that stressed users post about exhaustion, losing control, increased self-focus and physical pain as compared to posts about breakfast, family-time, and travel by users who are not stressed. Secondly, we find that Facebook language is more predictive of stress than Twitter language. Thirdly, we demonstrate how the language based models thus developed can be adapted and be scaled to measure county-level trends. Since county-level language is easily available on Twitter using the Streaming API, we explore multiple domain adaptation algorithms to adapt user-level Facebook models to Twitter language. We find that domain-adapted and scaled social media-based measurements of stress outperform sociodemographic variables (age, gender, race, education, and income), against ground-truth survey-based stress measurements, both at the user- and the county-level in the U.S. Twitter language that scores higher in stress is also predictive of poorer health, less access to facilities and lower socioeconomic status in counties. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of using social media as a new tool for monitoring stress levels of both individuals and counties.Comment: Accepted for publication in the proceedings of ICWSM 201

Facebook Profiles and Usage as Indicators of Personality

The online social networking website, Facebook, has greatly changed the way the world communicates. Face-to-face interactions have been replaced by wall posts, status updates and friends liking posts or leaving comments. This study looks at how certain cues on Facebook profiles relate to personality traits, specifically, extraversion, conscientiousness and emotional stability. Three hypotheses focused on profile photos and how frequently the users change their photo. I predicted that 1) extraversion scores would be higher for participants who use a party scene as their profile photo, 2) conscientiousness scores would be lower for these same participants, and 3) the emotional stability scores would be negatively related to profile photo changing frequency. A total of 170 first year college students at Bryant University were surveyed about personality traits and Facebook usage. Out of this sample, 59 users provided access to their profiles and profile picture for data coding. The first hypothesis, that extraversion and party photos are positively related, was supported. The other two were not. However, additional analyses using the self-reported behaviors from the Facebook usage survey identified several other Facebook characteristics and behaviors that could be used as an indicator for each of the three personality traits studied

Political Magazines on Twitter during Election 2012: Framing, Uniting, Dividing

This study offers a content analysis of Twitter activity from 16 American political opinion magazines during the month before the 2012 presidential election. The study is an exploratory attempt to operationalize aspects of tweets that may contribute to frame alignment processes and mobilization among Twitter users. The analysis identifies these components and examines how political magazines’ Twitter activity may demonstrate aspects of this process. These magazines must consider both the normative goal of achieving specific political gains by mobilizing readers and the pragmatic goal of remaining sustainable as publishing enterprises. The degree to which their Twitter usage reflects frame alignment processes may not only reinforce political mobilization, but also affect the longevity of their publications. This analysis offers practical and theoretical insights into the changing role of political magazines in an increasingly digital era of political engagement

Keeping up with the e-Joneses: Do online social networks raise social comparisons?

Online social networks such as Facebook disclose an unprecedented volume of personal information amplifying the occasions for social comparisons. We test the hypothesis that the use of social networking sites (SNS) increases people's dissatisfaction with their income. After addressing endogeneity issues, our results suggest that SNS users have a higher probability to compare their achievements with those of others. This effect seems stronger than the one exerted by TV watching, it is particularly strong for younger people, and it affects men and women in a similar way.Comment: 25 pages, 5 figure

Internet addiction in students: prevalence and risk factors

The last decade has witnessed a large increase in research on the newly emerging mental health problem of Internet addiction. Rather than looking at Internet addiction per se, this study focused on particular activities on the Internet that might be potentially addictive and linked them to personality traits that might predispose individuals to Internet addiction. The aims of this study were (i) to assess the prevalence of clinically significant levels of Internet addiction, and to (ii) discern the interplay between personality traits and specific Internet uses in increasing the risk for Internet addiction. This cross-sectional online survey used data from 2,257 students of an English university. Results indicated that 3.2% of the students were classified as being addicted to the Internet. The included personality traits and uses of online activities explained 21.5% of the variance in Internet addiction. A combination of online shopping and neuroticism decreased the risk for Internet addiction, whereas a combination of online gaming and openness to experience increased it. In addition to this, frequent usage of online shopping and social online activities, high neuroticism and low agreeableness significantly increased the chances of being addicted to the Internet. Findings and their implications are discussed

A Pragmatic Study of Female and Male Discourse Use on Facebook

La comunicación virtual es un campo de estudio muy interesante e innovador que analiza las distintas estrategias comunicativas empleadas en este tipo de discurso que difieren de las empleadas en la comunicación verbal. Este trabajo empieza revisando investigaciones precedentes en este tema para posteriormente analizar, desde un punto de vista pragmático, las diferencias del uso del discurso femenino y masculino en Facebook, sin caer en una perspectiva sexista. El problema principal en este estudio ha sido intentar establecer dicha comparación. Para poder acometer este estudio, recurrimos primero al análisis descriptivo de un corpus creado con discursos reales sacados de la propia red social, para elaborar un cuestionario Likert de 5 puntos, y poder realizar así un estudio experimental que nos permitiera probar si los marcadores textuales utilizados por hombres y mujeres difieren en sus respectivos discursos. Los resultados revelaron una diferencia estadísticamente significativa entre ambos tipos de discursos al comunicarse en Facebook. Sin embargo, también obtuvimos algunos resultados inesperados en relación al uso de los marcadores discursivos utilizados por el grupo de mujeres jóvenes que eran muy parecidos a los utilizados por los hombres en ambas condiciones, tanto en los jóvenes como en los adultos. Por esta razón, la conclusión es que existen rasgos distintivos en los usos discursivos femeninos y masculinos, aunque en el caso de las mujeres jóvenes su discurso parece estar cambiando, puesto que se asemeja cada vez más al discurso masculino. No obstante, sería necesario llevar a cabo una investigación sobre el cambio discursivo de las mujeres jóvenes para tratar de establecer sus causas.Virtual communication is an interesting and innovative field study which analyses the communicative strategies used in this type of discourse, different from the ones used in face-to-face communication. This work first reviews some previous research on the topic to then analyse from a pragmatic perspective the differences between female and male discoursre uses on Facebook, without succumbing to a sexist perspective. To carry out this analysis, we resorted to a corpus made with real conversations from Facebook to elaborate a 5-pint Likert scale, and so conduct an experimental survey to test whether women and men actually use different discourse markers in their respective discourses. The results revealed that there was a statistically significant distinction in the female and male discourse use when communicating on Facebook. However, some unexpected results were also obtained regarding the discourse markers used by women in the female young adult group condition, which were very similar to those used by men in both the young adult and adult condition. Hence, the conclusion is that there are distinctive features of both female and male discourse use that allow us to identify the two different gender identities, though young women’s discourse use seems to be changing and increasingly resembling to the male discourse. Further research is needed to shed some more light on the change of discourse use found in young women to try to determine its causes.31 páginas y anex