Social support in social network sites makes people more satisfied—but not happier [05.05.14]
New article published in the journal "Media Psychology".
The department of media psychology will soon publish a new study in the journal media psychology. In this study, Prof. Dr. Sabine Trepte, Tobias Dienlin (Universität Hohenheim) and Prof. Dr. Leonard Reinecke (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) take a closer look on the aspects of social support in online versus offline contexts.
People around the globe now regularly interact with family and friends through social network sites (SNSs). The authors investigated the differences between social interactions in online and offline contexts as well as users’ satisfaction with the social support received in these contexts. It was hypothesized that SNSs are better set up for the task of leveraging informational support, but that they are inferior to offline contexts in terms of emotional or instrumental support. It was further assumed that users might feel similarly satisfied with how support is rendered online and offline, but that only social support transacted in offline contexts would contribute to overall life satisfaction. All hypotheses were supported by longitudinal data (N = 327) that were used to investigate social support over the course of 2 years with four points of measurement.
You can read the full article in the journal Media Psychology.
