• Research article
  • Open access
  • Published: 28 March 2022

Social networking sites use and college students’ academic performance: testing for an inverted U-shaped relationship using automated mobile app usage data

  • Wondwesen Tafesse   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1284-7167 1  

International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education volume  19 , Article number:  16 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

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With the widespread adoption of social networking sites among college students, discerning the relationship between social networking sites use and college students’ academic performance has become a major research endeavor. However, much of the available research in this area rely on student self-reports and findings are notably inconsistent. Further, available studies typically cast the relationship between social networking sites use and college students’ academic performance in linear terms, ignoring the potential moderating role of the intensity of social networking sites use. In this study, we draw on contrasting arguments in the literature predicting positive and negative effects of social networking sites use on college students’ academic performance to propose an inverted U-shaped relationship. We collected data on social networking sites use by having college students install a tracking app on their smartphones for 1 week and data on academic performance from internal college records. Our findings indicate that social networking sites use indeed exhibits an inverted U-shaped relationship with college students’ academic performance. Specifically, we find that spending up to 88.87 min daily on social networking sites is positively associated with academic performance, but beyond that, social networking sites use is negatively associated with academic performance. We discuss the implications of our findings.

Introduction

With the widespread adoption of social networking sites among college students, discerning the relationship between social networking sites use and college students’ academic performance has become a major research endeavor (Doleck & Lajoie, 2018 ; Koranteng et al., 2019 ; Liu et al., 2017 ; Tafesse, 2020 ). Numerous studies have been published on this topic to date and the relevant literature is accumulating rapidly (Doleck & Lajoie, 2018 ; Masrom et al., 2021 ). However, findings have been highly inconsistent (Astatke et al., 2021 ), with some studies documenting a negative relationship between social networking sites use and academic performance (e.g., Junco, 2015 ; Karpinski et al., 2013 ; Tafesse, 2020 ) and others documenting a positive relationship (e.g., Park et al., 2018 ; Samad et al., 2019 ; Sarwar et al., 2019 ).

Notably, much of the available research relies on student self-reports to measure social networking sites use (Astatke et al., 2021 ; Doleck & Lajoie, 2018 ). Students are asked to self-report the frequency or duration of their social networking sites use. Because students have been shown to substantially underestimate their social networking sites use, however, self-report data is prone to measurement error, thereby potentially biasing the magnitude and direction of reported findings (Felisoni & Godoi, 2018 ; Giunchiglia et al., 2018 ; Wang et al., 2015 ). To overcome these limitations, researchers have begun to employ software programs and mobile applications that can automatically track the frequency and duration of social networking sites use, which enables precise measurement (e.g., Felisoni & Godoi, 2018 ; Giunchiglia et al., 2018 ; Wang et al., 2015 ). Coupled with the use of institutional records to measure students’ academic performance, these latter studies have managed to overcome the measurement difficulties afflicting self-reported data. However, even these more recent efforts typically cast the relationship between social networking sites use and academic performance in linear terms. That is, social networking sites use is proposed to linearly co-vary with academic performance.

In the current study, we maintain that the linear relationship typically tested in the literature may not fully capture the complex interplay between social networking sites use and academic performance. We contend that the relationship between social networking sites use and academic performance can be characterized as an inverted U-shape. The fact that both positive and negative effects have been reported in the literature (Astatke et al., 2021 ; Masrom et al., 2021 ; Raza et al., 2020 ) points to the possibility that social networking sites use might produce both positive and negative academic outcomes depending on the intensity of their use. For instance, heavy use of social networking sites can be detrimental to academic performance by having college students reallocate time away from academic work or requiring them to multi-task (Alt, 2015 ; Junco, 2015 ; Kapriniski et al., 2013 ; Marker et al., 2018 ). Modest use of social networking sites, on the other hand, might contribute positively to academic performance by facilitating collaborative learning and offering informational and entertainment values (Al-Qaysi et al., 2021 ; Hoi, 2021 ; Lampe et al., 2015 ; Lemay et al., 2020 ; Raza et al., 2020 ). Prior studies have suggested that not all social networking sites use is maladaptive (Lemay et al., 2020 ).

We combine the positive and negative effects of social networking sites use reported in the literature into an inverted U-shaped relationship by positing the intensity of social networking sites use as a moderating variable. The inverted U-shaped model fits the data better than the linear model, highlighting the crucial role that the intensity of social networking sites use plays in shaping the relationship between social networking sites use and college students’ academic performance. By demonstrating that social networking sites can be associated with both negative and positive academic outcomes depending on their intensity of use, our approach serves to reconcile empirical inconsistencies observed in the literature (Astatke et al., 2021 ). Further, the findings serve to synthesize the contrasting theoretical perspectives offered in the literature––some arguing for a positive effect of social networking sites use, others arguing for a negative effect––into a coherent curvilinear relationship. Overall, our findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between social networking sites use and college students’ academic performance.

Literature review

Social networking sites: an overview.

Ellison and Boyd ( 2013 ) defined social networking sites as “a networked communication platform in which participants (1) have uniquely identifiable profiles that consist of user-supplied content, content provided by other users, and/or system-level data; (2) can publicly articulate connections that can be viewed and traversed by others; and (3) can consume, produce, and/or interact with streams of user-generated content provided by their connections on the site” (p. 180). This definition emphasizes three defining features of social networking sites.

First, social networking sites allow users to create uniquely identifiable profiles animated by both user- and system-supplied information. Examples of these user- and system-supplied information that define a user’s profile on social networking sites include biographic details, self-descriptions, photos, interests and activities (Ellison & Boyd, 2013 ). These pieces of information facilitate online peer-to-peer networking by revealing users’ identities (Kane et al., 2014 ; Zhang & Leung, 2015 ). Second, social networking sites allow users to articulate connections that can be viewed and traversed by others. These connections are typically manifested in the form of friends lists, followers lists, group memberships, liked pages and so on. These publicly stated connections enable users to discern other users’ social connections, further facilitating peer-to-peer networking activities on the platforms (Ellison & Boyd, 2013 ). Zhang and Leung ( 2015 ) maintained that the ability to traverse and view other users’ connections and activities is an innovative feature of social networking sites that is virtually unknown in traditional forms of communication. Finally, social networking sites allow users to consume, produce and interact with the streams of user-generated content provided by their connections (Kane et al., 2014 ). Users create their content by combining text, images, videos, emoticons, animations and so forth—all languages of social networking sites (Dumpit & Fernandez, 2017 ). As well as sharing their own content, users can consume and interact with other users’ content, by liking, sharing and commenting on them, thereby creating a dynamic and continuous cycle of online interaction and engagement, which is essential to the vitality of social networking sites (Masrom et al., 2021 ; Smith, 2017 ).

College students rely heavily on social networking sites for their daily communication, entertainment and information needs (Ansari & Khan, 2020 ; Doleck et al., 2018 ; Ifinedo, 2016 ; Lemay et al., 2020 ). Studies tracking college students’ social media habits have indicated that students spend a significant amount of time daily, switching between multiple social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat (Alhabash & Ma, 2017 ; Dumpit & Fernandez, 2017 ; Felisoni & Godoi, 2018 ; Smith, 2017 ; Wang et al., 2015 ). College students use social networking sites for various purposes including opinion sharing, information acquisition, entertainment, self-documentation, self-expression and social interactions, among others (Alhabash & Ma, 2017 ; Chawinga, 2017 ; Lemay et al., 2020 ). Educational use of social networking sites, such as accessing course information, organizing group work, receiving feedback and interacting with instructors, have also been noted in the literature (Al-Qaysi et al., 2021 ; Al-Rahmi et al., 2020 ; Ansari & Khan, 2020 ; Hoi, 2021 ; Raza et al., 2020 ; Smith, 2017 ).

Review of the empirical literature

The pervasive adoption and use of social networking sites among college students have spurred a flurry of research into how social networking sites use influences academic performance (Masrom et al., 2021 ). Several studies have been published and the relevant literature has accumulated over the past years. In response, several systematic literature reviews (e.g., Astatke et al., 2021 ; Doleck & Lajoie, 2018 ; Masrom et al., 2021 ) and meta-analyses (e.g., Huang, 2018 ; Liu et al., 2017 ) have been carried out. Yet, these reviews and meta-analyses document major inconsistencies in the literature. Despite the expanding literature and efforts to consolidate it, results remain inconsistent. Below, we present a summary of representative works.

In an early study, Karpinski et al. ( 2013 ) looked at the relationship between social networking sites use and academic performance among college students in the USA and Europe. They find that social networking sites use is negatively associated with college students’ academic performance both in the US and European samples, but the association is stronger for the US sample. In another widely cited study, Junco ( 2015 ) investigated the relationship between social networking sites use and college students’ academic performance by considering class standing as a moderating variable. The researcher finds that freshmen suffered the highest decline in academic performance from increased social networking sites use, while seniors were less severely affected. Recently, Tafesse ( 2020 ) finds that increased use of social networking sites is negatively associated with academic performance both directly, and indirectly, via decreased student engagement.

In a study that examined the relationship between social networking sites use and student engagement among Korean college students, Park et al. ( 2018 ) reported a positive relationship. But when used for purposes such as image management and social pressure, social networking sites use tends to reduce student engagement. Similarly, Sarwar et al. ( 2019 ) find that social networking sites use contributes positively to college students’ academic performance both directly, and indirectly, by enabling collaborative learning. Finally, Al-Rahmi et al. ( 2020 ) find that college students’ increased perceptions of social presence, interest, perceived enjoyment and perceived usefulness of social networking sites are positively associated with collaborative learning.

Despite their contributions to a deeper understanding of how social networking sites use influence academic performance, the reviewed studies relied on student self-reports to measure both social networking sites use and academic performance, which might introduce measurement errors by, for instance, eliciting socially desirable answers or artificially inflating the correlation among measured variables due to common method bias (Podsakoff et al., 2003 ). To overcome these measurement issues, researchers have begun to deploy software programs and mobile applications that are installed on students’ PCs or smartphones to automatically track the frequency and duration of social networking sites use (Felisoni & Godoi, 2018 ; Giunchiglia et al., 2018 ; Wang et al., 2015 ). Increasingly also, researchers are obtaining data about students’ academic performance from institutional records instead of student self-reports. Collecting data from multiple sources is one of the most effective procedural remedies against common method bias (Podsakoff et al., 2003 ).

Pertinent among this latter group of studies is a pioneering investigation by Wang et al. ( 2015 ), which tracked the social media behavior of college students in the USA for one week by having them install a software program on their PCs and smartphones. The researchers subsequently divided their sample into heavy versus light users and compared their perceptions of how social networking sites use affect academic performance. Their findings suggest that heavy users felt more distracted and fell behind on schoolwork relative to light users. Although the researchers did not formally test the moderating effect of the intensity of social networking sites use, their findings reveal sharp differences in perceptions between heavy and light users.

In a more recent study, Giunchiglia et al. ( 2018 ) measured social networking sites use by having college students install a mobile usage tracking app on their devices and run it for a week. In addition, they employed time diaries to measure social networking sites use during lecture hours and study time. Their findings indicate that increased social networking sites use during lecture hours and study time is negatively predictive of semester GPA. Conversely, social networking sites inactivity during lecture hours and study time is positively predictive of semester GPA. In another study, Felisoni and Godoi ( 2018 ) tracked college students’ overall smartphone use for one week using a tracking app. They find a negative relationship between increased smartphone use and semester GPA.

