The predictive roles of social safeness and flourishing on problematic Facebook use

Abstract

Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare have become an integral part of human life, and their use has increased considerably over recent years. Facebook is the fastest growing social networking site, but little research has investigated the negative outcomes relating to the problematic use and predictors of this media phenomenon. This study examined the predictive roles of social safeness and flourishing on problematic Facebook use. The study was carried out among 229 Turkish university students (120 women, 109 men, M_age = 20.41 years, standard deviation = 1.64, and age range = 18–27). The participants completed the Turkish version of the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale, the Social Safeness and Pleasure Scale, and the Flourishing Scale. The research data were analyzed by correlation and multiple regression analyses. Problematic Facebook use was correlated negatively with social safeness and flourishing. In addition, the findings indicated that social safeness and flourishing were significant predictors of problematic Facebook use. The results were discussed in light of relevant literature.

Keywords

Flourishing problematic Facebook use social safeness

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Ahn

(2011). The effect of social network sites on adolescents’ social and academic development: Current theories and controversies. Journal of American Society for Information Science and Technology, 62, 1435–1445.

Akin

Demirci

İ.

Akin

Ocakci

Akdeniz

Akbas

Z. Ş.

(2013, June 9–12). Turkish version of the Facebook Addiction Scale. 13th European Congress of Psychology, Stockholm, Sweden.

Akin

Fidan

(2012, April 26–28). The validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the Flourishing Scale. 3rd International Conference on New Trends in Education and their Implications (ICONTE-2012), Antalya, Turkey.

Akin

Uysal

Özkara

Bingöl

T. Y.

(2012, September 13–15).The validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the Social Safeness and Pleasure Scale (SSPS). Applied Education Congress, Ankara, Turkey.

Andreassen

C. S.

Torsheim

Brunborg

G. S.

Pallesen

(2012). Development of a Facebook addiction scale. Psychological Reports, 110, 501–517.

Balci

Ş.

Gölcü

. (2013). Facebook addiction among university students in Turkey: Selcuk University example. Journal of Studies in Turkology, 34, 255–278.

Barker

(2009). Older adolescents’ motivations for social network site use: The influence of gender, group identity, and collective self-esteem. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 12, 209–213.

Boyd

D. M.

Ellison

(2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13, 210−230.

Bryman

(2004). Social research methods. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

10.

Burke

Kraut

Marlow

(2011, May 7). Social capital on Facebook: Differentiating uses and users. In Proceedings of the 2011 Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 571–580). New York, NY: ACM.

11.

Caplan

S. E.

(2003). Preference for online social interaction: A theory of problematic internet use and psychosocial well-being. Communication Research, 30, 625–648.

12.

Caplan

S. E.

(2005). A social skill account of problematic internet use. Journal of Communication, 55, 721–736.

13.

Catalino

L. I.

Fredrickson

B. L.

(2011). A Tuesday in the life of a flourisher: The role of positive emotional reactivity in optimal mental health. Emotion, 11, 938–950.

14.

Cheung

C. M.

Chiu

Lee

(2011). Online social networks: Why do students use Facebook? Computers in Human Behavior, 27, 1337–1343.

15.

Cozolino

(2008). The healthy aging brain: Sustaining attachment, attaining wisdom. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

16.

Çam

Isbulan

(2012). A new addiction for teacher candidates: Social networks. Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology-TOJET, 11, 14–19.

17.

Denti

Barbopoulos

Nilsson

Holmberg

Thulin

Wendeblad

Davidsson

(2012). Sweden’s largest Facebook study. Gothenburg, Sweden: Gothenburg Research Institute School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg.

18.

Diehl

Hay

E. L.

Berg

K. M.

(2011). The ratio between positive and negative affect and flourishing mental health across adulthood. Aging & Mental Health, 15, 882–893.

19.

Diener

Wirtz

Tov

Kim-Prieto

Choi

D. W.

Oishi

Biswas-Diener

(2010). New well-being measures: Short scales to assess flourishing and positive and negative feelings. Social Indicator Research, 97, 143–156.

