There is a growing concern that excessive and uncontrolled use of Facebook not only interferes with performance at school or work but also poses threats to physical and psychological well-being. The present research investigated how two individual difference variables--social anxiety and need for social assurance--affect problematic use of Facebook. Drawing on the basic premises of the social skill model of problematic Internet use, we hypothesized that social anxiety and need for social assurance would be positively correlated with problematic use of Facebook. Furthermore, it was predicted that need for social assurance would moderate the relationship between social anxiety and problematic use. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted with a college student sample in the United States (N=243) to test the proposed hypotheses. Results showed that both social anxiety and need for social assurance had a significant positive association with problematic use of Facebook. More importantly, the data demonstrated that need for social assurance served as a significant moderator of the relationship between social anxiety and problematic Facebook use. The positive association between social anxiety and problematic Facebook use was significant only for Facebook users with medium to high levels of need for social assurance but not for those with a low level of need for social assurance. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings were discussed.

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Physician review websites have become more relevant and important in people's selection of physicians. The current study experimentally examined how online physician reviews endorsing a primary care physician's (PCP's) technical or interpersonal skills, along with a physician's gender, may influence people's perceptions of the physician's skills and their willingness to choose the physician. Participants were randomly assigned to view a mockup physician review web page and to imagine that they needed to find a new PCP in a new city. They were then asked to report their perceptions of the physician and willingness to choose the physician as their PCP. The results suggested that people's willingness to choose a PCP was affected by physician reviews through their influence on people's perceptions of the PCP's technical and interpersonal skills. More importantly, this study found that when physician reviews endorsed a PCP's technical skills people perceived a female PCP to be more interpersonally competent than a male PCP and thus were more likely to choose the female PCP. The gendered perception, however, was not extended to a PCP's technical skills. Practical implications for health providers and consumers are discussed.

A bone marrow transplant is often the only key to recovery and survival for patients suffering from blood cancers. Social media platforms have allowed nonprofit organizations as well as family members and friends of patients in need of a matching donor to make their solicitation messages go viral and reach out to the broadest possible audience to increase the likelihood of finding a matching donor. Noting that social media audiences are exposed not only to the content of a social media message but also to the metrics representing the virality of the message (i.e., how many times the content has been shared), we conducted an online experiment to investigate the effects of virality metrics on perceived social norms and behavioral intention to join a bone marrow registry. In doing so, we considered the potential moderating role of perceived threat posed by blood cancers. The experiment was conducted with 152 participants who met the general eligibility guidelines set by the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP). The results of the experiment showed that exposure to high virality metrics led to greater perceived injunctive norms. The results also revealed that the effect of virality metrics on perceived injunctive norms was significant among those perceiving low levels of blood cancer threat. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that high virality metrics led to greater intention to join a bone marrow registry through perceived injunctive norms only when perceived threat of blood cancers was low. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

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