Social Isolation and Social Support as Correlates of Television Viewing Motivations

Abstract

Data from three computer-administered panel studies at the University of North Carolina were analyzed to explore relationships between motivations for television viewing and six individual-differences measures, including shyness, loneliness, self-esteem, and three measures of social support. Viewing motivations were supposed to be related to needs arising from two distinct sources: (a) social compensation, which included companionship, pass time, habit, and escape motivations, and (b) mood management, which included relaxation, entertainment, arousal, and information motivations. The results based on a sample of 290 undergraduates revealed that self-esteem and the three other social-support variables correlated positively with the mood-management viewing motive and negatively with the social-compensation viewing motive. Also as hypothesized, shyness and loneliness correlated positively with the social-compensation viewing motive.

In-Person Contact Begets Calling and Texting: Interpersonal Motives for Cell Phone Use, Face-to-Face Interaction, and Loneliness

“…As such, loneliness may be a constant tendency to behave and feel in certain ways. 34 In line with this, we view loneliness as a stable characteristic of an individual, associated with various communicative outcomes. Thus we expect that lonelier people would communicate through cell phones less compared with less lonely people, because loneliness is associated with less involvement in ftf interpersonal communication, 33 and because ftf communication is positively associated with cellphone use.…”

“…35 The scores on this scale are stable over time within individuals, 33,35 thus scholars tend to use this scale to measure a stable tendency of feeling lonely. 34,36 This scale includes 20 questions such as, ''How often do you feel that you are 'in tune' with the people around you?'' and ''How often do you feel that there is no one you can turn to?''…”

Unwillingness-to-communicate and college students’ motives in SMS mobile messaging

“…Other studies in gratifications or benefits of computer-mediated technologies such as electronic bulletin board (James et al, 1995), on-line electronic message system (Blackman, 1990), political computer bulletin board (Garramone et al, 1986), cellular phones (Leung and Wei, 2000), the pagers (Leung and Wei, 1999), and ICQ (Leung, 2001) suggested broad motivations which included information exchange, conversation and socializing, information viewing, entertainment, information and education, escape and diversion, reassurance, fashion and status, and communication medium appeal. Recent studies have also emphasized personality traits and predict media use (Finn, 1997), gratifications from overall media use (Vincent and Basil, 1997), the identification of social and psychological characteristics that influence the use of media (Finn and Corr, 1988;Perse and Rubin, 1990;Rubin, 1993), and on Net-generation attributes and gratification-obtained on Internet use (Leung, 2003).…”

Time-shifting vs. appointment viewing: the role of fear of missing out within TV consumption behaviors

“…Many of the early uses and gratification studies dealt with the uses and gratifications of television use (e.g., Finn & Gorr, 1988;Katz, Gurevitch, & Haas, 1973;Rubin, 1983), and the majority of these studies examined how different expectations, motivations, and sociopsychological factors lead to different media use (Rubin, 1983). The 21st Century ushered in a new age of communication technology as use of the Internet as a communication tool grew; changing the way people interact with one another, and also with the world around them.…”