20.

Dunbar

R. I. M.

(1998). The social brain hypothesis. Evolutionary Anthropology, 6, 178–190.

21.

Ellison

Steinfield

Lampe

(2007). The benefits of Facebook “friends”: Exploring the relationship between college students’ use of online social networks and social capital. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12, 1143–1168.

22.

Facebook. (2013). Company info. Palo Alto, CA: Facebook. Retrieved from http://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/

23.

Gilbert

(2005). Compassion: Conceptualizations research and use in psychotherapy. London, England: Brunner-Routledge.

24.

Gilbert

(2010). Compassion focused therapy. New York, NY: Routledge.

25.

Gilbert

McEwan

Mitra

Richter

Franks

Mills

. . .Gale

(2009). An exploration of different types of positive affect in students and patients with bipolar disorder. Clinical Neuropsychiatry, 6, 135–143.

26.

Gillath

Shaver

P. R.

Mikulincer

(2005). An attachment-theoretical approach to compassion and altruism. In Gilbert

(Ed.), Compassion: Its nature and use in psychotherapy (pp. 121–147). London: Brunner-Routledge.

27.

Griffiths

M. D.

(2000). Does Internet and computer “addiction” exists? Some case study evidence. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 3, 211–218.

28.

Howell

(2009). Flourishing: Achievement-related correlates of students’ well-being. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4, 1–13.

29.

Huitt

Dawson

(2011). Social development: Why it is important and how to impact it (Educational Psychology Interactive). Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved from http://www.edpsycin-teractive.org/papers/socdev.pdf (accesses 21 October 2013)

30.

Huppert

F. A.

T. T. C.

(2009, July 23–24). What percentage of people in Europe are flourishing and what characterises them? Measuring subjective well-being: An opportunity for NGOs? OECD/ISQOLS Meeting, Florence, Italy.

31.

Junco

(2011). The relationship between frequency of Facebook use, participation in Facebook activities, and student engagement. Computers & Education, 58, 162–171.

32.

Junco

(2012). Too much face and not enough books: The relationship between multiple indices of Facebook use and academic performance. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 187–198.

33.

Kalpidou

Costin

Morris

(2011). The relationship between Facebook and the well-being of undergraduate college students. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 14, 183–189.

34.

Kelly

A. C.

Zuroff

D. C.

Leybman

M. J.

Gilbert

(2012). Social safeness, received social support and maladjustment: Testing a tripartite model of affect regulation. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 36, 815–826.

35.

Keyes

C. L. M.

(2002). The mental health continuum: From languishing to flourishing in life. Journal of Health & Behavior Research, 43, 207–222.

36.

Keyes

C. L. M.

(2005). Mental health and/or mental illness? Investigating axioms of the complete state model of health. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73, 539–548.

37.

Keyes

C. L. M.

(2007). Promoting and protecting mental health as flourishing: A complementary strategy for improving national mental health. American Psychologist, 62, 95–108.

38.

Koç

Gülyağci

(2013). Facebook addiction among Turkish college students: The role of psychological health, demographic, and usage characteristics. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 16, 279–284.

39.

Kurz

Linden

Sheehy

(2007). Attitudinal and community influences on participation in new curbside recycling initiatives in Northern Ireland. Environment & Behavior, 39, 367–391.

40.

Kuss

Griffiths

(2011). Online social networking and addiction—A review of the psychological literature. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 8, 3528–3552.

41.

Lee

Z. W.

Cheung

Thadani

D. R.

(2012, January). An investigation into the problematic use of Facebook. In System Science (HICSS), 2012 45th Hawaii International Conference (pp. 1768–1776). IEEE.

42.

Livingstone

(2008). Taking risky opportunities in youthful content creation: Teenagers’ use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy and self-expression. New Media & Society, 10, 393–411.

43.

