title: The Facebook Paradox: Effects of Facebooking on Individuals' Social Relationships and Psychological Well-Being.
abstract: Research suggests that Facebooking can be both beneficial and detrimental for users' psychological well-being. The current study attempts to reconcile these seemingly mixed and inconsistent findings by unpacking the specific effects of Facebooking on users' online-oﬄine social relationship satisfaction and psychological well-being. Using structural equation modeling, pathways were examined between Facebook intensity, online-oﬄine social relationship satisfaction, perceived social support, social interaction anxiety, and psychological well-being. Personality differences on each of those paths were also assessed. Employing a sample of 342 American university students, results indicated that intensive Facebooking was positively associated with users' psychological well-being through online social relationship satisfaction, and simultaneously negatively linked to users' psychological well-being through oﬄine social relationship satisfaction. Multiple group analyses revealed that the linkage between perceived social support and psychological well-being was stronger for introverts than for extraverts. Our findings indicate that the benefits or detriments of Facebooking are contingent upon both personality characteristics and online-oﬄine social contexts.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Piscataway NJ, USA.
authors.forename: Xiaomeng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Piscataway NJ, USA.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Piscataway NJ, USA.
authors.forename: Nicholas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Siwek
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Piscataway NJ, USA.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wilder
keywords: Facebooking; online–oﬄine social contexts; psychological well-being; social relationship satisfaction