Is Social Media Use Socially Enhancing or Compensating?

Rahul Gadekar*, Peng Hwa Ang

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Who benefits more from the use of social media—those who are already socialable and have a wide network of friends or those who do not and so seek to make up for their deficiency by going online? The social enhancement hypothesis says that extroverts benefit more through being able to enlarge their network of friends online more than introverts. The social compensation hypothesis, on the other hand, argues that social media use benefits introverts more; shy users who avoid face-to-face communication can communicate freely online. MANOVA analysis of the survey of 1,392 college students in a western state of India who are Facebook users found evidence predominantly for the social enhancement hypothesis.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)269-288
Number of pages20
JournalJournal of Creative Communications
Volume15
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 1 2020
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad, India.

ASJC Scopus Subject Areas

  • Communication

Keywords

  • Facebook
  • social compensation hypothesis
  • social enhancement hypothesis
  • Social media

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