Abstract
Every day, billions of people participate on social networking sites such as Facebook. We are now more virtually “connected” than ever before, yet for many individuals, the world is a very lonely place, both physically and virtually. This study takes a self-determination theory (SDT) perspective to explore the recipes for hedonic well-being derived from Facebook, the world’s most popular social media network, for users with high versus low levels of perceived loneliness. A random sample from a panel of participants throughout the US of n = 323 analyzes active members of Facebook with fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). Our findings suggest that, in the context of social exclusion, interactivity and belonging may be the psychological needs that drive Facebook usage for high loneliness individuals and simultaneously the reward for low loneliness ones.
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