The effects of social media usage on loneliness and well-being: analysing friendship connections of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to clarify the effects of different patterns of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram usage on user loneliness and well-being in Japan. Design/methodology/approach Based on responses to a self-report questionnaire in Japan, 155 university students were separated into 4 groups: users of Twitter only, users of Twitter and Facebook, users of Twitter and Instagram and users of all three social media. The effects of social media usage on loneliness and well-being for each group were analysed. Findings No social media usage effects on loneliness or well-being were detected for those who used only Twitter or both Twitter and Instagram. For those using both Twitter and Facebook, loneliness was reduced when users accessed Twitter and Facebook more frequently but was increased when they posted more tweets. Users of all three social media were lonelier and had lower levels of well-being when they accessed Facebook via PC longer; whereas their their access time of Facebook via smartphones helped them decrease loneliness and improve their levels of well-being. Originality/value The findings reported here provide possible explanations for the conflicting results reported in previous research by exploring why users choose different social media platforms to communicate with different groups of friends or acquaintances and different usage patterns that affect their loneliness and well-being.

The Use of Close Friends on Instagram, Help-Seeking Willingness, and Suicidality Among Hong Kong Youth: Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods Study

“…While some studies reported that using SNSs may alleviate loneliness and enhance happiness, others remarked that excessive usage of SNS and online expression can exacerbate the sense of loneliness and impair one’s well-being [ 66 ]. Similarly, although using Close Friends for private online communication may help strengthen real-world social connections and maintain better social capital, heavy use of the feature may suggest underlying psychological or social malfunction, such as social media addiction, smartphone dependency, lack of confidence in person-to-person interaction, and low self-esteem, all of which indicate poorer mental health [ 67 ]. In addition, there is conflicting evidence on the relationship between time spent on SNSs and online help seeking for suicidality [ 38 , 40 , 68 ], implying that other purposes and motivations of using SNSs may contribute to the variations of both public and private online expression.…”

SAFER: Social Capital-Based Friend Recommendation to Defend against Phishing Attacks

“…Network scientists also measured structural social capital based on network topologies (Andersson 2021;Tsai 2021). Further, social capital in online platforms has been measured on Facebook and Twitter in the computer science domains (Phua, Jin, and Kim 2017;Cho, Alsmadi, and Xu 2016;Ye, Ho, and Zerbe 2021). However, none of them measured three-dimensional social capital nor employed it as a defense mechanism to handle phishing attacks.…”

Habitual Facebook use as a prognosticator for life satisfaction and psychological well-being: social safeness as a moderator

“…Social networks sites (SNSs) such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace have been having consistent extrapolating trends in terms of growth of subscribers over the last decade, over 50 million active visitors monthly (Dunne, Lawlor, & Rowley, 2010; Pang, 2018). This penetration and usage rate indicate how SNSs are integrated to our daily lives (Ye, Ho, & Zerbe, 2020). Research has shown that higher degree of habitual Facebook usage has been so high, particularly among the tech-savvy young generation (Tsai & Men, 2017).…”

“…Research has shown that higher degree of habitual Facebook usage has been so high, particularly among the tech-savvy young generation (Tsai & Men, 2017). However, some reports indicate that the overuse of Facebook may negatively affect the social well-being of young people (Ye et al. , 2020).…”