Is Social Media Making People Feel More Lonely?

by Collin Semenoff

INTRODUCTION Media has an immense, unrivaled power to cause change. It changes how people communicate, how they consume information and how they react to (and within) the relationships between media, message, audience, and subject. It has been acknowledged that digital media is changing the way people engage informationfor example, the rate at which they read and the way that they scan text. In the digital age, we have altered the ways we process information in order to filter increasing amounts of pleas for our attention. The types of information currently available to us have been altered as well thanks to the development of social media (SM). The questions surrounding the social changes that could develop as a result of SM consumption deserve attention. Specifically, is social media making people feel more lonely? This paper will explore that question and argue that social capital, privacy concerns and information consumption behaviours may contribute to feelings of loneliness among users of social media. BACKGROUND An examination of this question would benefit from a brief overview of social media. As one of the newest mediums to enter the digital communications arena, social media offers opportunities for interactive engagement and passive consumption of shared data among users with a common interest or social need. Social networking sites (SNS) have been explained as [] web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.1 With social media, individuals have the opportunity to maintain relationships online without consideration of physical proximity or timely offerings of lengthy attention. SM users are able to selectively display the types of information they make available to their online social connectionsoften called friends or followers through their newsfeeds and are also able to process or dismiss this kind of information (and fellow users) at their leisure. It is the choice of individual SM users to decide whether or not (and to what extent) the information they provide to their friends is personally revealing. This issue can be complicated by users with privacy concerns who do not want to broadcast intimate information for group/network consumption.

Before examining any correlation between loneliness and social media use, the recognized benefits of social networking sites should be addressed. People often turn to media such as television, radio, movies and books to compensate for loneliness.2 It would be nave to assume that people would not attempt to achieve a similar compensation from social media. Also, it has been noted that, [] strong ties often become geographically dispersed over time. [SNSs] provide another channel through which individuals can maintain relationships.3 People can use social media to compensate for face-to-face interaction and avoid losing social ties. Digital technology and social media now provide unprecedented and continuous access to core support networks, leading some to proclaim that a friendship maintained on SM can last forever.4 People use SNSs such as Facebook to repair damaged ego and seek social support.5 Other benefits experienced among social media users include greater trust and civic participation as well as demonstrated instances of a reduction in loneliness.6 These positive outcomes are important to acknowledge; however, they should not be considered as universal or definitive. Instances of antisocial repercussions have been noted to occur on social networking sites as well.7 An exploration of the potential for a positive relationship to exist between social media and instances of user loneliness would benefit from a basic understanding of loneliness accompanied by the related concepts of tie strength and social capital. People are able to maintain a perception of well-being or happiness through the support they receive from close relationships. A lack of close relationships or of a coresupport group can [] lead to feelings of loneliness and anomie.8 Social provisions that allow people to feel nurtured, secure, integrated, and confident in an atmosphere of positive, reciprocal support help to avoid loneliness.9 Feelings of social support often come from relationships with a strong tie-strength. Strong ties come from people you trust [] whose social circles tightly overlap with your own. Often, they are the people most like you. [] Weak ties, conversely, are merely acquaintances.10 Strong ties have been linked to mental health benefits while weak ties are often associated with job-hunting or sharing knowledge across workgroups.11 In very basic terms, strong tie-strength relationships often lead to deep, personal discussions and supportive, two-way communication while weak tie-strength relationships might result in small talk or a casual exchange of pleasantries.

Robert D. Putnam has addressed the strengths of relationships and connections among individuals in his explanation of social capital. According to Putnam, social capital refers to [] social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them [plus] the ways in which our lives are made more productive by social ties.12 Interestingly, he notes that social capital has been declining for the past several decades, which is well before the Internet and social media began transforming society. Although a correlation may exist, Putnam emphatically argues that the Internet [] cannot possibly be causally linked to the crumbling of social connectedness.13 Two concepts that do belong in a discussion of declining social capital and social media, however, are those of bridging social capital and bonding social capital. Putnam explains these two concepts in a way that approximates the previous explanations of tie-strength. He argues that [b]onding social capital constitutes a kind of sociological superglue, whereas bridging social capital provides a sociological WD-40.14 In this sense, bonding is associated with strong tie-strength and bridging with weak tie-strength. Putnam explains that bonding social capital is related to the provision of essential social and psychological support (similar to strong tie-strength) and that bridging social capital is [] better for linkage to external assets and for information diffusion (similar to weak tie-strength).15 Bonding social capital defines relationships between very close friends and family members while bridging social capital applies to connections that might help one temporarily bridge a weak-tie relationship and exclusive information from an external social circle. With the basics concepts of loneliness, tie-strength and social capital briefly explained, one can better understand their relevance to a discussion about social media. One of the main findings of this paper is that social mediawith its accompanying privacy issues and pseudo-private communication styleis becoming more of a bridging, weak tie-strength system based more on passive consumption of information than intimate and direct interaction. Vitak, Ellison and Steinfield have noted that, Facebooks features appear to be particularly well suited for the development of bridging social capital, with studies showing a stronger relationship between Facebook use and bridging than with bonding.16 They also acknowledge that, as of 2011, recent [] changes to the structure of the site, and the associated interactions enabled by those changes may have altered the types of relationships people support through Facebook.17 These changes to social media and online relationships have been observed around the same

