Loneliness, friendship, and self-esteem: First-year college students' experience of using Facebook

With the rapid growth of social network sites, many college students are using the sites to communicate with their friends and families. However, little research has contributed to understanding college students' communication activities on the social network sites and how these activities affect their psychological well-being. This research project was intended to examine how first-year college students' use of Facebook was associated with their psychological well-being. Specifically, the study focused on three research questions: (1) Were there any impacts of loneliness on Facebook intensity and motive for using Facebook? (2) Were there any impacts of Facebook intensity and motive for using Facebook on loneliness? (3) Could Facebook intensity and motive for using Facebook enhance individuals' psychosocial self-esteem through the mediation of offline friendship?;Data were collected from a sample of 340 first-year college students from one university and one community college in the Southern U.S. via the College Students Facebook Use Questionnaire. Data were analyzed through structural equation modeling to answer the three research questions.;There were two major findings of the study: First, Facebook intensity could reduce students' perceived level of loneliness whereas motive for using Facebook had little association with loneliness. Second, Facebook intensity and motive for using Facebook had positive relationship with offline friendship, but offline friendship did not have any association with psychosocial self-esteem.;The results of this study provide both a theoretical understanding of psychological consequence of social networking use and inform better decision making and implementation of educational practice and educational policy on college students' social networking use.