Social Trust over Facebook among Malaysian University Students

Facebook as one of the most popular social networking sites has been the major focus among relationship researchers, especially those working with adolescents. Adolescents born in the era of advanced communication technology rely heavily on this medium to form and maintain their social relationships thus raising the issue of social trust across these relationships. This paper focuses on how Malaysian university students perceived social trust over Facebook. Rosenberg Generalized Trust Scale (RGT) was used to measure social trust over Facebook. This study assessed subjective well-being using Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE) and Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS). Participants were 800 students from a public university in northern Malaysia (178 males and 622 females). This study was conducted online using Google Form online survey. Findings indicated a medium level of social trust reported by participants. Findings also showed that social trust contributed to university students' subjective well-being. There was a positive correlation between social trust and university students' subjective well-being. In conclusion, social trust over social media such as Facebook is important to university students' well-being and repsesents one of the positive elements of Facebook relationships.