Following the latter group of studies, we measured social networking sites use by having college students install a mobile usage tracking app on their smartphones and run it for one week and students’ academic performance using semester and cumulative GPAs obtained from internal college records. However, we departed from previous studies by testing for an inverted U-shaped relationship. Extant studies typically model the relationship between social networking sites use and academic performance linearly, which ignores the potential moderating role of the intensity of social networking sites use. By testing for an inverted U-shaped relationship, we demonstrate the moderating role of the intensity of social networking sites use in the relationship between social networking sites use and college students’ academic performance.

Theoretical perspectives

Two main theoretical perspectives are put forth in the literature to explain the relationship between social networking sites use and college students' academic performance: the time-displacement/multitasking argument; and the collaborative learning argument.

The first perspective holds that social networking sites distract students from attaining deeper engagement with their academic study (Alt, 2015 ; Astatke et al., 2021 ; Cao et al., 2018 ; Doleck et al., 2018 ; Junco, 2012 ; Karpinski et al., 2013 ). Two important theoretical mechanisms are proposed to explain this negative relationship: time displacement and multitasking. The time displacement explanation is based on the notion that time is inelastic and daily human activities are scheduled around a fixed, 24-h cycle. The introduction of a new activity, therefore, comes at the expense of other established activities as less time would be available for them (Nie, 2001 ; Tokunaga, 2016 ). According to the time displacement argument, time spent on social networking sites is time reallocated from important academic activities such as studying, attending classes or doing assignments (Doleck et al., 2018 ; Tafesse, 2020 ). By forcing the reallocation of time from academically productive to academically nonproductive tasks, social networking sites use is argued to adversely affect students’ academic performance (Alt, 2015 ; Cao et al., 2018 ; Tafesse, 2020 ).

The multitasking explanation, on the other hand, suggests that attending to two or more tasks at the same time can result in cognitive overload, which reduces students’ ability to correctly and completely execute the tasks at hand (Junco, 2012 ; Junco & Cotton, 2012 ; Karpinski et al., 2013 ; Lau, 2017 ). The multitasking argument implies that trying to accomplish academic tasks while staying on social networking sites reduces students’ attention span and their cognitive ability to effectively engage in academic work, thereby adversely affecting their academic performance (Junco, 2012 ; Karpinski et al., 2013 ; Lau, 2017 ; Lepp et al., 2015 ).

The second perspective holds that social networking sites can be harnessed to facilitate collaborative learning and motivate students into a more constructive learning engagement (Eid & Al-Jabri, 2016 ; Hoi, 2021 ; Lampe et al., 2015 ; Liu et al., 2017 ; Raza et al., 2020 ). Researchers subscribing to this perspective point to the fact that the interactive and social features of social networking sites can be utilized to exchange information, arrange group work, receive feedback and facilitate interaction with instructors (Al-Rahmi et al., 2020 ; Ansari & Khan, 2020 ; Chawinga, 2017 ; Lampe et al., 2015 ; Smith, 2017 ). Social networking sites emphasize collaboration and group engagement as opposed to individual learning, thereby allowing students to become active partners and socially engaged in the process of exchanging information, discovering knowledge and solving problems, which should increase their overall learning and academic performance (Ansari & Khan, 2020 ; Astatke et al., 2021 ; Lampe et al., 2015 ; Sarwar et al., 2019 ; Smith, 2017 ).

With the growing role of social networking sites as a platform for opinion sharing and information exchange at a societal level (Ellison & Boyd, 2013 ), exposure to social networking sites can further widen students’ perspectives and introduce them to diverse worldviews (Alloway et al., 2013 ; Chawinga, 2017 ; Park et al., 2018 ). Social networking sites could also offer students relief from demanding academic tasks by availing entertaining content, such as funny videos, jokes and memes, which can increase their motivation for subsequent tasks (Ansari & Khan, 2020 ; Eid & Al-Jabri, 2016 ; Phua et al., 2017 ; Raza et al., 2020 ).

We draw on the two contrasting perspectives presented above to propose an inverted U-shaped relationship between social networking sites use and college students’ academic performance. The proposed model anticipates a positive relationship between social networking sites use and academic performance when the intensity of social networking sites use is low and a negative relationship when the intensity of social networking sites use is high.

Methodology

Sampling and data collection.

The current study was carried out at a large public university in an Eastern African country in 2019. The study targeted undergraduate students studying business and economics subjects. Business and economics students were chosen for the simple reason that the researchers involved in the study were affiliated with the Business and Economics College. The necessary ethical clearance was obtained from the Office of the Vice-Dean to conduct the study.

Data on students’ social networking sites use was collected by asking voluntary students to install “App Usage”—a freely available mobile usage tracking app—on their smartphones in the Spring 2019 semester. Although we evaluated several candidate mobile usage tracking apps for the purpose of our study, we settled on App Usage for two reasons. First, App Usage offers an accurate measurement of users’ smartphone activities. We installed App Usage on our smartphones, personally checked its accuracy and we were satisfied with the result. Second, App Usage has an intuitive and convenient feature for downloading and sharing one’s app usage history either via email or messaging apps. Because usage history is rendered in a CSV file format, it facilitates faster data capture and processing. An example of custom reports produced by App Usage is presented in the Appendix.

Due to the sensitivity of the data we were after, we resorted to a snowball approach to recruit participants. We start by recruiting an initial batch of students based on personal rapport and solicited their voluntary participation. We then asked this initial batch to recruit additional participants. Through this process, we recruited about 51 voluntary participants. To minimize the effect of social desirability bias, we excluded students attending any one of our classes. Subsequently, we familiarized the participants with the basic functionality of App Usage and asked them to install it on their smartphones. To increase the number of valid responses from the participants, we took several confidence-building steps. First, we limited the applicable usage history to only one week. Second, we excluded weekends since social media use during weekends can be particularly personal relative to weekdays. Likewise, to minimize the potential impact of installing App Usage on students’ smartphone habits, we let the participants run App Usage for three weeks before asking them to submit their usage history in the fourth week. Further, we let students install App Usage after three weeks into the Spring semester. This allowed us to avoid tracking students’ smartphone activities during exam periods, which might underreport their smartphone behavior.

Eventually, 40 students submitted valid app usage data. The remaining 11 students failed to send in their usage data despite our best efforts. Although relatively small, the final sample (N = 40) was representative of the student population in terms of departmental affiliation (accounting = 47%; management = 28%; marketing = 25%), gender-mix (male = 60%; female = 40%) and academic year (second year = 62%; third year = 38%). Notably, first-year students were underrepresented in our data. This is because the initial batch of participants we approached were all second-and third-year students. However, the departmental affiliation and gender proportion in the data map well to the departmental affiliation and gender proportion of the student population. Table 1 summarizes the sample characteristics.

Measurement of variables

The usage history submitted by the students contained details including the names of the mobile apps they used, the amount of time they spent on each mobile app and the start and end dates of the usage history. We constructed two relevant variables from this data. The first was daily average minutes spent on social networking sites, which was used to measure the intensity of students’ social networking sites use (Felisoni & Godoi, 2018 ; Giunchiglia et al., 2018 ). The second variable was daily average minutes spent on smartphone, which was used to measure the amount of time students spent on their smartphones overall. This second variable was used as a control variable.

In order to construct daily average minutes spent on social networking sites, we first had to identify those applications that would qualify as social networking sites. For this purpose, we turned to the definition by Ellison and Boyd ( 2013 ) discussed in “Social networking sites: An overview”. We analyzed the usage history of each student and identified those mobile apps that offer social networking affordances as explicated in Ellison and Boyd’s definition. This process resulted in the identification of about 24 mobile apps, many of them household names around the world and their official variants, such as Facebook (Facebook Lite), Twitter, Instagram, YouTube (YouTube Go), Messenger (Messenger Lite, + Messenger), Telegram (Telegram+ , Telegram X), IMO, WhatsApp, Viber and Google+ . Some of the less-known names we came across include VidMate, Mobogram and Russogram. Our coding scheme is also consistent with previous categorization of social networking sites. For instance, Smith ( 2017 ) identified several social networking sites used in undergraduate learning, many of these sites are included in our coding.

Data on students’ academic performance were collected from the Office of the Vice-Dean, which is responsible for storing students’ academic records at the college level. We gathered semester and cumulative GPAs. Both GPAs were measured on a four-point scale (0.0 to 4.0). We also gathered information about participants’ departmental affiliation, academic year and gender from the same official source. Table 2 reports the descriptive statistics and pairwise correlation of the measured variables.

Analysis strategy

Traditionally, an inverted U-shaped relationship is empirically established by adding a squared term to the predictor variable of interest—in our case, social networking sites use—to a standard linear regression equation, as shown below:

where \({y}_{i}\) is the semester GPA for student i ; \({X}_{i}\) is the daily average minutes spent on social networking sites by student i ; \({x}_{i}^{2}\) is the squared term of daily average minutes spent on social networking sites by student i ; \({Z}_{ij}\) is the \(j^{\prime}s\) control variable for student i including daily average minutes spent on smartphone, gender, academic year and departmental affiliation; \({\beta }_{0}\) , \({\beta }_{1},\) …, \({\beta }_{j}\) are parameters to be estimated; and \({\varepsilon }_{i}\) is a normally distributed error term.

If β 2 from Eq.  1 is negative and statistically significant, an inverted U-shaped relationship can be claimed. However, this traditional approach has come under growing criticism for being simplistic and lacking in rigor (Haans et al., 2016 ; Simonsohn, 2018 ). Lind and Mehlum ( 2010 ) proposed a stricter approach that requires three necessary and sufficient conditions for establishing an inverted U-shaped relationship. The first condition is β 2 from Eq.  1 should be negative and statistically significant. The second condition is the turning point in Eq.  1 should fall within the data range (i.e., between the minimum and maximum values of the dependent variable). The turning point is arrived at by taking the first derivative of Eq.  1 and setting it to zero, which yields −  β 1 /2β 2 . The third and final condition is the slope at the lower half of the data should be positive and statistically significant and the slope at the upper half of the data should be negative and statistically significant. This condition can be tested by dividing the dataset into two parts, typically by using the turning point as a cutoff point, and estimating two separate linear regression equations for each part of the dataset (Simonsohn, 2018 ).

In addition to Lind and Mehlum’s ( 2010 ) three conditions, one also needs to establish that the quadratic regression model fits the data better than the linear model. If adding the squared term to the linear model leads to a significant improvement in model fit, as measured by a statistically significant R 2 change, for instance, the quadratic regression model should be retained (Weisberg, 2005 ). Otherwise, it has to be rejected in favor of the more parsimonious linear regression model. We analyzed the data according to the three conditions outlined above.

We started off our analysis by estimating the linear regression model. To correct for heteroscedasticity, we reported White’s heteroscedastic consistent standard errors (White, 1980 ). The linear regression model was statistically significant ( F  = 5.844; p  < 0.01), attaining R 2  = 0.401 and adjusted R 2  = 0.293. Likewise, the regression coefficient for daily average minutes spent on social networking sites was negative and statistically significant ( β 1  =  − 0.004; p  < 0.01). Table 3 reports the estimation results of the linear regression model.

Second, we estimated the quadratic regression model (Eq.  1 ). As in the linear model, we reported White’s heteroscedastic consistent standard errors. The quadratic regression model was also statistically significant ( F  = 12.75; p  < 0.01). It attained R 2  = 0.609 and adjusted R 2  = 0.524. The F-change from the linear model ( F lin  = 5.844; p  < 0.01) to the quadratic model ( F qdr  = 12.75; p  < 0.01) was statistically significant at p  < 0.01. We, therefore, retained the quadratic regression model as it offered a better fit to the data than the linear model (Weisberg, 2005 ). Table 4 reports the estimation results of the quadratic regression model.

Importantly, the squared term for the daily average minutes spent on social networking sites in the quadratic regression model was negative and statistically significant ( β 2  =  − 0.0000467; p  < 0.01). This result satisfied the first condition of Lind and Mehlum’s ( 2010 ) test, thereby offering initial evidence for an inverted U-shaped relationship between social networking sites use and academic performance.

The turning point (i.e., −  β 1 / − 2 β 2  =  − 0.0083 / − 2 × 0.0000934) occurred at 88.87 min, which is approximately one and half hours of daily average social networking sites use. This turning point lies well within the data range for daily average minutes spent on social networking sites (minimum daily average minutes spent on social networking sites = 5.62 min, maximum daily average minutes spent on social networking sites = 280.5 min), hence satisfying the second condition of Lind and Mehlum’s ( 2010 ) test.

To test the third condition, we grouped the students into two: low users (n = 25) and high users (n = 15). The turning point was used to create the two groups (i.e., students who spent a daily average of 88.87 min or less were categorized into the low user group; students who spent a daily average of 88.87 min or more were categorized into the high user group). Subsequently, we estimated two linear regression equations for each group. The estimation results are summarized in Tables 5 and 6 . The slope for the low user group was positive and statistically significant ( β 1  = 0.005; p  < 0.1), whereas the slope for the high user group was negative and statistically significant ( β 1  =  − 0.0097; p  < 0.01). Because of the limited observation in both the low and high user groups, we find it reasonable to reject the null hypothesis at p  < 0.1. The statistically significant and positive slope for the low user group and the statistically significant and negative slope for the high user group satisfied the third and final condition of Lind and Mehlum’s ( 2010 ) test.

To summarize, we find strong evidence for an inverted U-shaped relationship between college students’ social networking sites use and academic performance. We should further note that we conducted regression diagnostics (e.g., QQ plots, residual plots) for all estimated models and found that the models were well-behaved. Figure  1 visualizes the regression plots for the linear and quadratic regression models.

figure 1

Regression plots

Robustness check

We implemented a robustness check to examine whether the inverted U-shaped relationship holds under different specifications of the dependent variable. Specifically, we replaced semester GPA with cumulative GPA as the dependent variable. While semester GPA captures academic performance in a single semester, cumulative GPA captures academic performance for several semesters. Therefore, cumulative GPA offers a more stable measure of academic performance. The results from the main model were fully replicated when cumulative GPA was used as the dependent variable. Specifically, the quadratic regression model fit the data better than the linear model ( R 2 lin  = 0.3 vs. R 2 qdr  = 0.39; F lin  = 3.57, p  < 0.01 vs. F qdr  = 5.34, p  < 0.01). The F-change was significant at p  < 0.05. As in the case of semester GPA, the squared term for daily average social networking sites use was negative and statistically significant ( β 2  =  − 1.21; p  < 0.05). Finally, the linear regression coefficient for the low user group was positive and statistically significant ( β 1  = 0.29; p  < 0.1), while it was negative and statistically significant for the high user group ( β 1  =  − 0.62; p  < 0.01). Overall, the results from the semester GPA model were fully replicated when cumulative GPA was employed as the dependent variable, suggesting that the inverted U-shaped relationship remained robust to a different measure of academic performance.

The pervasive adoption of social networking sites among college students has spurred a stream of research into the implications of social networking sites use for college students’ academic performance (Doleck & Lajoie, 2018 ; Koranteng et al., 2019 ; Masrom et al., 2021 ). Reported findings have been highly inconsistent, however, with some studies reporting negative relationships and others reporting positive relationships (Astatke et al., 2021 ; Masrom et al., 2021 ). Against this backdrop, we proposed and found support for an inverted U-shaped relationship. Following recent advances in the literature (Felisoni & Godoi, 2018 ; Giunchiglia et al., 2018 ), we measured social networking sites use with the help of a tracking app installed on students’ smartphones. Further, we measured students’ academic performance using semester and cumulative GPAs obtained from internal college records. By employing a combination of automatically tracked and institutional data, we avoided the measurement error common in self-reported data (Podsakoff et al., 2003 ).

Our main finding reveals that the inverted U-shaped relationship fits the data better than the linear relationship. The turning point on the inverted U-shaped regression curve occurred at 88.87 min, suggesting that spending up to 88.87 min daily on social networking sites (about an hour and a half) is positively associated with students’ academic performance, while spending more than 88.87 min daily on social networking sites is negatively associated with students’ academic performance. This finding was robust to an alternative specification of academic performance.

It thus appears that, when used modestly, social networking sites are positively associated with students’ academic performance. Modest use is less likely to interfere with students’ academic performance as they will be forced neither to reallocate time away for academic tasks nor to multi-task (Chawinga, 2017 ; Wang et al., 2015 ). In fact, modest use of social networking sites might boost students’ academic engagement (Al-Rahmi et al., 2020 ; Masrom et al., 2021 ). For instance, social networking sites have been shown to facilitate collaborative learning, where students engage in socially interactive learning by completing group work, receiving feedback, sharing course material and interacting with each other and their instructors (Al-Qaysi et al., 2020 ; Eid & Al-Jabri, 2016 ; Hoi et al., 2021 ; Lampe et al., 2015 ). Similarly, social networking sites offer students access to information and entertaining content that might contribute to improved academic performance (Alloway et al., 2013 ; Ansari & Kahn, 2020 ; Lepp et al., 2015 ; Masrom et al., 2021 ; Raza et al., 2020 ). This last point is particularly poignant in the national context of our study, where the media infrastructure is neither well developed nor widely accessible to satisfy college students’ demand for information and entertainment (Tafesse, 2020 ). Social networking sites thus double as a source of information and pastime for the college students in our sample (Alhabash & Ma, 2017 ; Chawinga, 2017 ).

In contrast, heavy use of social networking sites can interfere with students’ academic activities (Koranteng et al., 2019 ; Tafesse, 2020 ). With heavy use, students will be forced either to divert time away from crucial academic tasks or to multi-task, which will eventually hamper their academic performance (Kapriniski et al., 2013 ; Lepp et al., 2015 ). In fact, heavy social networking sites use can degenerate into compulsive behavior, such as excessive use and addiction, which can detriment not only students’ academic performance but also their overall well-being (Alt, 2015 ; Cao et al., 2018 ; Hsiao et al., 2017 ; Masrom et al., 2021 ).

Overall, our work contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between social networking sites use and academic performance among college students. The inverted U-shaped relationship that we proposed and validated serves to reconcile the empirical inconsistencies observed in the literature in terms of positive and negative effects of social networking sites use (Astatke et al., 2021 ; Masrom et al., 2021 ). As our findings demonstrate, social networking sites can produce both positive and negative academic outcomes depending on the intensity of their use. What is crucial to the relationship is the intensity of use, which can easily be captured by an inverted U-shaped model.

Finally, our study comes with a set of limitations that must be considered while interpreting the findings. First, the study relied on a small set of observations sampled using a snowball approach. As such, the sample may not offer an accurate representation of the total student population. The personal and highly sensitive nature of the data we gathered meant that we had to settle with the small number of participants we were able to recruit. However, the sample size we used is not unusual for studies of this nature. For instance, Felisoni and Godoi’s ( 2018 ) study, which tracked college students’ cellphone use in Brazil, was based on 42 observations. Second, we exclusively studied business and economics students. Since students from other disciplines were not included in our study, the findings may not extend to these other disciplines. Third, our sample is taken from a setting that has its own peculiarities. For instance, students at public universities in our setting live on campus for the entire academic year, have access to free WIFI connection and are connected to the internet almost exclusively by way of their smartphones. The students thus connect to social networking sites—and the internet more generally—at no personal cost to them, which might incentivize heavier use. Moreover, the mainstream media infrastructure in the country is rather underdeveloped, which amplifies the informational and entertainment value of social networking sites for college students. These combinations of factors must be considered when efforts are made to extend the findings to new settings.

With the pervasive adoption and use of social networking sites among college students, probing their relationship with college students’ academic performance has become an important research priority. Building on the extant literature, we proposed and validated an inverted U-shaped relationship between social networking sites use and college students’ academic performance. In so doing, we departed from the more traditional approach that casts the relationship between the two in linear terms.

As our findings suggest, moderate use of social networking sites is positively associated with academic performance, while heavy use is negatively associated with academic performance. These findings highlight the crucial role that the intensity of social networking sites use play in shaping the influence of social networking sites on college students’ academic performance.

To our knowledge, our study is the first to test and find support for an inverted U-shaped relationship between social networking sites use and college students’ academic performance. As such, the proposed model should be validated using fresh data, preferably from new contexts, to develop further confidence in the findings. With further validation, the findings can help in the continued effort to harness social networking sites for productive academic purposes in higher education settings (Masrom et al., 2021 ; Smith, 2017 ).

Availability of data and materials

No data will be publicly available for this study since the data was collected after assuring students that their data will not be publicly shared.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Zeleke Siraye and Elias Shitemam for their support in collecting the data for this study.

Funding Acknowledgement: This research is supported by United Arab Emirate University research grant. (Grant code: G00003359; Funding Number: 31B125).

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Tafesse, W. Social networking sites use and college students’ academic performance: testing for an inverted U-shaped relationship using automated mobile app usage data. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 19 , 16 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-022-00322-0

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  • Social media
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research paper on social networking sites

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Social networking sites and youth transition: the use of facebook and personal well-being of social work young graduates.

\r\nJoaquin Castillo de Mesa*

  • 1 University of Málaga, Málaga, Spain
  • 2 National University of Distance Education, Madrid, Spain
  • 3 Universidad Pública de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain

Research on youth transitions, and the well-being of young people, has to take into consideration the digital context in which they are immersed. Digital interaction of young people increase year by year, social networking sites play a key role in their personal and professional relationships, and a very high percentage of jobs require digital skills. According to Eurostat (2019) , participating on social networking sites (one of the most common online activities in the EU-28), is growing every year [more than half (56%) of individuals aged 16–74 used the internet for social networking sites], and this percentage increases among the younger generations. In this article, we present the results of our research on the digital skills and well-being of young people on Facebook, based on a survey with a sample of 126 young people graduated from the University of Málaga (School of Social Work) (Spain). Based on certain scales, the level of digital skills that students have on Facebook was measured, considering strategic aspects for information search, level of use and presence of Facebook in life, maintenance of relations and tolerance to diversity. Variables of psychosocial well-being were also measured (social capital, self-esteem, life satisfaction, and personal well-being). Variables of digital skills on Facebook were subsequently related to well-being variables. Results show that certain digital skills relate to the well-being of young people. In this sense, we deem it crucial to develop education policies that could provide young graduates with general digital skills to be used on social networking sites.

