The Real Value of Fake Internet Points: : Networked Social Likes, Life Satisfaction, and Loneliness
Pages 1729 - 1744
Abstract
The potential for being “liked” on social networking sites to increase life satisfaction and reduce loneliness was tested in a nationally representative web survey and again over time. The initial sample was matched to U.S. Census percentages for sex, race, ethnicity, age, and region of residence in October of 2019 (N = 1250). A smaller group of respondents was surveyed in January and April of 2020, with the final wave occurring after the COVID-19 pandemic had begun (N = 665). Results suggest that having posts liked on sites including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram contributes to life satisfaction, and life satisfaction mediates the influence of networked social likes on loneliness. Digital demonstrations of social support relate to thinking life is good, which can diminish perceived isolation. This was true in the lead-up to the pandemic, and in the midst of it, with social likes reducing loneliness by first increasing one’s sense of cognitive well-being.
References
[1]
Andrew M. and Meeks S. (2018). Fulfilled preferences, perceived control, life satisfaction, and loneliness in elderly long-term care residents. Aging & Mental Health, 22(2), 183–189. https://doi.org/10.1080/13607863.2016.1244804
[2]
Auxier B. and Anderson M. (2021, April 7). Social media use in 2021. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/04/07/social-media-use-in-2021/
[3]
Baird B. M., Lucas R. E., and Donnellan M. B. (2010). Life satisfaction across the lifespan: Findings from two nationally representative panel studies. Social Indicators Research, 99(2), 183–203. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-010-9584-9
[4]
Bouchillon B. C. (2022). Competence, presence, trust, and hyperpersonal-ness: Dissolving the boundary between digital and physical life. Lexington Books.
[5]
Bucher A., Neubauer A. B., Voss A., and Oetzbach C. (2019). Together is better: Higher committed relationships increase life satisfaction and reduce loneliness. Journal of Happiness Studies, 20(8), 2445–2469. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-018-0057-1
[6]
Cacioppo J. T. and Cacioppo S. (2012). The phenotype of loneliness. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 9(4), 446–452. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2012.690510
[7]
Cacioppo J. T. and Cacioppo S. (2018). The growing problem of loneliness. The Lancet, 391(10119), 426. https://doi.org/10.1016.S0140-6736(18)30142-9
[8]
Cacioppo J. T., Cacioppo S., Capitanio J. P., and Cole S. W. (2015). The neuroendocrinology of social isolation. Annual Review of Psychology, 66(1), 733–767. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010814-015240
[9]
Carr C. T., Hayes R. A., and Sumner E. M. (2018). Predicting a threshold of perceived post success via likes and reactions: A test of explanatory mechanisms. Communication Research Reports, 35(2), 141–151. https://doi.org/10.1080/08824096.2017.1409618
[10]
Cigna. (2018). Cigna U.S. loneliness index. https://www.multivu.com/players/English/8294451-cigna-us-loneliness-survey/
[11]
[12]
Cipolletta S., Malighetti C., Cenedese C., and Spoto A. (2020). How can adolescents benefit from the use of social networks? The iGeneration on Instagram. Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(19), Article e6952. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17196952
[13]
De’ R., Pandey N., and Pal A. (2020). Impact of digital surge during Covid-19 pandemic: A viewpoint on research and practice. International Journal of Information Management, 55, 102171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102171
[14]
Deters F. G. and Mehl M. R. (2012). Does posting Facebook status updates increase or decrease loneliness? An online social networking experiment. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4(5), 579–586. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550612469233
[15]
Diener E., Emmons R. A., Larsen R. J., and Griffin S. (1985). The satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49(1), 71–75. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa4901_13
[16]
Dienlin T., Masur P., and Trepte S. (2017). Reinforcement or displacement? The reciprocity of FTF, IM, and SNS communication and their effects on loneliness and life satisfaction. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 22(2), 71–87. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12183
[17]
DiJulio B., Hamel L., Muñana C., and Brodie M. (2018). Loneliness and social isolation in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan: An international survey. Kaiser Family Foundation. https://www.kff.org/other/report/loneliness-and-social-isolation-in-the-united-states-the-united-kingdom-and-japan-an-international-survey/
[18]
ESOMAR. (2018). Panel quality: Our values. https://www.ipsos.com/en/ipsos-answers-esomar-28-questions-help-online-research-buyers
[19]
Farebrother R. W. (1990). Algorithm AS 256: The distribution of a quadratic form in normal variables. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, C39(2), 294–309. https://doi.org/10.2307/2347778
[20]
Gelman A., Hill J., and Vehtari A. (2020). Regression and other stories. Cambridge University Press.
