Engagement and Well-being on Social Network Sites

Prior research has reported contradictory findings on the relationship between the use of Social Network Sites (SNS) and psychological well-being. We addressed this shortcoming by incorporating a finer measure of SNS user engagement and hypothesizing a U-shaped rather than purely linear relationship between the two. We tested our hypotheses via a Web based questionnaire administered to 289 Facebook users. Ordinary least squares approach confirmed the hypothesized U-shaped relationship. Our results further show that User Engagement, and in turn well-being, is associated with the number of SNS friends. These findings indicate that well-being derived from SNS usage could be optimized by avoiding underuse as well as overuse.