time as [] the recent practice of substituting social media friends for traditional job-references18 and employer interest in access to the Facebook passwords of job applicants.19 IMPLICATIONS It is conceivable, if not entirely understandable, that some SM users would hesitate to provide the online social support required for (strong-tie) bonding social capital. Allowing mere acquaintances or potential employers to have access to the same information normally shared with implicitly trusted confidantes could frighten users into a form of communicative retreat. If a pseudo- or semi-private SM environment makes users too cautious to directly participate in bonding practices (engaging with and revealing intimate communication), some of these users may end up passively consuming SM content instead of engaging with it.20 21 The types of information posted and consumed on SM also have the potential to become more superficial (less intimate) or even exaggerated in order to create an appealing image of ones self to bridging networks (employers and other exclusive social circles). Lack of quality in a SM feed has implications, leading some to suggest that [] as users have more low-quality content in their feed, they may come to feel less connected with their friends.22 Could this be viewed as an online degradation of relationships (either online or offline) that might lead to an increase in feelings of loneliness or a loss of social capital? Correlations have been noted to exist between passive observation/information consumption on SNSs and people who are already experiencing feelings of loneliness23, whereas active two-way engagement between social media friends is associated with [] lower loneliness and higher bonding scores.24 Ryan and Xenos find it particularly concerning that [] lonely people tend to spend more time on Facebook per day, and have higher preferences for the passive features of Facebook[.]25 26 It has even been noted that, [] users who consume greater levels of content report reduced bridging and bonding social capital and increased loneliness.27 The notion of a lonely wallflower who is not engaged, supported, or nurtured can become a distinct possibility for those who passively consume social media rather than directly communicating and responding through SM. Burke, Marlow and Lento hypothesized that this possibility could be further compounded if the passively consumed information borders on the side of blatant self-promotion via friends who create an exaggerated online image of themselves. It could be difficult for people to feel confident or secure if they perceive themselves as inferior to the SM network and 2

newsfeeds they experience.28 Under certain circumstances, lonely social media usersespecially those unwilling to negotiate the SM privacy trade-offcould find it extremely difficult to seek bonding social support from a group of weak-tie, bridging social capital contacts. Even if lonely SM users already have strong ties in their networks, social media may not be the proper channel to use when seeking social support. Hampton et al argue that [m]ost social media offer either no affordances for core social ties, or affordances for maintaining a larger number of weaker social relations.29 When referring to Facebook, Vitak and colleagues suggest [] close friends and family are likely to be using a wider range of communication channels to interact, they may be less likely to communicate support-related messages through Facebook than weaker ties, who tend to employ fewer communication channels and thus may limit interaction to Facebook.30 Lonely users without strong bonding social capital should also not expect to create strong-tie relationships on social media sites such as Facebook, which is generally used more to [] communicate among acquaintances and offline contacts than it is for connecting with strangers.31 Even SM platforms like Twitter offer more passive consumptionvery often with strangers one has never metthan direct connection or two-way communication between individuals with a pre-existing offline relationship.32 In fact, a study by Bessiere in 2008 found that [] using the Internet to meet new people was associated with higher depression scores seven months later; they speculated that these new connections constituted weak ties, and that interactions with people met online replaced time spent with strong ties.33 Regardless of whether loneliness may be created or amplified through use of social networking sites, its mere presence has been found to be possibly contagious among social networks. A 60-year study involving over 12,000 people was conducted by professors from Harvard and other universities that [] concluded that lonely people are highly likely to share their loneliness with others, extending up to three degrees of separation.34 It is conceivable that exposure to lonely newsfeeds could have negative consequences to SM usersespecially if those users already exhibit feelings of loneliness themselves and/or are in a primarily passive observation of these feeds.35 Other notable observations have been made regarding attention-seeking among SM users. It has been noted that [] people who are seeking attention are more likely to be angered about not getting attention paid to their status updates.36 These people can create social disruption along their SM networks that [] may reflect poorly on the innocent friends of those narcissists.37 In each of these

