Social Network Profiles as Information Sources for Adolescents' Offline Relations

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a study concerning the use of online profile pages by adolescents to know more about "offline" friends and acquaintances. Previous research has indicated that social networking sites (SNSs) are used to gather information on new online contacts. However, several studies have demonstrated a substantial overlap between offline and online social networks. Hence, we question whether online connections are meaningful in gathering information on offline friends and acquaintances. First, the results indicate that a combination of passive uncertainty reduction (monitoring a target's profile) and interactive uncertainty reduction (communication through the target's profile) explains a considerable amount of variance in the level of uncertainty about both friends and acquaintances. More specifically, adolescents generally get to know much more about their acquaintances. Second, the results of online uncertainty reduction positively affect the degree of self-disclosure, which is imperative in building a solid friend relation. Furthermore, we find that uncertainty reduction strategies positively mediate the effect of social anxiety on the level of certainty about friends. This implies that socially anxious teenagers benefit from SNSs by getting the conditions right to build a more solid relation with their friends. Hence, we conclude that SNSs play a substantial role in today's adolescents' everyday interpersonal communication.

Relationship Between Social Anxiety & Facebook Surveillance

“…According to Berger and Calabrese's (1975) impressions formed by asking a third party about a person, and interactive strategies gather information through face-to-face discussion with a person (Griffin et al, 2015). Active strategies include seeking information about a target without addressing the target directly, oftentimes exemplified as asking the target's friends about them (Courtois All, & Vanwynsberghe, 2012).…”

“…On Facebook, active strategies would refer to surveying a target's Facebook friends to build expectations about their friend group and potentially asking those friends for information about the target (Fox & Anderegg, 2014). Interactive strategies pertain to situations wherein target individuals have direct communication (Courtois et al, 2012), such as commenting on a target's post or sending a private message (Fox & Anderegg, 2014). Passive strategies refer to non-intrusive observations of their target, such as monitoring another's profile RUNNING HEAD: Relationship Between Social Anxiety & Facebook Surveillance 6 without any direct communication (Courtois et al, 2012).…”

“…Interactive strategies pertain to situations wherein target individuals have direct communication (Courtois et al, 2012), such as commenting on a target's post or sending a private message (Fox & Anderegg, 2014). Passive strategies refer to non-intrusive observations of their target, such as monitoring another's profile RUNNING HEAD: Relationship Between Social Anxiety & Facebook Surveillance 6 without any direct communication (Courtois et al, 2012). This may include reading the target's posts, sifting through their pictures, or simply observing their activity on Facebook (Fox & Anderegg, 2014).…”

“…This uncertainty can be reduced via extractive information seeking (Fox & Anderegg., 2014) without having to interact directly with the target. This allows users to obtain information and reduce uncertainty without alerting the target, which can be a real benefit to people who experience social anxiety when interacting directly with other people (Courtois et al, 2012). …”

“…McCord's (2014) research found that people with high social anxiety use Facebook's social interaction tools more than those with low social anxiety, suggesting that socially anxious individuals prefer Facebook to gather information, communicate, and selectively self-disclose rather than engaging in a face-to-face interaction, which participants described as less controllable and more stress/anxiety-inducing. To date, there have been many studies examining the relationship between social anxiety and Facebook information seeking strategies (Fernandez et al, 2012;Courtois et al, 2012;Tokunaga, 2011). This study will seek to examine this Islander (M = 1.64, SD = 1.3, n = 3, 5%,), multiracial (M = 1.64, SD = 1.3, n = 4, 6.8%,), Latinx (M = 1.64, SD = 1.3, n = 2, 3.4%,), and Black (M = 1.64, SD = 1.3, n = 8, 13.6%,), while two respondents did not disclose their ethnicity (M = 1.64, SD= 1.33, n = 2, .4%).…”