[21]
Hair J. F. Jr., Anderson R. E., Tatham R. L., and Black W. C. (1995). Multivariate data analysis (3rd ed.). Macmillan.
[22]
Hamermesh D. S. (2020). Lock-downs, loneliness and life-satisfaction (NBER Publication No. 27018). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://www.nber.org/papers/w27018
[23]
Hawkley L. C., Buecker S., Kaiser T., and Luhmann M. (2020). Loneliness from young adulthood to old age: Explaining age differences in loneliness. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 46(1), 39–49. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025420971048
[24]
Hayes A. F. (2017). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
[25]
Hayes R. A., Wesselman E. D., and Carr C. T. (2018). When nobody “likes” you: Perceived ostracism through paralinguistic digital affordances within social media. Social Media + Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118800309
[26]
Hong C., Chen Z. F., and Li C. (2017). Liking” and being “liked”: How are personality traits and demographics associated with giving and receiving “likes” on Facebook? Computers in Human Behavior, 68, 292–299. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.11.048
[27]
Hu L. and Bentler P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling, 6(1), 1–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705519909540118
[28]
Huang L., Zheng D., and Fan W. (2021). Do social networking sites promote life satisfaction? The explanation from an online and offline social capital transformation. Information Technology & People. https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-03-2020-0143
[29]
Hughes M. E., Waite L. J., Hawkley L. C., and Cacioppo J. T. (2004). A short scale for measuring loneliness in surveys. Research on Aging, 26(6), 655–672. https://doi.org/10.1177/0164027504268574
[30]
Joshanloo M. and Jovanović V. (2020). The relationship between gender and life satisfaction: Analysis across demographic groups and global regions. Archives of Women’s Mental Health, 23(3), 331–338. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-019-00998-w
[31]
Juvonen J., Schacter H. L., and Lessard L. M. (2021). Connecting electronically with friends to cope with isolation during COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 38(6), 1782–1799. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407521998459
[32]
Karni A. and McNeil D. G. Jr. (2020, March 24). Trump wants U.S. ‘opened up’ by Easter despite health officials’ warnings. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-easter.html
[33]
Kovacs B., Caplan N., Grob S., and King M. (2021). Social networks and loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World. https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023120985254
[34]
Lee K.-T., Noh M.-J., and Koo D.-M. (2013). Lonely people are no longer lonely on social networking sites: The mediating role of self-disclosure and social support. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 16(6), 413–418. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2012.0553
[35]
Leland J. (2022, April 20). How loneliness is damaging our health. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/20/nyregion/loneliness-epidemic.html
[36]
Lin S., Liu D., Niu G., and Longobardi C. (2020). Active social network sites use and loneliness: The mediating role of social support and self-esteem. Current Psychology, 41(3), 1279–1286. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-00658-8
[37]
Mackson S. B., Brochu P. M., and Schneider B. A. (2019). Instagram friend or foe? The application’s association with psychological well-being. New Media & Society, 21(10), 2160–2182. https://doi.org/10.1177/146144819840021
[38]
Maddux J. E. (2018). Subjective well-being and life satisfaction: An introduction to conceptions, theories, and measures. In Maddux J. E. (Ed.), Subjective well-being and life satisfaction (pp. 3–31). Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.