scenarios, SM exposure to narcissistic attention-seeking behaviours can have negative effects that could conceivably create or feed feelings of loneliness. Up to this point, this paper has focused on the virtual activities and relationships related to social media. Interestingly, social capital expert Robert D. Putnam questions [] whether virtual social capital is itself a contradiction in terms.38 Several media theories argue that face-to-face interaction is the most superior form of communication society has.39 Irrespective of SMs ability to connect people over distance, it also has the power to put distance between people. [A]ctually using the media is necessarily a personal, solitary experience. Our immediate interaction is with devicesour computers, smart phones and tabletsnot people. [] Long periods of time without physical social contact result in further withdrawal from society, a self-perpetuating cycle of loneliness.40 DISCUSSION The Internet itself is the medium that can create these isolating non-physical conditions for social media users. Macpherson has suggested [] that the Internet allows social networks to spread out geographically, detracting from encounters with friends and neighbours in local spaces. [It] substitutes a large array of geographically dispersed weak ties for strong, more localized core confidants.41 Social media has been accused of ignoring the importance of tie-strength and treating [] all users the same: trusted friend or total stranger, with little or nothing in between.42 These factors make for a compelling hypothesis that SM in the digital age allows users to treat everyone as though they were separated by long distances. Under this hypothesis, bonding social capital could become eroded to the point where core, strong tie-strength social networks were reduced to being treated like weak-tie bridging networkspotentially compounding the other loneliness dynamics previously mentioned in this paper. Also mentioned earlier in this paper was Putnams belief that social capital is positively linked to the [] ways in which our lives are made more productive by social ties.43 If it could be proven that SM-associated loneliness reduced an individuals offline productivity, then one might argue that SM has the potential to consume offline social capital and increase feelings of lonelinesspossibly in a negative feedback loop for those seeking relief of loneliness through an expectation of improved bonding social capital via SNSs. Viewed this way, social media has the power to exchange real-world social capital for a worthless virtual currency that leaves the user in a continual offline deficit. A proper study of this hypothesis could reveal compelling insights. 3

LIMITATIONS Throughout the process of conducting research for this paper, many references were discovered that questioned the methodologies of academic studies related to social media. A repeated concern involves heavy reliance on potentially biased participantsuniversity and college studentswho may not accurately reflect society or those portions of society that use social media.44 These students could be at higher risk for loneliness and also be more frequent users of SM.45 Social media has also been able to rapidly incorporate changes to the way users experience their online and offline networks and newsfeeds. The findings of many studies may need to be questioned or reassessed to incorporate a new understanding of the ways in which SM has evolved. Other complicating factors that have been noted in some SM studies include an unclear understanding of how to separate concerns with the Internet and concerns with social media. Some studies dont distinguish between activities such as chatting or playing games, leading some to question just how social observed SM interactions are.46 Some of the more interesting questions raised regarding the findings of SM studies also enter the realm of postmodern media and communication theoriesespecially those of simulacra. Perceptions and re-definitions of the terms friend and like could play a role in how study participants answer questions. (Vitak et al quote Deresiewiczs belief that SNSs [] have reified the idea of universal friendship [] once we decided to become friends with everyone, we would forget how to be friends with anyone.47 ) Discrepancies of those definitions among researchers interpreting the data could also influence research findings. Some academics have even questioned how respondents interpret the terms discuss48 and important matters49 when providing qualitative data regarding social support via SM platforms. Discussing in a virtual world should be evaluated against discussing in the offline world. Also, because SM allows individuals to become a type of private broadcaster, what is considered an important matter to a study participant may not be considered important to a researcher. Refinements to the methodologies of future research studies could prove to be invaluable. CONCLUSION Perception and image play a significant role in a discussion about loneliness. It is the perception of social connection that is critical to well-being and also a strong defense against loneliness.50 Perception of privacy (or lack of it) and the perception others form of fellow SM users also plays a role. As it concerns this paper, perhaps all that

matters is the perception of a bonded environment regardless of whether or not it can actually thrive within a social media platform. The individual is ultimately responsible for perceptions of and reactions to quality, loneliness, and any opportunities to develop reciprocative support. The individual chooses whether to use social media and should accept ultimate responsibility for the consequences of accessing a virtual Pandoras Box. Social media has given its users a broadcasting power that was once only in the hands of larger business and news interests. The uncensored ability of SM to shape ones virtual self into another (or even several other) online identities while also reshaping ones offline perceptions of well-being or loneliness is a profound topicthe repercussions of which society is only just beginning to question and analyze. Even perception of this topic could be the traditional first grumblings of moral panic that have arisen whenever a new media has been introduced to society.51 For example, some people were once outraged and concerned for the well-being of society when the communicative power of new media such as television [] spawned fears of mass escapism.52 Is this just a similar mistrust of a shift toward a new media? Or is it a fear that combines the misgivings of all prior media revolutions due to the fact that the Internet itself (and, to a large extent, social media) merges together and makes available all previous communication technologies?53 The perception of a causal relationship between social media use and an increase in loneliness should also be the subject of further study. When discussing the decline of social capital, Putnam argues that many societal factors may be involved because, [] social change, like climatic change, is inevitably uneven. Life is not lived in a single dimension. We should not expect to find everything changing in the same direction and at the same speed, but those very anomalies may contain important clues to what is happening.54 This is an important point. Let any causal relationship first be addressed and even encouraged between an acknowledgement of possible related hypotheses and explorations into new SM design opportunities that attempt to take advantage of network tie-strength and information prioritization.55 Potential SM design enhancements could be developed to transform instances of passive SM consumption into the directed two-way social support that is typical of bonding social capital. Other important considerations should include allowing users to more intuitively define the boundaries between their personal and professional online SM networks while avoiding the quagmire of privacy concerns that reduce many to isolating

and passive SM consumption. Changing social media functionality could help change society. If individuals are truly to reap any of the benefits that come with the self-empowering possibilities of SM, they must first acknowledge their own power to change and be changed. If our relationship with the printed word has changed since screens and digitized information became almost universally accessible, we must be open to the fact that our relationships with each other may be changing once we choose to digitize ourselves through social media. The passive consumption of social media may be affecting the well-being of some users; however, that doesnt mean that SM developers should remain passive in their approach to solving SM problems. By investigating the ways in which users can reap better perceptions of well-being that positively relate to offline bonding social capital, social media has the power to come closer to truly bringing people together.

presented at the CHI 2010 (ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems), Atlanta, Georgia, April 10-15, 2010): 1,3.
7 8 9

Carpenter, Narcissism on Facebook, 482. Vitak, Ellison and Steinfield, The Ties That Bond, 3. Ibid.,

Eric Gilbert and Karrie Karahalios, Predicting Tie Strength With Social Media (paper presented at the CHI 2009 (ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems), Boston, Massachusetts, April 4-9, 2009): 2.
11 12

10

Ibid., 1.

Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2000), 19.
13 14 15 16

Ibid.,, 170. Ibid., 23. Ibid., 22. Vitak, Ellison and Steinfield, The Ties That Bond, 2. Ibid., 8. Gilbert and Karahalios, Predicting Tie Strength, 1.

REFERENCES danah m. boyd and Nicole B. Ellison, Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13 (2008): 211. The rich get richer: Online and offline social connectivity predicts subjective loneliness, Media Psychology Review website, accessed March 19, 2012, http://www.mprcenter.org/mpr/index.php?option=com_con tent&view=article&id=213&Itemid=177. Jessica Vitak, Nicole B. Ellison and Charles Steinfield, The Ties That Bond: Re-Examining the Relationship between Facebook Use and Bonding Social Capital (paper presented at the 2011 44th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences [HICSS], Kauai, Hawaii, January 47, 2011): 9. Social Media as Community, The New York Times website, accessed March 19, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/02/12/theadvantages-and-disadvantages-of-living-alone/socialmedia-as-community. Christopher J. Carpenter, Narcissism on Facebook: Self-promotional and anti-social behavior, Personality and Individual Differences, Vol. 52, No. 4. (March 2012), 485, doi:10.1016/j.paid.2011.11.011 Moira Burke, Cameron Marlow and Thomas Lento, Social Network Activity and Social Well-Being (paper
6 5 4 3 2 1

17 18 19

Whats at Stake When Employers Ask for Social Media Passwords? Social Media section of Mashable.com website, accessed April 6, 2012 http://mashable.com/2012/04/05/social-media-passwords/. Vitak et al argue that status updates and information disclosures are a good way to seek social support, but that true engagement and support hinge upon individuals replying to similar disclosures within ones SM network. Essentially, posting information is a one-way form of passive communication until another SM user replies to it. Considering the fact that many people quickly like something or only reply with emoticons or internet slang terms such as lol to many SM user posts, it would be intriguing to see how detailed a SM interaction needs to be in order to be considered significant or non-passive. Of course, this assumes that these social media users are aware that a privacy tradeoff exists when maintaining bonding social capital and core support networks online. This is not always the case; however, privacy issues are a matter best left for a separate discussion.
22 21 20

Burke, Marlow and Lento, Social Network Activity, 5

4.

