Does Posting Status Updates Increase or Decrease Loneliness? An Online Social Networking Experiment Fenne große Deters & Matthias R. Mehl 15th General Online Research Conference March 05, Mannheim

“We live in an accelerating contradiction: the more connected we become, the lonelier we are. We were promised a global village; instead we inhabit the drab cul-de-sacs and endless freeways of a vast suburb of information. (... ) The question of the future is this: Is Facebook part of the separating or part of the congregating; is it a huddling together for warmth or a shuffling away in pain?” Stephen Marche, Is Facebook Making Us Lonely? The Atlantic, May

Online Social Networking Research Still scarce & contradicting results (e.g. Wilson et al., 2012) Lack of – causally-conclusive, experimental research (e.g. Burke et al., 2010) – use of observational data (e.g. Anderson et al., 2012) – studies that differentiate among different online social networking activities (e.g. Smock et al., 2011) 3

Status Updates Popular and new form of one-to-many communication Empirical evidence: Computer-mediated communication can help maintain/solidify friendships (e.g. Ellison et al., 2007; Cummings et al., 2006) Fast and effortless  ideal to keep friends up to date 4

Hypotheses 1.An -experimentally induced- increase in status updating activity reduces loneliness. 2.This decrease in loneliness is, at least in part, due to feeling more connected to friends on a daily basis. 5

Research Question Is social feedback necessary for the hypothesized social effects of status updating? 6

Design 7

Sample N = 86 Undergraduates at the University of Arizona – 61% female – 90% 18 to 22 years old 8 CC Huperphuff

Manipulation Check Baseline vs. Intervention: EG: M diff = 8.71**  Strong increase CG: M diff = 0.69*  Only minimal increase Experimental Group vs. Control Group EG increased status updating activity significantly more than CG: M diff = 8.02** 9

Effect of the Intervention: Did Higher Status Updating Activity Affect Loneliness? 10 M change = -.19*, d =.31

Test for Mediator: Daily Social Connectedness 11

Is It Important for the Posted Status Updates to Receive Responses? 12

How Can ‘‘Uni-Directional’’ Status Updating Foster a Sense of Social Inclusion? „Social Snacking Behaviors“(Gardner et al., 2005)  Reminder of existing social bonds (Unmeasured) influence on social interactions  Quantity: drawing attention to user  Quality: facilitating more satisfying off-line conversations by „skipping“ small talk 13

Future Directions Replication!!  other locations and populations Assessment of different explanations Long-term effects Content of status updates 14

15 Publication: Deters, F. g., & Mehl, M. R. (2013). Does Posting Facebook Status Updates Increase or Decrease Loneliness? An Online Social Networking Experiment. Social Psychological and Personality Science. doi: /

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