Some socially poor but also some socially rich adolescents feel closer to their friends after using social media

Abstract

Who benefits most from using social media is an important societal question that is centered around two opposing hypotheses: the rich-get-richer versus the poor-get-richer hypothesis. This study investigated the assumption that both hypotheses may be true, but only for some socially rich and some socially poor adolescents and across different time intervals. We employed a state-of-the-art measurement burst design, consisting of a three-week experience sampling study and seven biweekly follow-up surveys. Person-specific analyses of more than 70,000 observations from 383 adolescents revealed that 12% of the socially rich adolescents (high in friendship support or low in loneliness) felt closer to their friends after using social media, as opposed to about 25% of the socially poor adolescents (low in friendship support or high in loneliness). However, only 1 to 6% of all adolescents (socially rich and poor) felt closer both in the short- and longer-term. These results indicate that the rich-get-richer and the poor-get-richer hypotheses can hold both, but for different adolescents.

Who benefits and appreciates more? An evaluation of Online Service-Learning Projects in Mainland China during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Meanwhile, we found support for the coexistence of social compensation and social enhancement effects in the relationship between initial service leadership qualities and posttest PYD qualities. This observation echoes a prior proposal of the coexistence of these two effects in social media use (Pouwels et al, 2021 ; Wang et al, 2018). It is possible that online SL provides students who are relatively left behind in the initial service leadership qualities with opportunities for meaningful social interactions with teachers, classmates, and particularly service recipients.…”

“…However, loneliness was not associated with frequency of social media use, and social anxiety was not associated with online social capital. In view of these inconsistent findings, a few scholars (e.g., Pouwels et al, 2021 ; Wang et al, 2018) contended that these two hypotheses were not necessarily mutually exclusive. It is possible that both high-competent and low-competent individuals (relative to medium–competent ones) receive the most benefits from social media use.…”

The socially poor get richer, the rich get poorer: The effect of online self-disclosure on social connectedness and well-being is conditional on social anxiety and audience size

“…Not only was the rich-get-richer hypothesis unsupported, but more personal disclosure in masspersonal CMC was associated with poorer social connectedness, and in turn less positive subjective well-being for the socially rich. Although unexpected, these findings are consistent with a very recent report in which psychosocial outcomes were compared between the socially rich and poor as determined by their level of loneliness (Pouwels et al, 2021b). They found that adolescents who were less lonely were more likely to experience decreases in friendship closeness after using social media than lonelier peers.…”

“…It is the person who is interested in social interactions but who shies away from them that has driven interest in CMC as a potential compensatory tool. Alongside introverted (Dolev-Cohen & Barak, 2013), lonely (Pouwels et al, 2021b) and those with low self-esteem (Valkenburg et al, 2017), people who desire but avoid social interactions can be conceptualized as socially anxious (Lundy & Drouin, 2016). Because of the prevalence of relatively high levels of social anxiety in the general population (about one in three individuals; Jefferies & Ungar, 2020) and the potential of CMC to compensate for their interpersonal difficulties, the current study considered if those with high (or low) social anxiety benefit most from their online self-disclosure.…”

Quaranteens: Pre-pandemic relationship quality and changes in adolescent internalizing problems during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Other social partners may also have been important sources of support for the adolescents in our study (e.g., the peer group, grandparents, teachers, sports coach). Additionally, whereas there are indications that social media use may affect both relationship quality and adolescent adjustment during the COVID-19 pandemic (Ellis et al, 2020;Pouwels et al, 2021), social media use was not included in our study. However, these aspects of social contact lay beyond the scope of the present study.…”