Toward an Integrated and Differential Approach to the Relationships Between Loneliness, Different Types of Facebook Use, and Adolescents’ Depressed Mood

Abstract

Although a variety of studies have examined the predictors or outcomes of adolescents’ social networking site use, these studies did not incorporate (1) an integrated, longitudinal approach to examine these relationships longitudinally in a single comprehensive model or (2) a differential approach to distinguish between different types of social networking site use. Therefore, this two-wave panel study ( N = 1,612) developed an integrated and differential model to provide a deeper understanding of the relationships among loneliness, specific types of Facebook use, and adolescents’ depressed mood. Using structural equation modeling, the results point to the presence of a poor-get-richer effect regarding active public Facebook use but reveal a poor-get-poorer effect regarding passive Facebook use. The discussion focuses on the explanation and understanding of these findings.

Passive Facebook use, Facebook addiction, and associations with escapism: An experimental vignette study

“…Taken together, the present findings, and those of other studies (e.g., Burke et al, 2010;Frison & Eggermont, 2015;Verduyn et al ,2015) indicate that passive Facebook users are not aware of the negative effect that PFU can have. This indicates that work must be done to rectify understanding of the effects of PFU.…”

“…Previous research indicates that PFU has a negative effect on wellbeing (Burke et al, 2010;Frison & Eggermont, 2015;Shaw et al, 2015;Verduyn et al, 2015). Building upon this work, the present study highlights when individuals are at increased risk of engaging in this behavior, namely after positive, rather than negative, daily life events and, an additional finding, after social, rather than non-social, daily life events.…”

“…This indicates that work must be done to rectify understanding of the effects of PFU. For example, alongside earlier research (Burke et al, 2010;Frison & Eggermont, 2015;Shaw et al, 2015;Verduyn et al, 2015), the findings of the present study are relevant to medical professionals working with individuals suffering with low mood or social anxiety. If these individuals regularly engage in PFU, and they believe this behavior has no effect on their mood or social anxiety symptoms, advice to avoid this behavior would be of benefit.…”

“…This perception is interesting when considering other findings that PFU has a negative effect on mood (Verduyn et al, 2015), as well as increasing feelings of loneliness (Burke et al, 2010;Frison & Eggermont, 2015) and social anxiety symptoms (Shaw et al, 2015).…”

“…In support of Burke et al (2010), Frison and Eggermont (2015) found that PFU increases feelings of loneliness, whilst Shaw, Timpano, Tran and Joormann (2015) suggested a relationship between PFU and an increase in social anxiety symptoms. Similarly, Verduyn et al (2015) reported that PFU reduces wellbeing in participants by inducing envy.…”