Online Social Support - an Adjunct or Substitute for Traditional Social Support: Cross-Sectional Study

TL;DR

This study explores how online social support affects life satisfaction, finding it complements rather than replaces traditional in-person support.

Contribution

The study proposes a new model showing online social support functions as an adjunct, not a substitute, for traditional support.

Findings

Social media use and online support indirectly predict life satisfaction through loneliness and traditional support.

Online social support complements in-person support, supporting the 'rich get richer' hypothesis over social compensation theory.

Abstract

In contrast to all previous generations, life today is lived both in-person and online. This creates both opportunities and risks to mental health and well-being. Social interaction is no longer geographically constrained, yet the anonymity and impersonality of social media create new problems. To quote Mike Tyson (July 2020), “Social media have made y’all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it.”

This study set out to propose and test a hypothesized model to identify both direct and indirect predictors of life satisfaction. Independent or predictor variables included social media use, loneliness, and online and traditional social support.

From March 2024 to October 2024, a total of 112 adults in the United States were recruited online and proceeded to complete study questionnaires. Participants were aged 42.62 (SD 12.74) years on average, had completed an average of 15.46 (SD 3.25) years of education, and reported an average household income of US $67,005 (SD US $41,560) per year.

Using path analysis, we found that social media use and online social support emerged as significant, indirect predictors of life satisfaction via loneliness and traditional in-person social support (P<.01). In total, 39% of variance in life satisfaction was explained by this path model (R2=0.39; P<.01).

Contrary to hypothesis, these findings support the rich get richer hypothesis regarding online social support, not the social compensation theory, that is, online social support appears to function as an adjunct to in-person support, not as a substitute. The results of this study need to be replicated with more diverse, larger samples, with responses collected over multiple time points.

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