[39]
Marttila E., Koivula A., and Räsänen P. (2021). Does excessive social media use decrease subjective well-being? A longitudinal analysis of the relationship between problematic use, loneliness, and life satisfaction. Telematics and Informatics, 59(1), 101556. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2020.101556
[40]
Maxwell S. E., Cole D. A., and Mitchell M. A. (2011). Bias in cross-sectional analyses of longitudinal mediation: Partial and complete mediation under an autoregressive model. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 46(5), 816–841. https://doi.org/10.1080/00273171.2011.606716
[41]
Miller B. K., Zivnuska S., and Kacmar K. M. (2019). Self-perception and life satisfaction. Personality and Individual Differences, 139(1), 321–325. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.12.003
[42]
Miller G. (2011). Social neuroscience: Why loneliness is hazardous to your health. Science, 331(6014), 138–140. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.331.6014.138
[43]
Muthén L. K. and Muthén B.O. (2017). Mplus user’s guide (8th ed.). Muthén & Muthén.
[44]
Ndasauka Y., Hou J., Wang Y., Yang L., Yang Z., Ye Z., Hao Y., Fallgatter A. J., Kong Y., and Zhang X. (2016). Excessive use of Twitter among college students in the UK: Validation of the microblog excessive use scale and relationship to social interaction and loneliness. Computers in Human Behavior, 55(B), 963–971. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.10.020
[45]
Newberry C. (2021). 47 Facebook stats that matter to marketers in 2021. Hootsuite. https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-statistics/
[46]
Oh H. J., Ozkaya E., and LaRose R. (2014). How does online social networking enhance life satisfaction? The relationships among online supportive interaction, affect, perceived social support, sense of community, and life satisfaction. Computers in Human Behavior, 30, 69–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.07.053
[47]
Ozben S. (2013). Social skills, life satisfaction, and loneliness in Turkish university students. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 41(2), 203–213. https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2013.41.2.203
[48]
Pavot W. and Diener E. (1993). Review of the satisfaction with life scale. Psychological Assessment, 5(2), 164–172. https://doi.org/10.1037/1040-3590.5.2.164
[49]
Pavot W. and Diener E. (2008). The satisfaction with life scale and the emerging construct of life satisfaction. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 3(2), 137–152. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760701756946
[50]
Pew Research Center. (2021). Social media fact sheet. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media/
[51]
Raza S. A., Qazi W., Umer B., and Khan K. A. (2020). Influence of social networking sites on life satisfaction among university students: A mediating role of social benefit and social overload. Health Education, 120(2), 141–164. https://doi.org/10.1108/HE-07-2019-0034
[52]
Ruggeri K., Garcia-Garzon E., Maguire A., Matz S., and Huppert F. A. (2020). Well-being is more than happiness and life satisfaction: A multidimensional analysis of 21 countries. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 18(1), Article e192. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12955-020-01423-y
[53]
Satici S. A. (2019). Facebook addiction and subjective well-being: A study of the mediating role of shyness and loneliness. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 17(1), 41–55. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-017-9862-8
[54]
Schermelleh-Engel K., Moosbrugger H., and Müller H. (2003). Evaluating the fit of structural equation models: Tests of significance and descriptive goodness of fit measures. Methods of Psychological Research, 8(2), 23–74
[55]
Scissors L., Burke M., and Wengrovitz S. (2016). What’s in a like? Attitudes and behaviors around receiving likes on Facebook. In Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing, San Francisco, CA, USA, 27 February–02 March 2016, pp. 1501–1510. https://doi.org/10.1145/2818048.2820066
[56]
Tian Y., Zhang S., Wu R., Wang P., Gao F., and Chen Y. (2018). Association between specific Internet activities and life satisfaction: The mediating effects of loneliness and depression. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, Article e1181. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01181
[57]
Tümkaya S., Aybek B., and Çelik M. (2008). An investigation of life satisfaction and loneliness level in a sample of Turkish students. International Journal of Human Sciences, 5(1), 1–15
[58]
Twenge J. M. (2017). iGen: Why today’s super-connected kids are growing up less rebellious, more tolerant, less happy—and completely unprepared for adulthood—and what that means for the rest of us. Atria Books.