Introduction

We are immersed in a digital society, in which our social relationships, communication, education, leisure and work are transformed. Our vital trajectories, our autonomy, and our well-being, are influenced by digitalization. To analyze the different dimensions of well-being such as environmental mastery or positive relationships ( Ryff, 2019 ), it is necessary to take into account the technological environment and how young people participate, learn and interact on social networking sites. The new generations, intensive users of technology, are considered digital natives, and therefore digital competences play a key role in their well-being. Consequently, institutions and companies are focused on the development of these skills ( Picatoste et al., 2018 ). To quote an example, the Council of the European Union included digital skills in their conclusions related to education and training whereas the Europe 2020 strategy considers Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as a key element in the education reform.

Therefore, technology can be considered a driver for well-being as technology impacts on the experience of young across the world ( Collin and Burns, 2009 ). A plethora of studies highlight the role of digital skills as drivers for well-being in Youth. ICTs promote well-being facilitating informal learning, building digital identities, improving competences required at the workplace or promoting meta-social skills, among others (e.g., Sánchez-Navarro and Aranda, 2013 ; Goldhammer et al., 2016 ; Martinovic et al., 2019 ). Additionally, identity is built during the transition to adulthood and digital skills can perform a crucial role in this process. In this sense, Mannerström (2019) showed that identity formation was related to digital practices and competencies. Along with this line, scholars suggest that there is a positive relationship between youth empowerment and certain uses of digital tools ( Middaugh et al., 2017 ). Furthermore, ICTs enable well-being in the case of physical or intellectual disabilities ( Pacheco et al., 2019 ) and are particularly important to support at-risk youth ( Helsper and Van Deursen, 2015 ; Pienimäki, 2019 ). These benefits justify the inclusion of digital skills in formal and informal education. Nevertheless, a view from the dark side should be also evidenced. Equity and inclusion problems ( Pagani et al., 2016 ), cyber-aggression ( Mishna et al., 2018 ), technology addiction ( Lachmann et al., 2018 ; Wang et al., 2018 ) or the negative effects of ICTs on learning and academic results ( Hawi and Samaha, 2016 ) have been underlined as disadvantages of technology related to Youth.

From our point of view, social networking sites play a key role in the lives of young people, and digital skills are key to strengthening their vital trajectories, and therefore relevantly affect the different dimensions of well-being ( Ryff, 2018 ). In this digital environment, below we present the results of our research on digital skills and the well-being of young people on Facebook, with a sample of 126 young graduates from the University of Málaga (School of Social Work) (Spain). Based on certain scales, the level of digital skills that students have on Facebook was measured, considering strategic aspects for information search, level of use and presence of Facebook in life, maintenance of relations and tolerance to diversity. Variables of psychosocial well-being (SW) were also measured [social capital, self-esteem, life satisfaction and personal well-being (PeW)]. Variables of digital skills on Facebook (DSF) were subsequently related to well-being variables. Results show that certain digital skills relate to the well-being of young people. In this sense, we deem it crucial to develop education policies that could provide young graduates with general digital skills to be used in social networking sites.

Social Work Young Graduates and Social Networking Sites

Connectedness between people and organizations has progressively and exponentially increased thanks to social networking sites, which have enabled interactive dynamics that were unimaginable until recently. Social networking sites have become a global social phenomenon. Facebook is one of the main personal-profile networking sites and in 2016 it announced having reached the symbolic figure of two billion active users on a monthly basis. This makes Facebook the most used social networking site, as it gathers more than one fourth of the population worldwide. In Europe, Facebook enables five billion social connections ( Filiz et al., 2016 ). More than 75% of the population use personal-profile networking sites on a daily basis and the average time spent has increased until reaching an average of almost 2 h per day ( Roth, 2018 ). In sum, the number of users worldwide, the frequency of connection and the time spent make of Facebook a parallel universe for socialization ( Wilson et al., 2012 ).

The presence of social networking sites is remarkably high in all sectors of society, and it is even higher when it comes to young people ( Duggan and Smith, 2013 ). Young adults between 18 and 35 years reported being active on these sites over the past years ( Pew Research Center, 2014 ). Young graduates tend to use social networking sites more intensively ( Steinfield et al., 2008 ). They have grown up with these social technologies and they are now being called “digital natives” ( Prensky, 2001 ). However, young people do not constitute a monolithic group with universal talents to use these digital means. On the contrary, their relation with digital technologies is very varied ( Selwyn, 2009 ). Because it is an emergent phenomenon, young people have adopted and use social networking sites spontaneously. Using these sites allows them to keep their relationships with friends ( Wang and Edwards, 2016 ) and create new ones ( Levine and Stekel, 2016 ), amongst other purposes. Nevertheless, these sites can also have some harmful effects or lead to deviant behaviors, particularly when there is a lack of training on the effects certain types of uses can imply.

Academic literature has reached a certain consensus on the fact that the impact online communication can have on well-being depends on each user’s aim, the nature of the communication exchange and the closeness between nodes ( Burke and Kraut, 2013 ). This approach, which focuses on the importance of the type of use, that is, “for what purpose,” suggests that the different ways in which the population uses these means depend on the digital skills individuals have ( Van Deursen and Van Dijk, 2015 ).

Social Work graduates and Social Work as a discipline cannot remain external to the impact of this phenomenon, particularly when it comes to the increase of socialization on social networking sites. This is mainly due to the fact that these sites promote one of the main activities of Social Work, which is to build relations. Addams (1910) , foremother of Social Work and visionary, gave great importance to the construction and improvement of social relations between individuals as a way to face adversity. This is the reason why various Social Work institutions such as the National Association Social Work et al. (2017) are encouraging social workers to acquire the necessary digital skills in order to be able to use digital means to find solutions to social problems and empower citizens.

Digital Skills on Facebook

Having or not digital skills determines users’ access to resources, thus empowering those who have the appropriate skills to benefit from the potentialities of digital means and leaving behind those who do not know how to leverage such advantages ( Van Dijk, 2006 ). Digital skills are considered as “the capacity to respond pragmatically and intuitively to challenges and opportunities in a manner that exploits de Internet’s potential” ( DiMaggio et al., 2004 , p. 378). It is also defined as the “user’s capacity to find content on the Internet in an effective and efficient manner” ( Hargittai, 2005 , p. 372).

Digital skills can be analyzed and conceptualized according to various levels. One of these levels looks at operational abilities ( Steyaert, 2002 ). These abilities refer to knowledge, interaction and use of applications and devices. Van Dijk (2005) defines these abilities as those used to operate computers – currently also smartphones – and which relate to hardware and software networks. These digital skills refer to the ability to handle the profuse amount of resources at hand, which is also known as hypermedia ( Lee et al., 2005 ). Digital skills are key to search, select, process and apply means to an environment which is overloaded with opinions ( Van Dijk, 1999 ). Hargittai and Hsieh (2010) measured these skills through a scale that considers knowledge of the language and use of basic functions of the Internet (PDF, JPG, Favorites, Reload, etc.). In the online universe of Facebook, these functions are constituted by Facebook’s language and functions (Timeline, Pages, Groups, Lists, etc.).

At a secondary level, digital skills concerning information search are considered. These skills refer to actions taken by users to satisfy their information needs ( Jenkins, 2006 ). Knowing how to look for information by using applications and services on the Internet implies a certain level of skills to filter information ( Marchionini and White, 2007 ) and awareness about the fact that the digital fingerprint left by the use of browsers and applications leads to be suggested specific personal profiles, products or recommended advertisements.

Hargittai and Hsieh (2010) established a scale comprising two types of activities on Facebook, making a distinction between actions related to strong ties (seeing friends’ pictures, sharing photos, sending private messages, making plans, etc.) and actions related to weak ties (seeing pictures from unknown people, meeting new friends, sharing information on a group, etc.). In order to perform these actions to achieve a specific goal, strategic digital skills are required ( Correa, 2016 ). Optimal socialization on digital means can be key for users to feel part of the same community, thus promoting various forms of mutual support and carry out projects and new initiatives ( Ellison et al., 2007 ).

Given the fact that social reality mirrors the offline reality ( Subrahmanyam et al., 2008 ; Dunbar et al., 2015 ; Gillani et al., 2018 ), specific abilities allowing the development of appropriate connectedness patterns are required. These patterns must include certain tolerance to diversity, which would imply being surrounded by other people who might not share our own perspective and opinions about the world, thus avoiding being immersed in “filter bubbles” or “echo chambers” ( Pariser, 2011 ). Hence, redundancy of content and relations leading to tribal mentality and degradation of online content’s quality, security and diversity would be avoided ( Gillani et al., 2018 ).

Finally, Jenkins-Guarnieri et al. (2013) established a scale to measure the presence of Facebook in people’s lives. This scale comprises variables that measure how people feel when they are not using Facebook or what is the role played by Facebook in people’s lives, amongst others.

Use of Facebook and Social Capital

Feeling connected to other people is considered an “essential human motivation” ( Baumeister and Leary, 1995 , p. 497). People use social networking sites massively and highly frequently because they feel a need to connect and to be in contact with others ( Ellison et al., 2007 ; Quan-Haase et al., 2017 ). These sites are mainly used to maintain or strengthen offline relations, rather than meeting new people ( Ellison et al., 2007 ; Quan-Haase and Young, 2010 ), and they faithfully mirror socialization in the offline reality ( Dunbar et al., 2015 ). Socialization on social networking sites and the development of communities of support and learning ( Hurt et al., 2012 ) promote the creation of information and knowledge that is spread through the Internet ( Siemens and Weller, 2011 ; Dron and Anderson, 2014 ). Using them can help satisfy the needs for social relations and increase social capital ( Gosling, 2009 ). In particular, there is proof that Facebook helps young people improve social capital ( Grieve et al., 2013 ).

Bourdieu (1986) defined social capital as the set of resources (current or potential) that are embedded in our social networks and which can be accessed or mobilized when needed. This concept can be analyzed from different approaches. There are different forms of social capital. At an individual level, social capital is often divided between “bridging” and “bonding” ( Putnam, 2000 ; Williams, 2006 ). Bonding social capital (BOSC) is found in individuals who have very close relationships and are emotionally close and it provides emotional support or access to scarce resources ( Steinfield et al., 2008 ). On the contrary, “bridging” social capital is found in individuals who have sporadic contact and it provides support for information and more diverse advice ( Ellison et al., 2007 ). Bridging social capital (BSC) implies reaching more diverse information, being exposed to new ideas and have greater willingness to try different things. This form of social capital is related to well-being rates, such as self-esteem and life satisfaction ( Bargh and McKenna, 2004 ; Huppert et al., 2004 ).

Use of Facebook and Self-Esteem

Particularly during transitions between the different stages of life and as a reaction to situations and events, young people have a vital need to maintain and/or reach self-esteem. Rosenberg (1965) defined self-esteem as negative and positive attitudes toward oneself. Self-esteem comprises all inner beliefs about ourselves. Kraut et al. (2002) formulated some hypotheses relating self-esteem, social capital and satisfaction with life. One of them, the so-called “social compensation,” explains that people with low self-esteem compensate for their difficulties by socializing on the Internet.

The second hypothesis, known as “the rich become richer” assumes that people with high levels of self-esteem also feel highly satisfied when they use the Internet; they are active online and have large amounts of friends. This means that those individuals who handle themselves well in the offline world will do so in the online world. Zywica and Danowski (2008) proved both hypotheses with a group of American students in the context of Facebook. They identified two groups of users: the first group comprised extroverted students, with high self-esteem and who were popular both in the offline and online worlds; the second group comprised introverted students, with low self-esteem and who tried to compensate for their lack of popularity in the offline world by being very active on Facebook. This might explain why Facebook users with low and high self-esteem use social networking sites.

Use of Facebook and Life Satisfaction

In the last decade, various studies have explored how the use of Internet could be related to psychological and social well-being, leading to diverse results ( Kraut et al., 1998 , 2002 ; McKenna and Bargh, 2000 ; Nie, 2001 ; Shaw and Gant, 2002 ; Valkenburg and Peter, 2007 ). One of these studies argues that the use of the Internet has a positive impact on psychological well-being ( McKenna and Bargh, 2000 ; Shaw and Gant, 2002 ; Bargh and McKenna, 2004 ). Some research has proved, for instance, that the Internet could help people with low psychological well-being due to its socialization potential ( Bargh and McKenna, 2004 ). Life satisfaction in relation with the use of Facebook in general has been frequently studied ( Blachnio et al., 2016 ; Kross et al., 2013 ). Those individuals who are active on Facebook feel more satisfied with their lives as compared to those who do not use Facebook ( Valenzuela et al., 2009 ; Oh et al., 2014 ). However, scientific evidence is still not conclusive about whether using Facebook enriches users’ lives and makes them feel more satisfied with their lives ( Kim and Lee, 2011 ).

Use of Facebook and Psychosocial Well-Being

Psychosocial well-being based on the use of social networking sites can be observed according to different aspects that relate to social support, perception of support, affection, company, and sense of community ( Oh et al., 2014 ).

Research on social networking sites has identified social support as one of the most important reasons why people use these sites ( Park et al., 2009 ). The perception of support received from the contacts individuals have on these sites is also a significant predictor for well-being ( Vieno et al., 2007 ). Affection occurs as a result of interpersonal communication ( Diener et al., 1991 ) and it is a combination of moods and emotional states that are considered on social networking sites as “the online assessment of life events” ( Diener et al., 1999 ). Affection received from using social networking sites can be a key predictor for well-being.

Company is another factor that boosts well-being and it is obtained from using social networking sites ( Hampton et al., 2011 ). Being together in these online environments can lead to a sense of community, which is defined as the feeling of belonging to a group or community whose members are perceived as interdependent and similar in terms of characteristics ( Sarason, 1974 ). There are several studies on the relation between the sense of community and the use of social networking sites. Results from these studies vary. However, in general terms, it has been found that when social networking sites are used, the sense of community is a predictor for satisfaction and well-being ( Manago et al., 2012 ).

Purpose of the Study

Based on the theoretical framework analyzed, we focused our study on Facebook because it is a dominant social networking site. We presumed that DSF can be key variables for Social Work graduates to reach higher PeW. PeW was observed based on the variables of social capital, self-esteem, social satisfaction and SW. The aim was to find out whether Social Work graduates have the necessary digital skills to connect with their equals in a strategic manner, thus allowing them to obtain enough social capital, self-esteem, social satisfaction, and SW.

This assumption led us to verify the following hypothesis:

Social Work graduates who have enough digital skills can achieve social capital ( Putnam, 2000 ), self-esteem ( Rosenberg, 1989 ), life satisfaction ( Pavot and Diener, 1993 ; Diener et al., 1997 ), and SW ( Oh et al., 2014 ). These four measures are considered to provide well-being.

Materials and Methods

Participants.

The final strategic sample comprised 126 Social Work graduates from the University of Málaga (Spain). Participants were selected according to their group of age, from 21 to 23, with an average age of 21.6, and due to being considered as digital natives ( Prensky, 2001 ). The assumption is that a series of innate abilities and practices related to the use of technology are conditioned by age, which is why the use of digital means occurs with greater spontaneity. We decided to confirm this hypothesis with Social Work graduates because socialization is considered a core element in Social Work. There were more women in the Social Work program. Analysing the sample according to participants’ characteristics was not the aim of the study. However, we thought the presence of more women could strengthen the analysis given the fact that there is scientific evidence proving that women use Facebook toward achieving a goal and social capital more than men do ( Garcia et al., 2016 ).

Instruments

In order to analyse the object a survey technique was used. Participants were previously requested their informed consent, thus allowing them to not dill in the questionnaire or leave it incomplete at any given moment.

A questionnaire was drawn up according to two main elements: DSF and PeW. PeW comprises the following variables: BSC and BOSC, self-esteem (SE), life satisfaction (LS), and SW.

To assess the use of Facebook a scale comprising 40 items was drawn up. Items were adapted from the questionnaires of Hargittai and Hsieh (2010) , Lampe et al. (2012) , Jenkins-Guarnieri et al. (2013) , and Ellison et al. (2014) . These questionnaires are answered through a five-step Likert-type scale. The dimensions to which questions relate are the following: DSF, strategic DSF, information search on Facebook, use and presence of Facebook in peoples’ lives, actions toward maintaining relations on Facebook and tolerance to diversity on Facebook. Table 1 shows descriptive statistics and Cronbach’s alpha for these dimensions. All of them have good internal consistency, except for tolerance to diversity.

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Table 1. Matrix of correlations, descriptive statistics, and Cronbach’s alpha (α) of digital skill on Facebook and personal well-being.

Social capital is assessed through a five-step scale comprising 14 items adapted from Ellison et al. (2007) . They are related to two dimensions: BSC and BOSC. Table 1 shows their statistics. Internal consistency of BSC is high, while it is more moderate for BOSC. Rosenberg’s (1989) self-esteem scale was adapted, which comprises seven items with Likert-type format of five steps and which shows a good internal consistency, as it can be seen in Table 1 .

The life satisfaction scale by Diener et al. (1997) and Pavot and Diener (1993) was also used. This scale comprises five Likert-type items of five steps and it shows a good internal consistency, as shown in Table 1 .

Finally, the SW scale containing several questions was used ( Oh et al., 2014 ). This scale comprises 13 items, whose statistics are shown in Table 1 . It has also a good internal consistency rate.

Analysis Plan

Analyses were carried out through IBM SPSS Statistics 22. Descriptive statistics and correlations between variables were firstly calculated. Table 1 shows descriptive statistics, Cronbach’s alpha (α) and the matrix of correlations of DSF and PeW, which were used to carry out multiple regression analyses. Five multiple regressions were performed on the five digital skills considered as independent variables and subsequently as dependent variables, BSC and BOSC, self-esteem, life satisfaction, and SW.

Results obtained are shown in this section. Firstly, Table 1 shows descriptive statistics and correlations. In this table it can be observed that intercorrelations between variables are high and statistically significant, except for self-esteem, satisfaction with life, and SW. Based on this matrix of correlations, the results from multiple regressions carried out are presented.

Table 2 comprises the six variables that refer to Facebook as predictors and BSC and BOSC as dependent variables. Both regressions are significant, although only strategic skills on Facebook predict significantly BSC. However, the effect on BOSC is lower (non-significant). DSF relate to a moderate increase (statistically non-significant) of both types of social capital. There is also a small relation between actions toward maintaining relations and BSC. Tolerance to diversity is weakly related to BSC.

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Table 2. Multiple regression. Digital skills as predictor for bridging and bonding social capital.

Regressions were not statistically significant (see Table 3 ). Locally, it must be noted that strategic DSF increase self-esteem, life satisfaction and SW. Tolerance to diversity decreases self-esteem, SW (both significantly), and life satisfaction (moderately). The remaining relations are non-significant.

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Table 3. Multiple regression. Digital skills as predictor for self-esteem, satisfaction with life, and psychosocial well-being.

In little more than a decade, social networking sites have shaken up the way in which we interact and connect to each other. Their effect on PeW has been analyzed, leading to diverse results. Our approach suggested the novelty of finding out whether the different ways of participating in these socialization platforms can lead to achieving PeW. In order to do so, we considered digital skills as a relevant factor. Results show that when young people, in this case Social Work graduates, have the necessary DSF, they tend to establish and maintain strategic relations that provide key information and improve their social positions. This means that when young people know how to identify appropriate information, when they connect to their closest circle but also to those who they see occasionally, when they plan activities with opinions under their own initiative, when they participate in groups deliberately to achieve a specific goal, when they know who to add as a friend and who not to have amongst their contacts, based on the information shared by these, and when they know how to work together through Facebook, they reach social capital. Having strategic DSF also improves young graduates’ self-esteem, life satisfaction and SW. This means that when young people acquire necessary strategic skills to use Facebook to achieve a specific goal, they feel better as they have a more positive image of themselves. The sense of security provided by strategic digital skills can also encourage them to feel more satisfied with their lives. The psychosocial variable, which considers indicators of social support, perception of support, affection, company and sense of community has also been observed to increase when young people have such digital skills.

However, establishing relations and reaching social capital, which allows reaching more diverse information, does not imply being more tolerant to diversity. This suggests that higher tolerance to diversity makes individuals be exposed with higher intensity in the network to discrepant content that is contrary to their own opinions. This can lead to unease due to seeing their beliefs questioned and feeling that those other individuals are right and they are not. In sum, it seems that strategic digital skills can influence the well-being of Social Work young graduates.

Limitations

This study focuses on a group of very specific subjects, that is, Social Work young graduates. Despite the fact that such sample was deliberately chosen, we consider it convenient to broaden it and include young people from other disciplines, so a more diverse sample with varied sociodemographic characteristics can be studied. In future studies, we must broaden the sample in order to find out if scientific evidence obtained from the present study apply to larger samples.

Social networking sites have become socialization tools that allow reaching information and establishing networks with certain orientation toward achieving specific goals. Promoting strategic digital skills from the educational Social Work is essential, as it allows students to understand how to use these tools for their own benefit and for the process of digital inclusion that they will have to carry out. Amongst young adults, relations with their peers on social networking sites are important for obtaining benefits in the offline reality, such as social capital and personal and SW ( Steinfield et al., 2008 ). Taking into consideration the academic context, Brown and Adler (2008) note that adopting these means requires a radical swift in the pedagogical approach with “revolutionary” consequences for academic institutions or, at least, to be considered by teachers. Junco (2014) noted that using these social means in higher education can lead to reconnect academic institutions with new generations of students. Increasing the use of social networking sites in education would make students be more engaged and determined with their studies ( Junco, 2012 ). This is the reason why more and more researchers and education staff are using social networking sites for the academic processes of teaching-learning ( Bosch, 2009 ). This is even more important for disciplines such as Social Work and other social sciences, in which socialization and community promotion are core elements. It is essential to incorporate these skills in academic curricula in order to boost the benefits and mitigate the harm of using social networking sites.

Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author.

Ethics Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of University of Málaga. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Keywords : digital skills, well-being, life satisfaction, self-esteem, social capital

Citation: Castillo de Mesa J, Gómez-Jacinto L, López Peláez A and Erro-Garcés A (2020) Social Networking Sites and Youth Transition: The Use of Facebook and Personal Well-Being of Social Work Young Graduates. Front. Psychol. 11:230. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00230

Received: 16 December 2019; Accepted: 31 January 2020; Published: 18 February 2020.

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Copyright © 2020 Castillo de Mesa, Gómez-Jacinto, López Peláez and Erro-Garcés. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Joaquin Castillo de Mesa, [email protected] ; Luis Gómez-Jacinto, [email protected] ; Antonio López Peláez, [email protected] ; Amaya Erro-Garcés, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

  • Research article
  • Open access
  • Published: 15 June 2020

The utilization of social networking sites, their perceived benefits and their potential for improving the study habits of nursing students in five countries

  • Glenn Ford D. Valdez   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2799-8216 1 ,
  • Arcalyd Rose R. Cayaban 2 ,
  • Sadeq Al-Fayyadh 3 ,
  • Mehmet Korkmaz 4 ,
  • Samira Obeid 5 ,
  • Cheryl Lyn A. Sanchez 6 ,
  • Muna B. Ajzoon 7 ,
  • Howieda Fouly 8 &
  • Jonas P. Cruz 9  

BMC Nursing volume  19 , Article number:  52 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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The abundance of easy and accessible information and the rapid development of social networking sites (SNSs) have proven that the world is small and within reach. The great implication of this interconnectivity is attributable to the change in the learning and sharing environment, which for the most part is something that classrooms are lacking. Considering the potential implications of SNSs in nursing education reveals the benefits of SNSs in allowing students to communicate and interact with a wider audience and beyond the classroom. The aim of this study is to identify the extent of SNS utilization, the perceived benefits of SNSs and the potential of SNSs for improving the study habits of nursing students in five countries (Israel, Iraq, Oman, the Philippines and Turkey).

This study is a quantitative cross-sectional study that determined the relationship between the utilization of SNSs, the perceived benefits of SNSs, and the potential of SNSs for improving the study habits of nursing students in the five participating countries (Israel, Iraq, Oman, the Philippines, and Turkey). This paper is based on carefully analysing the survey responses of a sample of 1137 students from an online hosting site. The online instrument focuses on the extent of the utilization and benefits of SNSs according to their accessibility, usability, efficiency and reliability.

Based on the Pearson correlation coefficient (r) our findings, reveal a significant positive correlation between the extent of a possible improvement in study habits and the extent of SNS utilization in terms of the four domains, namely, accessibility (r = 0.246), usability (r = 0.377), reliability (r = 0.287) and efficiency (r = 0.387).

It can be concluded that there is a significant positive correlation between students’ study habits and the extent of SNS utilization, meaning that the more students devote themselves to their study habits, the higher the level of SNS utilization. The use of SNSs by nursing students has positive and negative implications, and there is greater potential for further improving approaches to nursing education through the adaptation of curricula based on the proper utilization of SNSs.

Peer Review reports

In today’s generation, the rapid and ever-changing advances in technology and interconnectivity through networking has dramatically influenced the culture of learning and knowledge acquisition. The abundance of easy and accessible information and the rapid development of social networking sites (SNSs) have proven that the world is small and within reach. The great implication of this interconnectivity is attributable to the change in the learning and sharing environment, which for the most the part is something that classrooms are lacking. Additionally, social media in nursing education have shown great potential for influencing students’ study habits [ 1 ]. Online SNSs (e.g., Facebook, Myspace, Flicker, Twitter, and YouTube) have emerged as the fastest means of exchanging personal and professional information among college students [ 2 ]. SNS utilization is defined as the utilization of information networks as a form of communication widely used for several purposes. SNSs are used to interact with users and to generate content, and in recent years, they have seen expansion with regard to creating and maintaining relationships between people [ 3 ]. The issues related to SNSs are unlimited, but there is growing research on the use of social media as learning tools in higher education [ 4 ]. SNSs function like an online community of web users, depending on the website, and many of online SNSs are based on a shared interest. Once accessed, users may begin to socialize. This socialization may include reading the profile pages of other members and possibly even contacting them. The profiles of SNS users vary according to users’ discretion with regard to privacy and their visibility settings [ 5 ]. In this age of technological acuity, the world has become too small, and communication has become more efficient than ever. SNSs have played a vital role in forging connections, and Facebook is the most popular SNS in use today. Facebook has become one of the most regularly visited websites among college students, and because of its rise in popularity, the subject of SNSs among students and faculty has been a topic of concern. SNSs are seen as an alternative to social interaction, access to information and face-to-face interaction. SNSs, such as Facebook, seem to provide a ready space where the role conflicts that students and faculty often experience in their relationship with university work, staff, academic conventions, and expectations can be worked out in a backstage area. SNSs, such as Twitter, are utilized as a tool for posting explanations in study groups, for academic advising, and for student education [ 5 ]. Many researchers have discussed the broad benefits of SNSs in higher education [ 6 ]. Nursing students have identified three proposed reasons for the use of social media to learn through social networking and to socialize with other students, thus establishing professional social networking [ 7 ]. First, SNSs also allow communication with students through instant messages. Second, they enable rapid responses to questions asked by students, and they facilitate virtual discussions that make students part of a community. Third, SNSs also allow active, interactive and reflective learning [ 8 ]. A study on the use of Facebook for online discussions among distance learners showed that there was more frequent interaction via Facebook compared to the use of a forum, which indicates that Facebook has the potential to be used in online academic discussions [ 9 ]. The use of Twitter allowed connections between students, access to external resources, improved learning, and support to access videos, providing opportunities for reflection, flexibility, collaboration, and feedback [ 10 ]. The use of a social networking tool called Ning verifies the feasibility and effectiveness of integrating interprofessional education, which most students showed interest in learning more about, and optimizing patient care [ 11 ]. The use of social networking platforms is a less expensive way to provide interpersonal education, and it creates the possibility of implementing interprofessional education on a large scale and in the long term [ 11 ]. A study identified that most students agree that the use of SNSs, such as Ning, contributed to adding knowledge and increasing their understanding of content [ 12 ]. A study considering the potential implications of SNS for nursing education revealed the benefits of SNSs in allowing students to communicate and interact with a wider audience and beyond the classroom [ 13 ]. One example is the creation of a research group called the mentor and researcher group (MARG), which creates mentors who use Facebook as a communication platform to promote events and serve as a network to discuss issues and concerns among nursing students [ 14 ]. Students realize that Facebook groups can be an innovative method of studying. Facebook has also been described as being useful in promoting learning among peers and teachers [ 15 ]. SNSs are widely used among college students and are beneficial to them because they have the ability to gather students from all over the world to mingle in one virtual world [ 16 ]. This also means that campuses can now begin to blend the subject areas of classes as well as different campuses. A similar study agreed that students spend, on average, 1–2 h a day on SNSs for educational purposes [ 17 ]. In this respect, a study on social networks and learning stated that students listed learning as a top priority when utilizing SNSs [ 18 ]. In contrast, other studies say that Facebook leads to lower grades [ 17 ]. Students have reported concerns that include time management issues, lack of information and communication technology (ICT) skills and limited technical infrastructure in some higher education institutions [ 6 ]. The use of social media has greatly shown an unlimited influence on a student’s general lifestyle. This research was empirically designed to identify the degree of SNS utilization by nursing students, the perceived benefits of SNSs and their potential for improving the study habits of students. This study also seeks to determine the relationship between the utilization of SNSs, their perceived benefits, and their potential for improving the study habits of nursing students in five countries. That is, this study was conducted in five countries: Israel, Iraq, Oman, the Philippines and Turkey. Geographically and demographically, Israel, Iran, Oman and Turkey are homogenous in terms of their settings and cultural background. On the other hand, although it is also part of Asia, the Philippines is more geographically and demographically different in many ways. According to the Internet World Statistics in 2019, the Philippines, Iran and Turkey were among the top 20 counties in the world with regard to the number of Internet users; on the other hand, in Israel and Oman, 3.8 and 2.2% of the population, respectively, are Internet users [ 19 ]. There is a scarcity of research that specifically addresses nursing education and the use of SNSs. Therefore, this study generally aims to shed light on the potential of SNSs for improving the study habits of nursing students in these five countries.

Research questions and hypotheses

This research seeks to answer the following questions: What is the extent to which SNSs are utilized as a means of communication in terms of educational purposes? What social media network is the most helpful for nursing students? What are the perceived benefits of SNSs in terms of accessibility, usability, efficiency and reliability? Is there a significant relationship between the extent of utilization and the perceived benefits of SNSs among nursing students? Does SNS utilization have the potential to improve the study habits of nursing students?

H01: There is no significant relationship between the extent of SNS utilization and the benefits of SNS among nursing students.

HO 2: Using SNSs has no potential to improve the study habits of students.

Study design

This study adopts a quantitative cross-sectional design to determine the relationship between the utilization and perceived benefits of SNSs and their potential for improving the study habits of nursing students in the five participating countries.

Research settings

This study was conducted in five countries. Country selection and participation involved a voluntary system. This study focused on the utilization and perceived benefits of SNSs and their potential for improving the study habits of regular nursing students in the selected colleges and universities of the participating countries. The study participants consisted of first-year to fifth-year Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSC) students from the five participating countries.

Sample and sampling techniques

The sample of respondents of this study constituted a 1200-student cohort selected from all the universities that met the set of inclusion criteria, and based on the online forms returned, 1400 links were forwarded. This purposive sampling technique was used considering the criteria for the population, and a post hoc sample was computed via proportion analysis using a confidence interval of 0.65 and a confidence level of 0.95 for a sample of 1137 students. The inclusion criteria were as follows : a. being a BSC student; b. being a resident of one of the five participating countries; and c. having access to online SNSs or similar platforms. The exclusion criteria were as follows : a. residing in a country not included in the study; and b. being students of the investigators/collaborators.

Ethical considerations

This study sought approval from Assiut University in Egypt ( IRB 08/08/2017 number 38 ) and ethical clearance in the respective participating countries. This study is a non-experimental study and did not utilize human subjects. It was performed by seeking permission and approval from the respective focal countries collaborating in this research. The three-part survey tool was administered through the use of an online survey, with a written consent section provided to proceed and to seek the respondents’ willingness to participate in the study. Returning the electronically tallied survey form indicated a willingness to participate. The identities of the participants and their personal information were left undisclosed. Blind tallying was used to secure privacy, and codes were used to maintain the anonymity of the participants. All respondents were informed that they could voluntarily withdraw from the study.

Data gathering procedure

The main communication letter with the approval of the IRB was sought from the preidentified colleges and universities in the five participating countries mentioned above. Once approval from the IRBs in each research setting was obtained, the corresponding co-researchers were in charge of the selection of the study participants based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data collection took place between spring 2017 and fall 2018. Through a hosting site, a web-based online tool was forwarded as a link to the study participants for easy access.

Research instrument

The research instrument was subjected to both internal validity and reliability testing. Face validity and content validity were assessed and screened by two experts in the field of nursing research. A post hoc reliability test was performed, and the results of Cronbach’s α yielded a reliability of 0.92 and a margin of error of 0.8. A three-part questionnaire was utilized. Part 1 of the questionnaire sought to determine the demographic profile of the participants in terms of age, gender, the year level, the type of social media site used, and the country of residence. Part 2 of the questionnaire concerned the extent to which SNSs are utilized as a means of communication for educational purposes among nursing students. Finally, part 3 of the questionnaire addressed the perceived benefits of SNSs for nursing students. Both parts 2 and 3 used a four-point Likert scale. When responding to Likert-based questionnaire items, the respondents specified their level of agreement with a statement. They were asked to check the number that best corresponded to their answer regarding the extent of utilization and the perceived benefits of SNSs among nursing students. The highest score was 4, and the lowest score was 1.

