TRAIT MINDFULNESS, FACEBOOK USE, LIFE SATISFACTION, AND WELL-BEING

Facebook use is a regular part of the daily lives of many college students. The initial research in this area indicates that social media can be both beneficial and harmful to overall well-being, with some studies indicating that factors such as how social media is used may play an important moderating role between social media use and well-being outcomes. Given the prevalence of Facebook use in daily life, it is important for counseling psychologists to understand the relationship of Facebook use to well-being and life satisfaction. Research indicates that a higher level of dispositional mindfulness might be particularly helpful in fostering positive outcomes of social media use, but no previous studies have directly addressed this question with college students. This study used a correlational design to investigate the relationships among trait mindfulness, Facebook use, life satisfaction, and well-being in college students. Participants were 101 undergraduate students from Kansas and Colorado. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to evaluate the relationships among the variables. Findings indicated no relationship between Facebook use and measures of well-being, and replicated previous findings that level of mindfulness is positively associated with measures of life satisfaction and well-being. Mindfulness did not serve as a moderating variable in predicting well-being and life satisfaction. Implications for practice and research are discussed

Facebook on College Campuses: Usage and Opinions of the Social Networking Site among College Students

Social Networking sites have emerged as college students’ number one source of communication. Facebook, ranked the number one SNS among college students, has gone from a student-only environment to the general public. In addition to exploring how college students are using the sire, I explore if students sex and year in school play a significant role in opinions about the site and how it is being used. Through a sample of 149 undergraduate college students, findings suggest that students seem to be using Facebook in the same ways and for the same reasons with little variation. Furthermore, my research proves that certain opinions of Facebook vary with students’ sex and year in school by older students have strong opinions of who is using the site and negative implications with females being more cautious of their privacy

The Effects of Social Media Use on the Perceptions of Mental Illness Among College Students

This study examined individuals’ use of and perceptions of social media networking sites (i.e. Facebook and Twitter) on their perceptions of mental illness. Previous studies have consistently found that media, by means of TV shows, movies, and news reports, depict distorted views of the mentally ill. Previous studies have also consistently found that these media depictions are related to increased stigma of mental illness and the mentally ill. This current study goes a step further by examining the role of social media networking sites on individual’s perceptions, since they are newer and more widely used forms of social media today. This study aimed to answer the research question, “does the use of social media networking sites, and the negative posts on them, perpetuate the stigma of mental illness?” Data was collected using a survey asking participants about their social media use, perceptions of, and attitudes about mental illness, as well as posts they have seen on social media about mental illness. Participants were 183 undergraduate college students at Butler University. The majority of the sample were female, upper-class, Liberal Arts and Sciences students. Using regression analyses, the results of this study showed no significant relationship between social media and mental illness perceptions as hypothesized. Social media use was found to be positively correlated with social media views, and additional analyses indicated that the more one uses social media, the more often they see posts regarding mental illness, as well as see posts involving mass shootings. Gender was found to have a significant relationship with mental illness perceptions. This finding indicated that males, on average, reported higher scores on the mental illness perceptions index, indicating that they hold more stigmatizing views of mental illness in comparison to females

Assembling thefacebook: Using heterogeneity to understand online social network assembly

Online social networks represent a popular and diverse class of social media systems. Despite this variety, each of these systems undergoes a general process of online social network assembly, which represents the complicated and heterogeneous changes that transform newly born systems into mature platforms. However, little is known about this process. For example, how much of a network's assembly is driven by simple growth? How does a network's structure change as it matures? How does network structure vary with adoption rates and user heterogeneity, and do these properties play different roles at different points in the assembly? We investigate these and other questions using a unique dataset of online connections among the roughly one million users at the first 100 colleges admitted to Facebook, captured just 20 months after its launch. We first show that different vintages and adoption rates across this population of networks reveal temporal dynamics of the assembly process, and that assembly is only loosely related to network growth. We then exploit natural experiments embedded in this dataset and complementary data obtained via Internet archaeology to show that different subnetworks matured at different rates toward similar end states. These results shed light on the processes and patterns of online social network assembly, and may facilitate more effective design for online social systems.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, Proceedings of the 7th Annual ACM Web Science Conference (WebSci), 201

