Talking face-to-Facebook: Associations between online social interactions and offline relationships

Abstract

Despite a growing reliance on social networking sites like Facebook to establish and maintain relationships, there is a dearth of research regarding the nature of online social interactions and how they may relate to face-to-face peer relationships and psychopathology symptoms. In the current study, we observationally coded the Facebook profiles and activity of 240 new university students. Sociometric procedures were used to index participants' face-to-face social acceptance and reciprocated friendships. Participants also reported on their Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and anxious-depressive symptomatology. Principal components analysis revealed that users' Facebook activity can be understood in terms of the quantity of interactions, the positive or negative quality of those interactions, and also the degree of narcissistic self-presentation present. Participants with greater ADHD symptomatology displayed a greater quantity of Facebook interactions and also more negative interaction quality on Facebook. Participants who had more reciprocated friendships in a face-to-face context displayed a greater quantity of Facebook interactions and more narcissistic self-presentation on Facebook. In contrast, more acceptance by peers in a face-to-face context was associated with less narcissistic self-presentation on Facebook. Findings suggest that university students’ online social interactions on Facebook are multi-faceted, with each facet uniquely associated with face-to-face peer relationships and psychopathology symptoms. Some facets may represent social phenomena that uniquely emerge in online environments.