Friendship Quality in Adolescence: Social Media, Support, and E-motions

Social Media and Adolescent Friendships

Introduction

• Angelini, Marino, and Gini (2023) studied friendship quality in adolescence, focusing on the role of social media features, online social support, and e-motions.

Social Media Overview

• Social media: Any digital tool and platform.
• Includes social networking sites and instant messaging apps.
• Social media can affect developmental tasks such as:
  • Self-presentation
  • Feedback seeking
  • Friendship development and maintenance

Transformation Framework

• Social media is a significant context for adolescents’ peer relationships.
• It shapes friendships, social status, peer influence, and peer victimization.
• Relationships can transform because:
  • Peer interactions increase in frequency and immediacy.
  • Experiences are amplified, increasing intensity.
  • The nature of interaction may change.
  • More possibilities for marginalized youth to connect with peers.
  • New behaviors are created in the online world (e.g., increasing online status).

Aspects of Social Media Affecting Friendships

• Asynchronicity: Not real-time interaction.
• Cue absence: Fewer audio-visual cues than in-person interactions.
• Social Support:
  • Increased availability and permanence.
• Publicness:
  • Receiving support from new friends.
  • Posts exist indefinitely.
• Quantifiable metrics:
  • Social media introduces a new way to quantify social relationships.

E-motions

• E-motions: A new approach to studying emotional development.
• Social media provides opportunities to express emotional states with friends using:
  • Emoji
  • GIFs
  • Songs
• Constant exposure to emotional content may:
  • Promote the development of emotional understanding.
  • Lead to emotion dysregulation.

Current Study Questions

1. Which social media features are associated with friendship quality?
2. Are there indirect associations via online social support and the expression of e-motions?
3. Do the patterns differ by:
   • Gender
   • Patterns of use (problematic vs. non-problematic social media users)?

Method: Sample

• 744 adolescents (64.5% girls) in public schools in Italy.
• Ages 14-20 years (M = 15.9 years).
• All reported using social media, with most using 3 or more platforms (92%).
• Primary Platforms Used:
  • WhatsApp (98.5%)
  • Instagram (91.4%)
  • YouTube (80.5%)
  • TikTok (61.8%)
  • Snapchat (20.2%)
  • Facebook (8.7%)

Measures

• Perceived Social Media Features Scale:
  • Assessed 7 features of social media (based on the Transformation Framework).
• Perceived Friendship Quality Scale
• Perceived Social Support on Social Media
• Expression of E-motions
• Problematic Social Media Use
• Perceived Offline Peer Support

Results: Associations of Social Media and Friendship Quality

1. Publicness/Availability:
   • Related to instrumental support and companionship.
2. Asynchronicity:
   • Related to conflict resolution and validation.
3. Cue Absence:
   • Related to instrumental support.

Findings: Perceived Support and E-motions as Mediators

• Social media complements the existing network of friendships rather than replacing it with new online friendships.

Online Support

• Publicness/availability is linked to validation and intimacy.

E-motions as a Mediator

• E-motion expressivity through publicness/availability affects most dimensions of friendship quality (FQ).
• FQ = friendship quality

Question 3: Gender Differences

• Social media complements the existing network of friendships rather than replacing it with new online friendships. This finding applies to girls only.
• Online support: Publicness/availability validation (for girls)

Question 3: Differences Between Social Media Users

Problematic Social Media Users

• Conflict was negatively associated with publicness.
• Conflict was positively associated with visualness.
• Validation was negatively associated with cue absence.
• Problematic users may rely on social media to compensate for inadequacies in social and emotional competencies.

Limitations and Implications

• Limitations:
  • Cross-sectional design.
  • Use of a newly created measure to assess social media use.
  • Could have tested other personal characteristics.
• Implications:
  • Need specific discussions with youth about how social media can be used for social support and how to express emotions online.
  • Youth need to be mindful of the role of social media in their friendships and relationships.