The Impact of Internet and Social Media Use on Well-Being
The present research examines the longitudinal average impact of frequency of use of Internet and social networking sites (SNS) on subjective well-being of adolescents in Germany. Based on five-wave panel data that cover a period of nine years, we disentangle between-person and within-person effects of media use on depressive symptomatology and life satisfaction as indicators of subjective well-being. Additionally, we control for confounders such as TV use, self-esteem, and satisfaction with friends. We found that frequency of Internet use in general and use of SNS in particular is not substantially related subjective well-being. The explanatory power of general Internet use or SNS use to p…
An Agenda for Open Science in Communication
Contains fulltext : 226720.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) In the last 10 years, many canonical findings in the social sciences appear unreliable. This so-called "replication crisis" has spurred calls for open science practices, which aim to increase the reproducibility, replicability, and generalizability of findings. Communication research is subject to many of the same challenges that have caused low replicability in other fields. As a result, we propose an agenda for adopting open science practices in Communication, which includes the following seven suggestions: (1) publish materials, data, and code; (2) preregister studies and submit registered reports; (3) conduct replicatio…
Towards an integration of individualistic, networked, and institutional approaches to online disclosure and privacy in a networked ecology
In this paper, we review three different approaches to disclosure and privacy: a) an individualistic approach, which emphasizes an individual's control over information access and flow, b) a networked approach focused on information flow in horizontal relations between people, and c) an institutional approach concerned with public and societal privacy risks from platforms, providers, and governments. These approaches co-exist largely independently of each other in privacy and disclosure literature. However, with overlapping public and private spheres of communication where a presumption of individual agency over personal information is no longer tenable, we argue for the importance of bridg…
The interplay of intrinsic need satisfaction and Facebook specific motives in explaining addictive behavior on Facebook
We conducted an online survey with 581 SNS users.We developed a scale measuring SNS addiction.SNS specific motives mediate the effect of intrinsic needs on SNS addiction.People try to compensate thwarted intrinsic needs with gratifications from SNS use.Gratifications sought from SNS use can cause addictive SNS usage patterns. The present paper aims at exploring the new phenomenon of social network site (SNS) addiction and at identifying predictors of problematic SNS use. For this purpose, a scale measuring addictive behavior specifically with regard to SNS use was developed. The effects of intrinsic need satisfaction in the offline context and of SNS-specific motives on SNS addiction were t…