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With over a billion users, Facebook is changing the social life of our species. Cultural commentators ponder the effects. Is it bringing us together or tearing us apart?
Psychologists have responded too - Google Scholar lists more than 27,000 references with Facebook in the title. Common topics for study are links between Facebook use and personality, and whether the network alleviates or fosters loneliness. The torrent of new data is overwhelming and much of it appears contradictory. Here is the psychology of Facebook, digested:
According to a survey of over a thousand people, "females, younger people, and those not currently in a committed relationship were the most active Facebook users". Regarding personality, a study of over 1000 Australians reported that "[FB] users tend to be more extraverted and narcissistic, but less conscientious and socially lonely, than nonusers". A study of the actual FB use of over a hundred students found that personality was a more important factor than gender and FB experience, with high scorers in neuroticism spending more time on FB. Meanwhile, extraverts were found to have more friends on the network than introverts ("the 10 per cent of our respondents scoring the highest in extraversion had, on average, 484 more friends than the 10 per cent scoring the lowest in extraversion").
Other findings add to the picture, for example: greater shyness has also been linked with more FB use. Similarly, a study from 2013 found that anxiousness (as well as alcohol and marijuana use) predicted more emotional attachment to Facebook.
Click on the link below to read the full article
Category(s):Social Isolation
Source material from The British Psychological Society