Data analysis

The results of this study were analysed and interpreted using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (IBM SPSS 24.0). The weighted mean ( Table  1 and Table  2 ) was used to determine the average extent of SNS utilization among nursing students. It was also used to determine the perceived benefits of SNSs among nursing students in terms of the accessibility, usability, efficiency, and reliability of SNSs. After gathering all the completed questionnaires, the mean was computed and gauged according to the following range and qualitative sinterpretations:

Repeated-measures ANOVA was also utilized to identify any significant differences between the two different mean domains, and a post hoc test was performed using Bonferroni’s α [ 20 ]. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to test two or more independent samples that were drawn from the same population where the level of measurement was ordinal [ 21 ]. Pearson’s r is both descriptive and inferential [ 20 ], and it was used to determine the magnitude and direction of a significant relationship between the extent of utilization and the perceived benefits of SNSs among nursing students and to determine the relationship between students’ demographic profile, SNS utilization and the perceived benefits of SNSs and the potential of SNSs to improve the participants’ study habits. The statistical power used for correlations is 1.

The study recruited 1200 participants, based on which a post hoc sample using proportion analysis yielded 1137 students who were taken as the actual sample for this study. The profile distribution of nursing students grouped by country showed that the students from Israel were mostly 26–28 years old, female and first-year students. The nursing students from Iraq were mostly 20–22 years old, female and second-year students. In Oman, most of the nursing students were also 20–22 years old and female, and they were not classified as being first- to fifth-year students. They were irregular students who could be placed in between year levels depending on their nursing major courses, and they could be clustered in a specific year. In the Philippines and Turkey, most of the students were 20–22 years old, female and third-year students. Overall, the majority of the students were 20–22 years old, female and third-year students ( Table  3 ) .

The percentage distribution of the extent to which SNSs were utilized as a means of communication for educational purposes among nursing students in the five countries showed that the majority of nursing students slightly utilized SNSs in terms of their accessibility (61.3%) and moderately utilized them in terms of usability (60.2%). The distribution also showed that most of them moderately utilized SNSs in terms of their efficiency (45.2%) and reliability (46.8%) ( Table  4 ). Figures  1 , 2 , 3 and 4 show the extent of SNS utilization among nursing students grouped according to age, gender, the year level and country. The results also revealed that nursing students had varied responses in terms of their perception of the extent to which SNSs were utilized as a means of communication. At least 2.1% and at most 6.2% of nursing students did not utilize SNSs, and 27.8 to 61.3% of nursing students slightly utilized SNSs. It was also observed that more than one-fourth (30.6%) to 60.2% of the students moderately utilized SNSs. At most 16.8% of students perceived SNSs as being highly utilized. Moreover, on average, nursing students slightly utilized SNSs in terms of accessibility (2.34) and moderately utilized them in terms of usability (2.81), efficiency (2.74) and reliability (2.66). Similarly, nursing students slightly utilized SNSs in terms of accessibility. Regarding the extent of accessibility, the results indicated that nursing students sometimes used an Internet café (2.33), their campus (1.94), malls (2.42), restaurants (2.12), game consoles (2.23), an iPad (1.76) or USB broadband (2.20). They often accessed SNSs in their own houses (2.88) and via mobile phones (2.52) and portable laptops (3.01). In terms of usability, nursing students moderately utilized SNSs. This result means that they often utilized SNSs to receive updates on school activities (3.10), to gain more knowledge about their current lessons (2.97), to share their thoughts and opinions about discussions (2.79) and to carry out advanced studies (2.74). Sometimes, they utilized SNSs for communication purposes related to their studies (2.40). In terms of reliability, the results revealed that they often relied on SNSs to familiarize themselves with their future lessons (2.71), to receive updates on school activities (2.69), to improve their knowledge and skills (2.79), to participate in group research (2.72) and to carry out assignments and projects (2.75). This result means that they moderately utilized SNSs. In terms of efficiency, nursing students often enhanced their abilities to provide nursing care through SNSs (2.82). They often considered that the sources obtained from SNSs were accurate (2.71) and that they learned proper techniques related to nursing skills by using SNSs (2.56) ( Table  5 ). Nursing students were also recognized by their clinical instructors because of the expertise obtained from SNSs (2.39). This result meant that they moderately utilized SNSs.

figure 1

Line Chart of the Extent of Utilization of the Nursing Students Across All Domains when grouped by Age

figure 2

Line Chart of the Extent of Utilization of the Nursing Students Across All Domains when grouped by Gender

figure 3

Line Chart of the Extent of Utilization of the Nursing Students Across All Domains when grouped by Year

figure 4

Line Chart of the Extent of Utilization of the Nursing Students Across All Domains when grouped by Country

Regarding the question of what SNS nursing students found to be the most helpful, slightly more than one-fourth of nursing students considered Facebook (25.3%), WhatsApp (26%), and Google (25.8%) to be the most helpful social media networks. The results also showed that some students considered Instagram, Snapchat, e-learning, YouTube, Twitter, and others to be the most helpful. Three of the students (0.3%) claimed that they used no social media networks ( Table  6 ). In terms of usability, reliability, accessibility, and efficiency, the results showed that nursing students perceived SNSs as slightly beneficial in terms of accessibility (2.34). They also revealed that SNSs were moderately beneficial in terms of usability, reliability, and efficiency.

With regard to study habits, nursing students often have different study habits in terms of their time management, study focus, and personal perceptions of learning, as well as receiving good grades and carrying out assignments, in addition to the importance of earning exceptional grades. In terms of time management, students allotted enough time (2.85) for studying (2.74), scheduled a fixed time (2.94), and set the best time so that they could study (2.84), reviewing either every day (2.71) or every week (2.51). They also often considered how to focus entirely on studies (2.87) or how to become interested in their studies (2.93), for example, by seeking a quiet place (3.12) or, sometimes, by studying with music or while watching TV (2.41). Moreover, they often considered studying even without exams (2.70) or completing difficult assignments (2.70). They normally enjoyed learning (2.81), and they were always confident that they could receive good grades (3.10). They also frequently attached importance to earning exceptional grades (3), and they ensured that they knew which homework assignments to carry out (3.10) ( Table  7 ) . The results of the extent of SNS utilization in terms of accessibility, usability, and reliability suggested that the younger the age group of the nursing students, the lower their extent of utilization, except for the 23–25 age group. However, the results of the extent of SNS utilization in terms of efficiency contradicted this possible correlation; it suggested that the younger the age of the students was, the lower the extent of SNS utilization in this area, except for the 23–25 age group. The results further showed that there was a significant difference in the extent of SNS utilization in terms of usability (χ2(4) = 16.038, p  = 0.003) and efficiency (χ2(4) = 12.360, p  = 0.015). There was also a significant result in terms of reliability (χ2(4) = 11.012, p  = 0.026). However, pairwise comparison disconfirmed the result of a significant difference. The extent of SNS utilization in all areas was consistently higher in female nursing students, except for accessibility. This suggested a possible relationship where female students tended to have a higher extent of SNS utilization but not in terms of accessibility. The Mann-Whitney U test was performed, revealing that there was a significant difference in the extent of SNS utilization only in terms of accessibility. This result indicated that the extent of nursing students’ SNS utilization in terms of accessibility was significantly higher in male students than in female students. Since the results indicated a non-significant p -value ( p  > 0.05), this also meant that the extent of nursing students’ SNS utilization in terms of usability ( p  = 0.134), reliability ( p  = 0.264) and efficiency ( p  = 0.586) was the same regardless of gender. Regarding accessibility, fifth-year nursing students had the highest SNS utilization in terms of accessibility (Mn rank = 538.86), reliability (Mn rank = 603.22), and efficiency (Mn rank = 631.38). Fourth-year nursing students consistently had the lowest extent of SNS utilization in terms of usability (Mn rank = 471.68), reliability (Mn rank = 448.22), and efficiency (Mn rank = 419.48) but not accessibility (Mn rank = 486.23). It was also observed that there was a fluctuating pattern as the students’ year level increased, which was consistent with the results presented.

From the initial extent of SNS utilization of first-year nursing students, the extent of SNS utilization of second-year students was lower compared to that of first-year students. The extent of SNS utilization was higher in third-year students than in fourth-year students. Additionally, the extent of SNS utilization among fourth-year students was lower than that among fifth-year students. Inferential testing was performed through the Kruskal-Wallis test. The results of the test revealed that there were significant differences in the extent of SNS utilization in terms of accessibility when grouped by the year level (χ2(4) = 19.897, p  = 0.001), reliability (χ2(4) = 21.345, p  < 0.01), and efficiency (χ2(4) = 33.682, p  < 0.01). However, no significant difference in the extent of SNS utilization in terms of usability was found (χ2(4) = 1.187, p  = 0.880). A significant difference was found between the extent of utilization and the perceived benefits of SNSs in terms of accessibility (χ2(4) = 126.981, p  < 0.01), usability (χ2(4) = 40.096, p  < 0.01), reliability (χ2(4) = 51.915, p  < 0.01), and efficiency (χ2(4) = 147.964, p  < 0.01) ( Table  8 ) . It was observed that Oman and the Philippines had the highest mean ranks among all five countries, except for SNS utilization in terms of usability (where Israel obtained the highest mean rank). This result indicated that nursing students in Oman had the highest SNS utilization in terms of accessibility and reliability. The Philippines had the highest SNS utilization in terms of reliability but with a slight difference compared with Oman. Moreover, Turkey obtained the lowest mean rank in all areas, except in terms of accessibility. This result indicated that Turkey had the lowest SNS utilization in terms of usability, reliability, and efficiency. The extent of SNS utilization by nursing students was the highest in terms of usability (2.81), followed by reliability (2.74), efficiency (2.65) and accessibility (2.34) ( Table  9 ) .

Furthermore, the results of repeated-measures ANOVA revealed that there was a significant difference among the domains of SNS utilization. Hence, in an additional test performed using Bonferroni’s post hoc test, accessibility was significantly lower than usability, reliability or efficiency. However, usability was significantly higher than reliability and efficiency, and reliability was significantly higher than efficiency ( Table  10 ) . Pearson’s r revealed a significant positive correlation between the extent of a possible improvement in study habits and the extent of SNS utilization in terms of the four domains, namely, accessibility (r = 0.246), usability (r = 0.377), reliability (r = 0.287) and efficiency (r = 0.387). This result meant that there was a direct relationship between the two variables and further meant that the more the nursing students studied, the higher the extent of their SNS utilization in terms of accessibility, usability, reliability, and efficiency ( Table  11 ) .

The findings of this study identified SNSs and the relationship between their utilization, their perceived benefits and their potential for improving the study habits of nursing students in five different countries. Based on the analysis of the findings of this study, most student respondents were 20–22 years old, female, and in their third year. Our findings are similar to those of a study conducted in Pakistan, where the majority of the nursing respondents were female and within the 21–25 age group [ 22 ]. A relevant finding explained how social media are an important aspect of today’s adolescents, offering efficiency if properly utilized [ 23 ]. A similar study on social networking identified that SNS addiction was higher in male than in female students [ 24 ].

This study revealed that the majority of the nursing students across the five countries were more engaged in websites and SNSs, such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Google. A study conducted in 2009 in Brazil and Singapore showed the wide utilization of Facebook on a regular basis [ 25 ]. These findings were also obtained in earlier studies where Myspace and Facebook were among the most popular sites among students, even though they were not created for educational purposes [ 26 ]. In the results of this study, it was also evident that the use of SNSs was important for establishing communication for educational purposes, and 61.3% of the respondents utilized SNSs for the purpose of relaying information relevant to their studies.