How Important is being Liked ? The Relation between Facebook Use and Well-being

Facebook is used by approximately 1.06 billion(Craig,2013) to keep in touch with family and friends. However, the question remains whether Facebook is helpful or harmful to people’s well being. According to a research study conducted by Gonzales and Hancock (2010), Facebook use enhances self-esteem by providing multiple opportunities for selective self-presentation through photos and personal details. Another research study by Twenge, Freeman and Campbell (2012) found that participants who spent time on social network sites endorsed more positive self-views. While some research indicates that Facebook has a positive effect on the user other studies suggest that Facebook use is detrimental. A study conducted by Tazghini and Siedlecki (2013) found a negative association between self-esteem and Facebook activity. This association was related to actions like untagging “undesirable” pictures or adding others as friends who they are not familiar with. Similarly, Sheppard Pratt’s (2012) research indicated that Facebook has a negative impact on self-esteem and body image . “Facebook is making it easier for people to spend more time and energy criticizing their own bodies and wishing they looked like someone else” (Dr. Harry Brandt, director of The Center for Eating Disorders at Sheppard Pratt). Given the discrepancies in the research, a worthwhile next step involves examining personal characteristics that may influence the relationship between Facebook use and well-being. The present research will examine whether certain factors influence the relationship between Facebook use and overall well-being.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1033/thumbnail.jp

AGENT: Alumni growth and engagement across new technologies

The AGENT project aims to use social networking technologies (LinkedIn and Facebook) to support the development of undergraduates’ employability and career development. The focus of the project is on e-mentoring by alumni to provide a ‘bridge’ between individuals whose social ties and connections are weakened by time and distance, whilst at the same time capitalising on the learning opportunities afforded by the widening of social networks. Social networking sites (SNSs) have been shown to provide students with the tools to make connections, build relationships and support personal development. From a social capital perspective, SNSs can support ‘weak ties’ by allowing students to grow a social network from which to draw resources in the form of information, knowledge, advice and expertise that an institution’s alumni can provide. Alumni are a key resource for building professional networking communities that can provide offline as well as online support to students. We report on an on-going JISC project –AGENT (Alumni Growth and Engagement across New Technologies) that explores how Web 2.0 technologies engage alumni, create the sense of belonging, develop more effective and mutually-beneficial alumni-student connections and associated positive social capital outcomes.Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) 2011-201

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

Academic Performance and Behavioral Patterns

Identifying the factors that influence academic performance is an essential part of educational research. Previous studies have documented the importance of personality traits, class attendance, and social network structure. Because most of these analyses were based on a single behavioral aspect and/or small sample sizes, there is currently no quantification of the interplay of these factors. Here, we study the academic performance among a cohort of 538 undergraduate students forming a single, densely connected social network. Our work is based on data collected using smartphones, which the students used as their primary phones for two years. The availability of multi-channel data from a single population allows us to directly compare the explanatory power of individual and social characteristics. We find that the most informative indicators of performance are based on social ties and that network indicators result in better model performance than individual characteristics (including both personality and class attendance). We confirm earlier findings that class attendance is the most important predictor among individual characteristics. Finally, our results suggest the presence of strong homophily and/or peer effects among university students

Parent-Child Closeness and Coping Outcomes in Emerging Adulthood

Parents continue to play a pivotal role in their children’s social and emotional adjustment into emerging adulthood (Mounts et al., 2006). This project examined the effect of parent-emerging adult closeness on emerging adult coping responses, and whether this association varied as a function of parent-child contact. The sample consisted of 180 undergraduate students (M age = 19.6, SD = 1.05, 78% female) from the University of Vermont. Participants reported on their closeness with their parent(s), their coping responses, and their patterns of contact with their parent(s). As predicted, parent-emerging adult closeness was predictive of emerging adults’ coping responses. The relationship was not, however, moderated by mode or frequency of communication. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed