Effects of loneliness and differential usage of Facebook on college adjustment of first-year students

Abstract The popularity of social network sites (SNSs) among college students has stimulated scholarship examining the relationship between SNS use and college adjustment. The present research furthers our understanding of SNS use by studying the relationship between loneliness, varied dimensions of Facebook use, and college adjustment among first-year students. We looked at three facets of college adjustment: social adjustment, academic motivation, and perceived academic performance. Compulsive use of Facebook had a stronger association with academic motivation than habitual use of Facebook, but neither were directly correlated with academic performance. Too much time spent on Facebook was weakly but directly associated with poorer perceived academic performance. Loneliness was a stronger indicator of college adjustment than any dimension of Facebook usage.

[1]  Cliff Lampe,et al.  Student use of Facebook for organizing collaborative classroom activities , 2011, Int. J. Comput. Support. Collab. Learn..

[2]  Scott E. Caplan.  Relations Among Loneliness, Social Anxiety, and Problematic Internet Use , 2007, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[3]  M. Barker,et al.  Academic achievement and social adaptation among international students: A comparison groups study of the peer-pairing program , 1990 .

[4]  T. Chartrand,et al.  THE UNBEARABLE AUTOMATICITY OF BEING , 1999 .

[5]  R. LaRose.  The Problem of Media Habits , 2010 .

[6]  Regina J. J. M. van den Eijnden,et al.  The Compulsive Internet Use Scale (CIUS): Some Psychometric Properties , 2009, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[7]  R. Vallerand,et al.  Academic Motivation and School Performance: Toward a Structural Model , 1995 .

[8]  David A. Kenny.  Correlation and causality / David A. Kenny , 1979 .

[9]  Cliff Lampe,et al.  Connection strategies: Social capital implications of Facebook-enabled communication practices , 2011, New Media Soc..

[10]  R. LaRose,et al.  Social Networking: Addictive, Compulsive, Problematic, or Just Another Media Habit? , 2010 .

[11]  Ethan A. Kolek,et al.  Online Disclosure: An Empirical Examination of Undergraduate Facebook Profiles , 2008 .

[12]  Reynol Junco,et al.  The relationship between frequency of Facebook use, participation in Facebook activities, and student engagement , 2012, Comput. Educ..

[13]  A. Bandura.  Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory , 1985 .

[14]  E. Paul,et al.  Friendsickness in the Transition to College: Precollege Predictors and College Adjustment Correlates. , 2001 .

[15]  Scot W. McNary,et al.  A Social Support Intervention to Ease the College Transition: Exploring Main Effects and Moderators , 2010 .

[16]  J. Bonds-Raacke,et al.  Are students really connected? Predicting college adjustment from social network usage , 2015 .

[17]  Cliff Lampe,et al.  A face(book) in the crowd: social Searching vs. social browsing , 2006, CSCW '06.

[18]  Cliff Lampe,et al.  Facebook as a toolkit: A uses and gratification approach to unbundling feature use , 2011, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[19]  Dan Costin,et al.  The Relationship Between Facebook and the Well-Being of Undergraduate College Students , 2011, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[20]  J. Locascio,et al.  The Cross-Lagged Correlation Technique: Reconsideration in Terms of Exploratory Utility, Assumption Specification and Robustness , 1982 .

[21]  Brandon Van Der Heide,et al.  Too Much of a Good Thing? The Relationship Between Number of Friends and Interpersonal Impressions on Facebook , 2008, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[22]  Cliff Lampe,et al.  The Benefits of Facebook "Friends: " Social Capital and College Students' Use of Online Social Network Sites , 2007, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[23]  Robert LaRose,et al.  Loneliness as the Cause and the Effect of Problematic Internet Use: The Relationship between Internet Use and Psychological Well-Being , 2009, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[24]  Patti M. Valkenburg,et al.  Friend Networking Sites and Their Relationship to Adolescents' Well-Being and Social Self-Esteem , 2006, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[25]  Nicole B. Ellison,et al.  The Ties That Bond: Re-Examining the Relationship between Facebook Use and Bonding Social Capital , 2011, 2011 44th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[26]  Robert LaRose,et al.  Unregulated Internet Usage: Addiction, Habit, or Deficient Self-Regulation? , 2003 .

[27]  Allan Wigfield,et al.  Academic and Social Motivational Influences on Students' Academic Performance , 1998 .

[28]  Cameron Marlow,et al.  Social network activity and social well-being , 2010, CHI.

[29]  Eric J. Moody,et al.  Internet Use and Its Relationship to Loneliness , 2001, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[30]  Ernest T. Pascarella,et al.  Predicting voluntary freshman year persistence/withdrawal behavior in a residential university: A path analytic validation of Tinto's model. , 1983 .

[31]  R. Baker,et al.  Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire , 2011 .

[32]  D. Russell,et al.  The revised UCLA Loneliness Scale: concurrent and discriminant validity evidence. , 1980, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[33]  Donghee Yvette Wohn,et al.  The role of social media in shaping first-generation high school students' college aspirations: A social capital lens , 2013, Comput. Educ..

[34]  B. Verplanken.  Beyond frequency: habit as mental construct. , 2006, The British journal of social psychology.

[35]  P. Bentler.  Comparative Fit Indices in Structural Models , 1990 .

[36]  Paul A. Kirschner,et al.  Facebook® and academic performance , 2010, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[37]  Reynol Junco,et al.  Too much face and not enough books: The relationship between multiple indices of Facebook use and academic performance , 2012, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[38]  Sharon E. Robinson Kurpius,et al.  The Relationship of Loneliness and Social Support with College Freshmen's Academic Performance and Persistence , 2006 .

[39]  P. Kinnunen,et al.  The role of social networks in students' learning experiences , 2007, ITiCSE-WGR '07.

[40]  Josh Pasek,et al.  Facebook and Academic Performance: Reconciling a Media Sensation with Data , 2009, First Monday.

[41]  Scott E. Caplan.  Theory and measurement of generalized problematic Internet use: A two-step approach , 2010, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[42]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  Correlation and causality , 1979 .

[43]  B. Verplanken,et al.  Reflections on past behavior: A self-report index of habit strength , 2003 .

[44]  Robert LaRose,et al.  Uses and Gratifications of Internet Addiction , 2012 .

[45]  N. Ellison,et al.  Social capital, self-esteem, and use of online social network sites: A longitudinal analysis , 2008 .

[46]  M. G. Wintre,et al.  Predictors of persistence to graduation: Extending a model and data on the transition to university model. , 2007 .

[47]  J. Meek,et al.  Facebook, social integration and informal learning at university: ‘It is more for socialising and talking to friends about work than for actually doing work’ , 2009 .

[48]  Ronald E. Riggio,et al.  Social skills, social support, and psychosocial adjustment , 1993 .

[49]  Esra Ceyhan,et al.  Loneliness, Depression, and Computer Self-Efficacy as Predictors of Problematic Internet Use , 2008, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[50]  Rex B. Kline,et al.  Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling , 1998 .

[51]  Shawn Van Etten,et al.  An interview study of college freshmens’ beliefs about their academic motivation , 1998 .

[52]  Kristy J. Lauver,et al.  Do psychosocial and study skill factors predict college outcomes? A meta-analysis. , 2004, Psychological bulletin.

[53]  Scott E. Caplan.  A Social Skill Account of Problematic Internet Use , 2005 .

[54]  Kathryn Zickuhr,et al.  65% of Online Adults Use Social Networking Sites , 2011 .

[55]  Wade C. Jacobsen,et al.  The Wired Generation: Academic and Social Outcomes of Electronic Media Use Among University Students , 2011, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..