[59]
Twenge J. M. (2019). More time on technology, less happiness? Associations between digital-media use and psychological well-being. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 28(4), 372–379. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721419838244
[60]
Uram P. and Skalski S. (2022). Still logged in? The link between Facebook addiction, fomo, self-esteem, life satisfaction, and loneliness in social media users. Psychological Reports, 125(1), 218–231. https://doi.org/10.1177/00332941
[61]
Valenzuela S., Park N., and 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(4), 875–901. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-071913-043309
[62]
VanderWeele T. J., Hawkley L. C., and Cacioppo J. T. (2012). On the reciprocal association between loneliness and subjective well-being. American Journal of Epidemiology, 176(9), 777–784. https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kws173
[63]
U.S. Census Bureau. (2019a). Population and housing unit estimates. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest.html
[64]
U.S. Census Bureau. (2019b). American community survey. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs
[65]
U.S. Census Bureau. (2019c). Annual estimates of the resident population by sex, age, race, and Hispanic origin for the United States and States: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2018. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-kits/2019/detailed-estimates.html
[66]
Wallace E. and Buil I. (2021). Hiding Instagram likes: Effects on negative affect and loneliness. Personality and Individual Differences, 170, Article e110509. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110509
[67]
Walter S. L., Seibert S. E., Goering D., and O’Boyle E. H. Jr. (2019). A tale of two sample sources: Do results from online panel data and conventional data converge? Journal of Business and Psychology, 34(4), 425–452. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-018-9552-y
[68]
Weiss R. S. (1973). Loneliness: The experience of emotional and social isolation. The MIT Press.
[69]
Weissbound R., Batanova M., Lovison V., and Torres E. (2021). Loneliness in America: How the pandemic has deepened an epidemic of loneliness and what we can do about it. Harvard Graduate School. https://mcc.gse.harvard.edu/reports/loneliness-in-america
[70]
Wimmer R. D. and Dominick J. R. (2014). Mass media research: An introduction (10th ed.). Cengage Publishing.
[71]
Wirtz D., Tucker A., Briggs C., and Schoemann A. M. (2021). How and why social media affect subjective well-being: Multi-site use and social comparison as predictors of change over time. Journal of Happiness Studies, 22(4), 1673–1691. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-020-002
[72]
Wohn D. Y., Carr C. T., and Hayes R. A. (2016). How affective is a “like”?: The effect of paralinguistic digital affordances on perceived social support. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 19(9), 562–566. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2016.0162
[73]
Yavich R., Davidovitch N., and Frenkel Z. (2019). Social media and loneliness—forever connected? Higher Education Studies, 9(2), 10–21. https://doi.org/10.5539/hes.v9n2p10
Recommendations
Social media use among adults with autism spectrum disorders
Adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are at risk for significant social and emotional difficulties, yet show strengths and interests in screen-based technology. Previous studies have found that screen-based social media use can enhance social ...
Psychosocial effects of SNS use
As represented by Facebook depression and alone together, the effects of SNS use on a person's psychosocial well-being have been highlighted of late, but it is still unclear if SNS use adversely affects the users in psychosocial terms. In addition, ...
Reinforcement or Displacement? The Reciprocity of FtF, IM, and SNS Communication and Their Effects on Loneliness and Life Satisfaction
Does communication on social network sites SNSs or instant messengers IMs reinforce or displace face-to-face FtF communication, and how do the 3 channels affect loneliness and life satisfaction? Using cross-lagged structural equation modeling in a ...
Comments
Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.Information & Contributors
Information
Published In
© The Author(s) 2022.
Publisher
Sage Publications, Inc.
United States
Publication History
Published: 01 October 2023
Author Tags
Qualifiers
- Research-article
Contributors
Other Metrics
Bibliometrics & Citations
Bibliometrics
Article Metrics
- 0Total Citations
- 0Total Downloads
- Downloads (Last 12 months)0
- Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 16 Feb 2025