Social media and interpersonal relationships

Social media and interpersonal relationships interact when an individual uses social media to form, maintain, and enhance relationships and when the use of social media impacts an individual's relationships, including their perceived quality. Research of social media and interpersonal relationships has shown mostly positive correlations, with individuals using social media platforms to strength existing offline relationships, maintain relationships over long distances, and form new relationships in a safe environment. Social media play a unique role for adolescents, who use them in the development of self-identity and peer groups, and for older adults, who use the technology to reconnect with former friends and maintain relationships as an offset to relationships lost in major life transitions, such as retirement or widowhood. At the same, for individuals who have a predisposition to loneliness, anxiety, or insecurity, certain behaviors on social media are associated with feelings of loneliness.

Background

Before the proliferation of social media, research on the social effects of Internet use was contentious: a couple of studies that concluded Internet use led to depression, loneliness, and neglect of close relationships received widespread attention, while nearly all other studies concluded the opposite. One study that received a lot of attention was led by Robert E. Kraut, a social psychologist in the United States, who found that, after giving a family a computer and Internet access for the first time, there was a small increase in reported depression and loneliness. Another study that received a lot of attention was led by Norman H. Nie, a social scientist and professor at Stanford University, who concluded that people who used the Internet heavily spent less time with their family and friends; however, a closer review of the data he gathered shows that over 95% of the approximately 4,000 people surveyed did not report spending any less time with family and friends because of their Internet use. On the other hand, other researchers, including sociology professor Paul DiMaggio, Philip N. Howard, a professor of Internet studies at the University of Oxford, and Barry Wellman, co-director of the Toronto-based international NetLab Network, found that Internet use did not detract from other forms of communication and in fact had a positive effect on maintaining relationships over longer distances. Nie has responded to critics by saying that more time on the Internet must deduct hours from time spent socializing, since time is finite. According to Bargh, however, a review of the data shows that heavy Internet use decreased time spent watching television and reading newspapers, not socializing.

Social network size

For primates, including humans, the size of the average social network is correlated with the size of the neocortex.

Social networking sites do not significantly increase the size of one's personal social network in terms of human cognition, although social media often give a misleading impression of the size of one's social network because acquaintances and non-reciprocal relationships are included in the count. The social brain hypothesis predicts that a normal adult human brain can maintain up to around 150 individuals as a coherent social network, due to the physical limits of human cognition. Across a wide range of mammals and bird species, sociality correlates with the size of the neocortex, and specifically in primates, quantitatively with the size of the social group. Per the social brain hypothesis, the size of the neocortex limits animals' abilities to behave in socially complex ways, such as forming bonded relationships, which in turn affects social group size. Empirically, researchers have found that this hypothesis is accurate.

Impact of social media on relationships

General

Several researchers have found that relationships formed online, many of which ultimately transition to offline relationships, including romantic relationships, are highly similar to relationships developed in person and are just as stable. Studies that compare relationships formed online and offline have found that those who met online liked each other more, were better able to express themselves, and projected the qualities of their ideal friendship onto each other more than relationships formed in person. The anonymity of the Internet can contribute to forming close relationships because there are less risks in self-disclosure and because talking to strangers is easier online than offline. Citing these studies, John Bargh, a social psychologist at Yale University, believes that communicating online helps people maintain close ties and form new relationships in a safe environment.

Overall, face-to-face interactions typically are more satisfying than interacting over social media, since people do not feel physically present with people they interact with online. Also, social networking sites that do not differentiate between different types of relationships, including romantic partnerships, close friendships, weaker friendships, and mere acquaintances, do not accurately portray a person's social network. According to Robin Dunbar, social networking sites like Twitter do not form, maintain, or enhance relationships, since they are designed for mass communication and the propagation of information.

Like for other social primates, human relationships need a cognitive mechanism that builds trust and social obligation and that is strengthened with an emotional component to the relationship. In this way, the requirement for building trust and social obligation is spending time together. Spending more focused and quality time together creates a deeper relationship. The emotional component normally is developed through one-on-one physical contact that releases endorphins, like social grooming. When in a small group, laughter is better at bonding people together, compared to laughter in one-on-one interactions.

