Abstract
Rae and Lonborg's (2015) findings are intriguing. They show greater Facebook (FB) use intensity can have beneficial or adverse effects on psychological well-being (PWB) depending on the user's motives. This underlines that not all motives are equal: some motives are harmful and others helpful when it comes to PWB and psychopathology outcomes. Four central issues were raised: (1) exclusive focus on social (external) motives for FB use; (2) exclusive focus on PWB outcomes; (3) interesting pattern of findings in the supplemental analyses; and (4) exclusive focus on FB use motives as moderators. Each suggests exciting future possibilities for this nascent area of motives research.
Highlights
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Psychopathology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
Rae and Lonborg’s finding that friendship motives had moderating effects in improving psychological well-being (PWB) among heavier FB users while connection motives had moderating effects in worsening PWB among heavier FB users illustrates that some social motives for use can be beneficial and others harmful
Alcohol research has repeatedly shown that while social-affiliative drinking motives are associated with lighter, non-problematic alcohol use, social-conformity motives are associated with more problematic alcohol use (Cooper et al, 2015)
Summary
Rae and Lonborg’s finding that friendship motives had moderating effects in improving PWB among heavier FB users while connection motives had moderating effects in worsening PWB among heavier FB users illustrates that some social motives for use can be beneficial and others harmful. Social-conformity drinking motives seem to have their parallel in connection motives for FB use where individuals use FB to make new friendships in order to reduce loneliness and isolation. Cooper’s model includes positive and negative reinforcement motives which are internal in nature—where the behavioral goal is to change one’s internal state, whether it be increasing positive emotions (enhancement drinking motives) or decreasing negative emotions (coping or escape motives). One can imagine these two drinking motives having parallels in reasons for using FB. I encourage cross-fertilization of ideas across the addictive behaviors and social media literatures when it comes to motivational models/measures; much can be learned from work in the other field
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