Facebook social support: A comparative study on depression and personality characteristics

Abstract

The explosive growth of Social Networking Sites such as Facebook had a huge impact on psychological research. One of the most controversial questions regards to whether online relationships provide meaningful social support. Although international literature on the psychosocial effects of Social Networking Site usage is constantly growing, little research has been conducted in Greece. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the relationship between depressive symptomatology, personality traits and attraction to online social support in Facebook. A sample of 278 young adults, between the ages of 18 and 26 (M=22.5) completed anonymously, on a volunteer basis, three questionnaires on depressive symptomatology, personality characteristics (neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness and agreeableness), attraction to online social support and sociodemographic factors. According to the results, high scores on depressive symptomatology and Neuroticism, as well as low scores in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness describe people who are more attracted to online social support. An unexpected finding concerns the lack of gender differences in depressive symptomatology, though, interestingly, men compared to women reported higher levels of attraction to online social support. Finally, gender, Neuroticism and Agreeableness were strong predictors of attraction to online social support on Facebook. The results are limited by the self-report questionnaires and the correlational nature of the results, as well as the fact that only one Social Networking Site was studied. In spite of the above limitations, the present study has some important implications on future research. © 2013 IADIS.