Robin Dunbar has identified two adverse consequences to maintaining contact with friends when distance would otherwise prevent interaction: maintaining relationships with old friends that would otherwise have faded over time detracts from time spent forming new relationships in one's physical proximity. Also, for individuals who move to new locations while maintaining old relationships online, each successive move further fractures the social network.

Loneliness

The association between using social media and loneliness is complex. In a study of about 1,200 Facebook users, Moira Burke, Cameron Marlow, and Thomas Lento observed a correlation between loneliness and the way Facebook was used. Participants who engaged with their friends passively on Facebook reported feeling more lonely and having less social capital, while participants who engaged with their friends actively reported feeling less lonely and having more social capital. Viewing friends' photos or reading status updates were considered passive use, while active use included posting and messaging friends.

A study by Kevin Wise, Saleem Alhabash, and Hyojung Park observed participants while they browsed Facebook and found that using Facebook was more pleasurable when they actively sought out connections with friends than when passively scrolling through their news feeds. Other studies have also found no correlation between how much time is spent using social media and feelings of loneliness. Especially for teenagers, the key factors were instead predisposition to loneliness, anxiety, and insecurity and the extent to which a social media user's online connections are also offline interpersonal relationships. People who are vulnerable to feelings of failure are especially at risk for increased loneliness from social media use, since experiences like having a small number of friends or followers, not receiving fast replies to messages, or receiving little to no "likes" or positive comments about posting a photo or status may be perceived as a personal failing.

Adolescents and young adults

Adolescents use social networking sites mostly to keep in contact with their offline friends and maintain relationships over time.

Across the globe, adolescents from different countries and socioeconomic statuses use social media websites and apps, like Facebook and Qzone, to connect with peers, organize extracurricular activities and games, build social status, and seek help. Social media platforms help users maintain and enhance the friendships that they developed in adolescence, especially when friends are dispersed geographically over time. When used in this way, social media platforms strengthen interpersonal relationships.

The use of social media by adolescents has been a challenge for researchers to study in part because adolescents frequently multitask and technology frequently changes. In the 1990s, which were the early years of proliferating Internet use, there was a general consensus among academic studies that Internet use was negatively correlated with social connectedness and well-being in teenagers. Studies from the 1990s and early 2000s, for example, found that adolescents who spent more time online had fewer friends. More recent research contradicts these earlier findings, having found that online communication correlates with greater feelings of social connectedness and well-being. This correlation is only present, however, when adolescents use social media to support their existing relationships.

Social networking sites allow adolescents and young adults to create both public and private profiles, connect with friends, message each other, and post user-generated content like photos and videos. Adolescents use social networking sites mostly to stay in contact with friends from their offline lives and to maintain over time the social connections that they developed in school, at work, or in other group activities or events. For example, in the US, the average size of a college student's social network has grown since 2006, the year that Facebook opened its website to all users ages 13 and up. At the same time, the average US citizen's number of close friends and confidants has been declining over the past few decades, leading to concerns about the physiological and psychological impact of loneliness.

Social media technologies are important for adolescents because they provide a virtual space for testing out the developmental tasks of adolescence, including constructing identity, developing sexuality, and making interpersonal connections with peers. The anonymity of the Internet can provide a safe environment for adolescents to form new relationships and develop existing ones because self-disclosure is easier and less risky than it can be in person. For example, a survey of adolescents in the Netherlands found that nearly 80% of adolescents believed they always or predominantly received positive feedback on social networking sites, although 7% of adolescents believed that they always or predominantly received negative feedback (researchers did not independently assess whether feedback was positive or negative).

