Why are we "friends" online with our face-to-face antipathies?

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Date
2018
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Publisher
University of Alabama Libraries
Abstract

This study explored the reasons why emerging adults remain friends online with their face-to-face antipathy. Even further, this study explored to what degree these individuals were interacting with and lurking on their antipathy on the four various social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. It also analyzed the associations among attachment, jealousy and fear of missing with individual lurking online. In this study, the reasons for remaining friends online with their former friend were categorized into eight distinct themes. The themes include hope of reconciliation, attention seeking, aggression, comparison, reconciled, past or present social connection, indifference, and lurking. It was found that the individuals in this study were lurking on their former friend across all social media platforms. Further analysis indicated that some of these individuals were also interacting with their former friend on these platforms. Fear of missing out was positively associated with luring on their former friend on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. However, Jealousy was only positively associated with lurking on their former friend on Facebook and Instagram but not Twitter. Generally, individuals remain friends with their antipathy on social media because they have some form of connection with them. Although, the term friend is often used to describe online connection in this study, the term is in fact ambiguous as these individuals who are “friends” on social media are not mutual liking relationships. Further research should continue to look into the various consequences and associations for remaining friends on social media with an antipathy. It should also seek to replicate the themes found within this study for remaining friends with their antipathy on social media.

Description
Electronic Thesis or Dissertation
Keywords
Developmental psychology, Social research
Citation