23 24 25

Ibid., Vitak, Ellison and Steinfield, The Ties That Bond, 8.

2012, http://stevenduque.com/2010/09/the-loneliness-ofsocial-media/. It would be interesting to discover under what circumstances (if any) pleas for support, bonding social capital, and other strong tie-strength behaviors become interpreted as weak-tie, lonely pleas that exacerbate or spread loneliness rather than providing a means to its remedy through directed, two-way support and interaction. Do users interpret external bonding capital behaviors as incriminating or weak and later avoid direct SM social support behaviors of their own for fear of a similar interpretation from their own bridging social capital networks? Once again, privacy might play a role in the extent to which people will allow themselves to be perceived as vulnerable.
36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 35

Tracii Ryan and Sophia Xenos, Who uses Facebook? An investigation into the relationship between the Big Five, shyness, narcissism, loneliness, and Facebook usage, Computers in Human Behavior, Vol. 27, No. 5. (08 September 2011), pp. 1663, doi:10.1016/j.chb.2011.02.004 Could these users be seeking bonding-type experiences of their own (or passive observation of external strong-tie interactions) in order to remedy loneliness only to complicate the issue with their passive newsfeed consumption? Are lonely users trying to use SM as a window to bonding behaviours while exacerbating their own feelings of disconnectedness? This would make for an interesting study. Burke, Marlow and Lento share a similar view and plan to explore any chicken/egg causality relationship between loneliness and passive SM consumption.
27 26

Carpenter, Narcissism on Facebook, 485. Ibid., 482. Putnam, Bowling Alone, 170. Vitak, Ellison and Steinfield, The Ties That Bond, 3. The Loneliness of Social Media. Hampton and Eun Ja Her, CORE NETWORKS, 133. Gilbert and Karahalios, Predicting Tie Strength, 1. Putnam, Bowling Alone, 19. Burke, Marlow and Lento, Social Network Activity, The rich get richer. Burke, Marlow and Lento, Social Network Activity, Vitak, Ellison and Steinfield, The Ties That Bond, 8.

Burke, Marlow and Lento, Social Network Activity,

1. Ellison et al have noted that people with more than 302 Facebook friends were viewed as less socially attractive and more desperate rather than being seen as socially prosperous. Keith N. Hampton, Lauren F. Sessions and Eun Ja Her, CORE NETWORKS, SOCIAL ISOLATION, AND NEW MEDIA, Information, Communication & Society, Volume 14, No. 1. (November 2010), 148, dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2010.513417
30 31 29 28

1.
45 46

Vitak, Ellison and Steinfield, The Ties That Bond, 2.

Nicole B. Ellison, Charles Steinfield and Cliff Lampe, Connection strategies: Social capital implications of Facebook-enabled communication practices, New Media & Society, Volume 13, No. 6. (January 27, 2011), 876, DOI: 10.1177/1461444810385389
32 Consider the Twitter terms follow and followers to describe user engagement. This terminology suggests passive consumption (linked to bridging, job-hunting, and weak-ties) rather than active, socially supportive engagements that could remedy feelings of loneliness.

1.
47 48

Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin and Matthew E. Brashears, Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades, American Sociological Review Volume 71, No. 3. (2006): 372.
49 50 51

Hampton and Eun Ja Her, CORE NETWORKS, 135. The rich get richer.

Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe, Connection strategies, 875. The Loneliness of Social Media, Media and Technology Blog of Steven Duque, accessed March 19,
34

33

Sebastian Valenzuela, Namsu Park, and Kerk F. Kee, Is There Social Capital in a Social Network Site?: Facebook Use and College Students Life Satisfaction, Trust, and Participation, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 14 (2009): 875.
52

Ibid., 6

53 54 55

The rich get richer. Putnam, Bowling Alone, 26. Gilbert and Karahalios, Predicting Tie Strength, 9.