Using Eye Tracking to Explore Facebook Use and Associations with Facebook Addiction, Mental Well-being, and Personality

Abstract

Social networking sites (SNSs) have become ubiquitous in our everyday lives, and for all its communicative benefits, excessive SNS use has been associated with a range of negative health implications. In the present study, the authors use eye-tracking methodology to explore the relationship between individual differences in personality, mental well-being, SNS usage, and the focus of Facebook users’ visual attention. Participants (n = 69, mean age = 23.09, SD = 7.54) completed questionnaire measures for personality and to examine changes in depression, anxiety, stress, and self-esteem. They then engaged in a Facebook session while their eye movements and fixations were recorded. These fixations were coded as being directed to social and update areas of interest (AOI) of the Facebook interface. An exploratory analysis of personality factors revealed a negative correlation between openness to experience and inspection times for the updates AOI and an unexpected negative relationship between extraversion and inspection times for social AOI. There were correlations between changes in depression score and inspection of updated AOI, with reduced depression scores associated with increased inspection of updates. Finally, self-reported duration of participants’ typical Facebook sessions did not correlate with eye-tracking measures but were associated with increased Facebook addiction scores and greater increases in depression scores. These initial findings indicate that there are differences in the outcomes of interacting with Facebook which can vary based on Facebook addiction, personality variables, and the Facebook features that individuals interact with.

Social Impact of Psychological Research on Well-Being Shared in Social Media

“…The bulk of the most recent psychological research on wellbeing in social media has been quantitative and used one or more scales via online questionnaires, which means that they are mostly transitional studies, in terms of Gosling and Mason (2015). Nonetheless, these studies present specific features of the other two types of studies, like considering the role of social media in generating and disseminating certain phenomena (e.g., addiction) or offering new perspectives, like an eye-tracking methodology (Hussain et al, 2019). Atroszko et al (2018) used one scale to study the relationship between Facebook addiction and psychosocial functioning and different dimensions of well-being in undergraduate students in Poland through the validation of the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS).…”

“…The findings of this study indicate that Facebook as an essential element that can improve the psychological well-being and socialization of the homeless (Calvo and Carbonell, 2018). Hussain et al (2019) used four questionnaires and an eyetracking methodology to study social networking site (Facebook) use and its relation to different indicators of well-being (mental well-being, depression, anxiety, stress, and self-esteem). The study of the interactions with the areas of interest of the interface of this social network found that Facebook addiction, personality variables, and the Facebook features that individuals interact with are determinant in the individual outcomes related to wellbeing variables.…”

How Often Should I Access My Online Social Networks?

“…The appropriate rate for users to access online social networks is a theme that has been widely discussed in the sphere of Psychology [3], [20], [21], [31], [32]. According to Sean Parker, founder of Napster and former president of Facebook, Facebook is a system designed to exploit human vulnerability [35].…”

“…After algebraic manipulation, and noting that the two summations in (21) have closed expressions, we obtain a simple expression for V (see (12)),…”

“Well, the Message Is From the Institute of Something”: Exploring Source Trust of Cancer-Related Messages on Simulated Facebook Posts

“…Individuals' evaluation of trust in message source may impact perceptions of credibility in the health message, resulting in acceptance of (mis)information. Common patterns in which individuals interact with their social media have been identified through eye-tracking studies, examining information processing and attention to components of social media messages (Cipresso et al, 2019;Hussain et al, 2019). One study showed users pay attention to the source of a Facebook news post and use this information as a criterion for the decision to read or to skip the post, revealing that users spend more time looking at posts from highly credible sources compared to sources with lower credibility (Sülflow et al, 2018).…”