Social Media and Friendship Quality in Adolescence

Introduction

• Growing interest in the role of social media in adolescent experiences, especially friendship relationships.

• Social media offers tools for connecting with peers and feeling a sense of belonging.

• Study investigates associations between social media characteristics and friendship quality.

• Considers individual factors like gender and problematic social media use.

Friendship in Social Media Context

• Friendship defined as a reciprocal and affectionate relationship.

• Key components of friendship quality include self-disclosure, validation, companionship, instrumental support, conflict, and conflict resolution.

• Social media supports friendship formation and maintenance.

• Core friendship components are significant both offline and online.

• Research aims to analyze how social media use relates to friendship experiences and how specific features relate to dimensions of friendship quality.

Social Media Features and Friendship Quality

• Transformation Framework: Social media shapes adolescent experiences due to specific features.

• Offline behaviors transform online via increased frequency/immediacy, amplified experiences, qualitative changes, compensatory behaviors, and new behaviors.

• Asynchronicity and cue absence can alter communication processes, affecting conflict and support.

• Publicness offers support from new online friends.

• Quantifiable metrics and visual communication introduce new ways to affirm friendships.

Role of Online Support and E-Motions

• Social support: Exchange of resources within relationships.

• Appraisal support: Communicating information for self-affirmation.

• Social media is associated with greater perceived social support.

• Online interactions allow for intimate disclosure.

• E-motions: How emotions are perceived, expressed, used, and managed on social media.

• Expression of e-motions may link social media features and friendship quality.

Gender Differences

• Links between social media features and friendship quality may differ across genders.

• Females use social media more visually.

• Validation more common among females.

Problematic Social Media Use

• Social media use becomes problematic when it leads to unregulated behavior and negative outcomes.

• Study explores differences between problematic and non-problematic social media users.

Method

• Participants: 744 Italian adolescents, average age 15.9 years.

• Data collected via questionnaires.

Instruments

• Perceived Social Media Features Scale (PSMF): Measures perception of social media features.

  • χ2 (62)=114.93, p<.001; CFI=0.97; SRMR=0.027; RMSEA=0.035, 90% CI [0.025–0.045].

• Friendship Quality Questionnaire–Revised: Assesses validation, intimacy, conflict, and conflict resolution.

• Friendship quality scale: Assesses instrumental support and companionship.

• Perceived Online Support Scale: Measures perceived online social support.

• E-motions questionnaire: Assesses expression of e-motions.

• Social Media Disorder Scale: Assesses problematic social media use.

• Social and Emotional Health Survey: Measures perceived offline peer support.

Data Analysis

• Path analysis using Mplus 8.3 to examine relationships between variables.

• Multi-group analyses conducted to analyze differences across gender and social media user groups.

• Wald chi-square tests used to test equality of path coefficients across groups.

Results

• Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) indicated a 6-factor structure for the PSMF scale.

• Asynchronicity positively associated with validation and conflict resolution.

  • (β=0.10, p=.05)

  • (β=0.09, p=.017)

• Publicness/availability associated with instrumental support and companionship.

  • (β=0.16, p<.001)

  • (β=0.15, p=.002)

• Quantifiability and visualness positively associated with validation.

  • (β=0.08, p=.015)

  • (β=0.08, p=.013)

• Cue absence associated with instrumental support.

  • (β=0.12, p<.001)

• Offline peer support positively associated with validation, intimacy, instrumental support, companionship, and conflict resolution, and negatively associated with conflict.

• Publicness/availability associated with validation and intimacy via perceived online social support; expression of e-motions mediated its association with intimacy, instrumental support, companionship, and conflict.

Multi-Group Analysis

• Significant differences between gender groups.

• Link between publicness/availability and validation positive for girls, negative for boys.

• Quantifiability and validation and cue absence and conflict resolution were found to be positive and significant only for males.

• Link between publicness/availability and conflict resolution was statistically significant only in the female group.

• Six paths were found to be different across groups (problematic vs. non-problematic).

Direct Associations

• Publicness/availability directly associated with instrumental support and companionship.

• Asynchronicity explains conflict resolution and validation.

• Cue absence directly affects perceived instrumental support.

Indirect Associations

• Positive indirect associations via online perceived support between publicness/availability, visualness, and cue absence with validation and intimacy.

• Publicness/availability and all dimensions of friendship quality have expression of e-motions except validation and conflict resolution.

Differences Between Gender Groups

• The degree of the relationship between publicness/availability and validation differed by gender, with a positive relationship for girls and a negative relationship for boys.

Differences Between Types of Social Media Users

• Conflict was found to be negatively associated with publicness/availability and positively associated with visualness in the problematic users group.

Limitations

• Cross-sectional design limits conclusions about causality.

• Novelty of the measurement for perceived social media features.

Implications

• Need for specific activities about social media use.

• Activities focused on sharing expectations within the peer group.

• Activities aimed at increasing youth’s awareness of online spaces as a real social context.

Conclusions

• Social media features are directly associated with friendship quality dimensions.

• Online interactions with friends are characterized by novel behaviors that serve psychological and relational purposes.

• Different patterns of associations exist across gender and social media user groups.