McAndrew

F. T.

Jeong

H. S.

(2012). Who does what on Facebook? Age, sex, and relationship status as predictors of Facebook use. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 2359–2365.

44.

Nadkarni

Hofmann

(2012). Why do people use Facebook? Personality and Individual Differences, 52, 243–249.

45.

Odaci

(2014). Problematic internet use in terms of gender, attachment styles and subjective well-being in university students. Computers in Human Behavior, 32, 61–66.

46.

Oluwole-Folaranmi

(2013). A survey of Facebook addiction level among selected Nigerian university undergraduates. New Media and Mass Communication, 10, 70–80.

47.

Ouweneel

Le Blanc

Schaufeli

(2011). Flourishing students: A longitudinal study on positive emotions, personal resources, and study engagement. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 6, 142–153.

48.

Pawlikowski

Nader

I. W.

Burger

Stieger

Brand

(2014). Pathological Internet use—It is a multidimensional and not a unidimensional construct. Addiction Research & Theory, 22, 166–175.

49.

Pempek

T. A.

Yermolayeva

Y. A.

Calvert

S. L.

(2009). College student’s social networking experiences on Facebook. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 30, 227–238.

50.

Ryan

Xenos

(2011). Who uses Facebook? An investigation into the relationship between the big five, shyness, narcissism, loneliness and Facebook usage. Computers in Human Behavior, 27, 1658–1664.

51.

Seligman

M. E. P.

(2002). Authentic happiness. New York, NY: Free Press.

52.

Seligman

M. E. P.

(2011). Flourish. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

53.

Sheldon

(2008). The relationship between unwillingness-to communicate and students’ Facebook use. Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications, 20, 67–75.

54.

Sofiah

S. Z.

Omar

S. Z.

Bolong

Osman

M. N.

(2011). Facebook addiction among female university students. Revista De Adminstratie Si Politici, 2, 95–109.

55.

Special

W. P.

Li-Barber

K. T.

(2012). Self-disclosure and student satisfaction with Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 624–630.

56.

Spraggins

(2009). Problematic use of online social networking sites for college students: Prevalence, predictors, and association with well-being (Unpublished PhD thesis). University of Florida, Gainesville.

57.

Stefanone

M. A.

Lackaff

Rosen

(2011). Contingencies of self-worth and social-networking-site behavior. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 14, 41–49.

58.

Steinfield

Ellison

Lampe

(2008). Social capital, self-esteem, and use of online social network sites: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 29, 434–445.

59.

Tabachnick

B. G.

Fidell

L. S.

(2007). Using multivariate statistics. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

60.

Teke

(2011). A comparison of Facebook addiction between social and hard sciences students (Unpublished master’s thesis). Faculty of Communication and Media Studies, Eastern Mediterranean University, Magusa.

61.

Telef

B. B.

(2011, October 3–5). The validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the Psychological Well-being Scale. 11th National Congress of Counseling and Guidance, İzmir, Turkey.

62.

Uysal

Satici

S. A.

Akin

(2013). Mediating effect of Facebook addiction on the relationship between subjective vitality and subjective happiness. Psychological Reports, 113, 948–953.

63.

Valenzuela

Park

Kee

K. F.

(2009). Is there social capital in a Social Network Site?: Facebook use and college students’ life satisfaction, trust, and participation. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 14, 875–901.

64.

Valkenburg

P. M.

Peter

Schouten

A. P.

(2006). Friend networking sites and their relationship to adolescents’ self-esteem and well-being. Cyber Psychology & Behavior, 9, 584–590.

65.

Webster

(2009). Positive mental health. World of Wellness, 3, 1–2.

66.

Wilson

R. E.

Gosling

S. D.

Graham

L. T.

(2012). A review of Facebook research in the social sciences. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7, 203–220.

67.

Younkins

E. W.

(2010). Human nature, flourishing, and happiness: Toward a synthesis of Aristotelianism, Austrian economics, positive psychology, and Ayn Rand’s objectivism. Libertarian Papers, 2, 1–50.