Older adults

Research suggests that the number of Facebook friends with whom an individual has a stronger offline relationship is a better predictor of the individual's access to social capital than the total number of Facebook friends. Furthermore, there is evidence that a high ratio of stronger offline relationships to total Facebook friends is associated with decreased loneliness. Research has shown that older adults on average have less total friends than younger adults. Some findings suggest that the ratio of Facebook friends with a stronger offline relationship to total number of Facebook friends, however, increases with age.

The use of the Internet in general by older adults is limited by their mental and physical capability and concerns about privacy. Dementia, for example, can limit an older adult's ability to use social networking sites. At the same time, there is also no statistical difference in the perceived likelihood of connecting with others on social media between older and younger individuals. This observation can be explained by the tendency of older adults' online social networks to more closely resemble their offline social network, which would counteract older adults' overall limited Internet use. Also, the ability of older adults to gain social benefits from using social networking sites is increased by the overall quality of their relationships with Facebook friends and other behaviors like engaging actively with friends and responding to requests for help. The search features and recommendation algorithms of sites like Facebook are a benefit to older users because they encourage connecting with weaker ties in a way that would otherwise not be available to them. This may compensate for losses of relationships due to factors like retirement and widowhood. Actively using Facebook, including commenting or clicking the "like" button on friends' posts and status updates, is essential to accessing the social capital that social networking sites can provide older adults.

Relationships with strangers

In some cultures, social media use has changed the way individuals relate to strangers, people they have never met before and with whom they have no social connection. For example, in rural China, social media platforms have enabled young adults to specifically seek out connections with strangers, to form romantic relationships, discuss personal issues, or even relieve boredom, which opposes traditional Chinese attitudes towards interpersonal relationships. The appeal of using social media for this purpose is in its ability to give an individual full control over who he or she seeks to connect with and in what context.

Gender differences

For males, shared activities are the most effective way of maintaining friendships; for females, talking is most effective.

Maintaining friendships requires staying informed about their status and what they are doing, sharing knowledge, partaking in common interests, and participating in one-on-one or small-group conversations. Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist and professor at the University of Oxford, has found that the most effective way for males to maintain the intensity of their relationships is to participate in activities together; for females, talking together is most effective. These differences change how males and females derive benefits from social networking. A study in 2006 of male and female adolescents found that males typically used social networking sites to flirt and form new friendships, whereas females used them to reinforce preexisting friendships.

Other forms of communication

The research of the impact of the use of social media and social networking sites on other forms of communication is contentious. On the one hand, researchers like Nie have concluded that social networking sites take time away from face-to-face communication, while on the other hand, researchers like Bargh observed that heavy Internet use took time away from watching television and reading newspapers. At the same time, when surveyed, nearly half of adolescents in the United States believed that the Internet improved their interpersonal relationships and the majority of them reported that spending time online did not detract from time spent socializing with friends.

Cultural differences

Social media emphasize individualism within interpersonal relationships, and for individuals from a collectivist culture, a focus on individualism is a break from traditional societal norms.

External links

• Johnston, Kevin; Tanner, Maureen; Lalla, Nishant; Kawalski, Dori (2013). "Social capital: the benefit of Facebook 'friends'". Behaviour & Information Technology. Taylor & Francis. 32 (1): 24–36. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
• Fair, Jo Ellen; Tully, Melissa; Ekdale, Brian; Asante, Rabiu K. B. (2009). "Crafting Lifestyles in Urban Africa: Young Ghanaians in the World of Online Friendship". Africa Today. Indiana University Press. 55 (4): 28–49. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
• Kittilson, Miki Caul; Dalton, Russell J. (December 2011). "Virtual Civil Society: The New Frontier of Social Capital?". Political Behavior. Springer. 33 (4): 625–644. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
• Forest, Amanda L.; Wood, Joanne V. (March 2012). "When Social Networking Is Not Working: Individuals With Low Self-Esteem Recognize but Do Not Reap the Benefits of Self-Disclosure on Facebook". Psychological Science. Sage Publications, Inc. on behalf of the Association for Psychological Science. 23 (3): 295–302. Retrieved 5 August 2018.

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