Using objective server data to measure participants’ online activities, they found that active (e.g. Burke, Marlow, and Lento (2010) recently demonstrated how problematic “aggregating over” these activities can be. scrolling through a friend’s profile, uploading photos, status updating) ( Smock, Ellison, Lampe, & Wohn, 2011). Although researchers have begun to focus on specific online activities such as chatting (Shaw & Gant, 2000), in the field of online social networking research, most studies still do not differentiate among the various activities members of these sites can engage in (e.g.
These contradicting results might, in part, be due to the fact that early studies defined “internet use” very broadly, subsuming online activities as diverse as reading the news, chatting with friends, buying clothes, and downloading music ( LaRose, et al., 2001, McKenna & Seidman, 2006). 4), others have identified its beneficial effects on social capital ( Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007 Steinfield, Ellison, & Lampe, 2008), social support ( LaRose et al., 2001), well-being ( Valkenburg & Peter, 2007a) and loneliness ( Fokkema & Knipscher, 2007). While some researchers have cautioned against internet use ( Nie, 2001 Nie & Erbring, 2000) on the base of it creating “a ‘lonely crowd’ in cyberspace” ( LaRose et al., 2001, The Paradoxical Internet Paradox Section, para. Since then, however, the empirical evidence regarding the risks and benefits of internet use has been mixed and Kraut and colleagues’ study has been subject to substantial criticism ( Gross, Juvonen, & Gable, 2002 LaRose, Eastin, & Gregg, 2001). Prompted largely by Kraut et al’s (1998) first and highly influential study claiming that internet use can cause loneliness and depression, the public has been concerned about the detrimental interpersonal and psychological effects of spending time online ( McKenna & Bargh, 2000 Shaw & Gant, 2002 Weiser, 2001). But despite its popularity, the public opinion around the internet is rather critical. The internet has changed our daily lives, our ways of communication and our ways of interacting with our social networks ( Weiser, 2001). And Facebook, the most popular online social networking site, has 800 million active users of whom more than 50% visit the site every day ( “Facebook Statistics”, 2011). (…) The question of the future is this: Is Facebook part of the separating or part of the congregating is it a huddling-together for warmth or a shuffling-away in pain?” Stephen Marche, Is Facebook Making Us Lonely? The Atlantic, May 2012Ībout 30% of the world’s population uses the internet (“internetworldstats”). We were promised a global village instead we inhabit the drab cul-de-sacs and endless freeways of a vast suburb of information. “We live in an accelerating contradiction: the more connected we become, the lonelier we are.
Results revealed (1) that the experimentally-induced increase in status updating activity reduced loneliness, (2) that the decrease in loneliness was due to participants feeling more connected to their friends on a daily basis and (3) that the effect of posting on loneliness was independent of direct social feedback (i.e. Participants added a lab “Research Profile” as a Facebook friend allowing for the objective documentation of protocol compliance, participants’ status updates, and friends’ responses. For one week, participants in the experimental condition were asked to post more than they usually do, whereas participants in the control condition received no instructions. The current study tested the psychological effects of posting status updates on Facebook using an experimental design. Strong public opinions on its consequences exist but are backed up by little empirical evidence and almost no causally-conclusive, experimental research. Online social networking is a pervasive but empirically understudied phenomenon.
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