A study has suggested that SNSs are platforms that can be used to improve educational impacts by adapting modifications in the instructional curricula of medical schools [ 2 ]. The aspect of accessibility is an important factor in today’s generation of Internet-savvy students, and the study findings suggest the great importance of accessibility. It was found that students were able to gain access to their social networking profiles through Internet cafés, malls, restaurants and their campus. A study mentioned that access to information was just a click away and that the accessibility of the information on the Internet and SNSs was widely used, which was inherently identified as the main reason why most students were no longer visiting libraries [ 27 ]. Most students prefer SNSs because of their quick and easy access and, in particular, for the purpose of education and learning.

The usability of SNSs in terms of educational purposes is a topic that needs contextualization, as the study findings showed that nursing students in the five countries use SNSs for educational gains by taking advantage of the Internet to acquire knowledge on current lessons, by receiving updates on ongoing school activities, and by carrying out advanced studies. Many educational institutions are still dependent on a traditional learning system, which does not use the full capacity of SNSs as a tool for teaching and learning [ 28 ]. The results of this study contradict those of a study conducted in Oman, where the findings showed that SNSs were mainly used for entertainment purposes and were less used for educational purposes [ 29 ]. SNSs can present various media, such as photos, videos, interactive interfaces and games, which make them highly engaging among students. Moreover, nursing students engage in more interactive skill-based learning sessions. In terms of reliability, nursing students from the five participating countries identified that SNSs were moderately utilized for the purpose of keeping track of school activities and improving knowledge and skills. Regarding efficiency, students scored high in providing correct data and information, enhanced their abilities to provide nursing care, and learned how to perform proper techniques relevant to their nursing skills. It was also noted that some clinical instructors recognized the expertise of students drawn from SNSs, which was supported by a study intervention using SNSs that taught nursing students about ethical and moral behaviours through humanized mannequins in social networks, such as Facebook [ 30 ].

Advanced teaching strategies and the availability of updated and timely learning materials can be advantageous as learning platforms for nursing students. Overall, the nursing students in all five countries were aligned in that they moderately utilized SNSs. In terms of benefits, the students from the five countries said that SNSs were highly beneficial. According to a study, 54.92% of dental students at a university in India suggested that the usage of SNSs was beneficial for their studies and learning needs [ 31 ]. This result is supported by an online survey on social networking as a learning tool that found that the majority of students perceived SNSs as an innovative method of study support that guided learning and enhanced efficacy [ 17 ]. However, the results of this study contradict study results on the effects of online social networking on student performance that suggest that the time that medical students spend on SNSs could negatively influence their academic achievement [ 32 ]. The negative and positive aspects of SNS utilization are a contentious issue that has yet to be resolved because SNSs can be addictive and their improper usage may lead to less positive outcomes. Studying is a skill, and developing study habits is vital for the academic performance of students [ 33 ]. Some studies strongly advocate the use of SNSs as a means of becoming academically successful. For example, one study mentioned that Facebook and SNSs were considered the greatest distractions among college students, subsequently affecting their study habits and grades [ 34 ]. Based on the perspectives of nursing students with regard to their study habits, the study participants from the five countries unanimously identified time management as essential, and a fixed schedule was important when utilizing social networking platforms. This was evidently described by the results of a study showing that SNSs could enhance performance in a simple task environment but made no difference in a complex performance environment [ 35 ]. SNS utilization was also found to be consistently high among female nursing students. It is a known fact that nursing is female dominated [ 36 ]; there are confirmed gender differences that exist with regard to the technologies adopted, and they occur between genders from the age of 16 to 35 [ 37 ]. These findings are firmly contradicted by a study conducted in China showing that Chinese females were clearly less engaged with technology than Chinese males [ 38 ]. On the other hand, women who were found to have higher introversion and extraversion traits turn to the Internet for social services, such as online chats and discussion groups [ 39 ].

In a geographical and cultural context, it can be seen that in countries such as Iran, Israel, Oman and Turkey, the female gender is given less opportunity for public exposure, which results in a higher use of SNSs, which are viewed as a viable medium to socialize and be engaged with others instead of being physically present. A study observed that cultural considerations influenced the interaction platform of choice and the use of SNSs [ 40 ]. Oman and the Philippines were identified as having the highest SNS utilization. In a study of health science students conducted by Sultan Qaboos University, the findings showed that YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter were the most commonly used social media platforms. The findings generally suggest that usage and addiction are similar worldwide [ 41 ]. On the other hand, in the Philippines, the US-based Pew Research Center said that 88% of Filipinos felt that increasing Internet usage was good for education, given that the Philippines is often dubbed the “social media capital” of the world [ 42 ]. In contrast, with regard to SNS utilization, Turkey ranks lowest according to the findings of Kirschner and Karpinski in Turkey, whose study among undergraduate students revealed that students who reported academic problems were more likely to use the Internet for social networking (e.g., Facebook) purposes [ 43 ]. The results of the hypothesis testing yielded a positive relationship between study habits and the extent of SNS utilization among nursing students in the five participating countries. The levels of nursing students’ engagement in SNS utilization can be most beneficial and relevant when they uses SNS for purposes of studying. SNSs are deemed necessary in this generation of learners, wherein a significant amount of information is within grasp and readily available. The utilization of SNSs for educational purposes has both positive and negative implications [ 44 , 45 ].

Limitations

Our study has several limitations. Due to the cross-sectional nature of the study, it was not possible to explain the causal relationship with students’ demographic profile, such as their geographic location and culture, which will require a more extensive research design and strategy. In addition, the researchers acknowledge the lack of attention paid to the role of faculty members in facilitating the utilization of SNSs among nursing students in the selected countries.

The paucity of research and policies related to the integration of SNSs as a learning tool requires attention from both researchers and policymakers. The nursing students from the five participating countries were female dominated, and the extent of SNS utilization was higher among females. This study also identified that the nursing students moderately perceived the utilization and benefits of SNSs, taking into account accessibility, usability, efficiency and reliability. The most commonly utilized social media platforms in Israel, Iraq, Oman, the Philippines, and Turkey were WhatsApp and Facebook. Regarding the correlations with utilization, perceived benefits and study habits showed a positive relationship among the three factors. Similarly, the significant positive correlation between the study habits of students and the extent of SNS utilization means that the more students devote themselves to their study habits, the higher the level of SNS utilization.

Recommendations

This study further suggests that similar studies in the future should focus not only on the aspects of access, usability, efficiency and reliability but also on the inclusion of behavioural aspects. Cultural differences can also be taken into consideration. The homogeneity of the sample can also be addressed by tapping more diverse nursing student populations. Four out of five participating countries (Israel, Iraq. Oman and Turkey, with the Philippines being the exception) are homogenous in terms of culture and geographic settings. A mixed-method approach in future studies is also recommended to contextualize the confounding influence of culture and geographic location. Although there are several studies on SNSs and academic performance, very few studies in nursing academia have been conducted that focus on skills or psychomotor development through virtual platforms that can also be used in the teaching-learning process. The influences of SNSs on nursing students and their great potential for enhancing the study habits of students are an area of opportunity in regard to developing curricula that are not restricted to the four corners of the classroom. SNSs are by far the most current and the most relevant platforms that can further add to the learning success and academic achievement of nursing students. Tailored strategies for enhancing student participation, interaction and real-life learning are just a few of the advantages that can be obtained by tapping the positive contributions of SNSs as a teaching-learning tool in nursing education.

Availability of data and materials

All data generated or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Social networking site

Bachelor of Science in Nursing

Institutional review board

Mentor and researcher group

Information and communication technology

Statistical Package for the Social Sciences

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GFDV, ARC, and SAF – conception of the idea, research design, data collection/field work, data management, analysis, report writing, interpretation of the results, and provision of critical reviewing with intellectual input. GFDV, ARC, SAF, MK, SO, CLS, MBA, HF, and JPC – data collection/field work, data management and provision of critical reviewing with intellectual input. The authors have read and approved the manuscript.

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Valdez, G.F.D., Cayaban, A.R.R., Al-Fayyadh, S. et al. The utilization of social networking sites, their perceived benefits and their potential for improving the study habits of nursing students in five countries. BMC Nurs 19 , 52 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-020-00447-5

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Social Networking Sites and Addiction: Ten Lessons Learned

Online social networking sites (SNSs) have gained increasing popularity in the last decade, with individuals engaging in SNSs to connect with others who share similar interests. The perceived need to be online may result in compulsive use of SNSs, which in extreme cases may result in symptoms and consequences traditionally associated with substance-related addictions. In order to present new insights into online social networking and addiction, in this paper, 10 lessons learned concerning online social networking sites and addiction based on the insights derived from recent empirical research will be presented. These are: (i) social networking and social media use are not the same; (ii) social networking is eclectic; (iii) social networking is a way of being; (iv) individuals can become addicted to using social networking sites; (v) Facebook addiction is only one example of SNS addiction; (vi) fear of missing out (FOMO) may be part of SNS addiction; (vii) smartphone addiction may be part of SNS addiction; (viii) nomophobia may be part of SNS addiction; (ix) there are sociodemographic differences in SNS addiction; and (x) there are methodological problems with research to date. These are discussed in turn. Recommendations for research and clinical applications are provided.

1. Introduction

The history of social networking sites (SNSs) dates back to 1997, when the first SNS SixDegrees emerged as a result of the idea that individuals are linked via six degrees of separation [ 1 ], and is conceived as “the small world problem” in which society is viewed as becoming increasingly inter-connected [ 2 ]. In 2004, Facebook , was launched as an online community for students at Harvard University and has since become the world’s most popular SNS [ 3 ]. In 2016, there were 2.34 billion social network users worldwide [ 4 ]. In the same year, 22.9% of the world population used Facebook [ 5 ]. In 2015, the average social media user spent 1.7 h per day on social media in the USA and 1.5 h in the UK, with social media users in the Philippines having the highest daily use at 3.7 h [ 6 ]. This suggests social media use has become an important leisure activity for many, allowing individuals to connect with one another online irrespective of time and space limitations.

It is this kind of connecting or the self-perceived constant need to connect that has been viewed critically by media scholars. Following decades of researching technology-mediated and online behaviors, Turkle [ 7 ] claims overreliance on technology has led to an impoverishment of social skills, leaving individuals unable to engage in meaningful conversations because such skills are being sacrificed for constant connection, resulting in short-term attention and a decreased ability to retain information. Individuals have come to be described as “alone together”: always connected via technology, but in fact isolated [ 8 ]. The perceived need to be online may lead to compulsive use of SNSs, which in extreme cases may result in symptoms and consequences traditionally associated with substance-related addictions. Since the publication of the first ever literature review of the empirical studies concerning SNS addiction in 2011 [ 3 ], the research field has moved forward at an increasingly rapid pace. This hints at the scientific community’s increasing interest in problematic and potentially addictive social networking use. In order to present new insights into online social networking and addiction, in this paper, 10 lessons learned concerning online social networking sites and addiction based on the insights derived from recent empirical research will be presented. These are: (i) social networking and social media use are not the same; (ii) social networking is eclectic; (iii) social networking is a way of being; (iv) individuals can become addicted to using social networking sites; (v) Facebook addiction is only one example of SNS addiction; (vi) fear of missing out (FOMO) may be part of SNS addiction; (vii) smartphone addiction may be part of SNS addiction; (viii) nomophobia may be part of SNS addiction; (ix) there are sociodemographic differences in SNS addiction; and (x) there are methodological problems with research to date. These are discussed in turn.

2. 10 Lessons Learned from Recent Empirical Literature

2.1. social networking and social media use are not the same.

Social networking and social media use have often been used interchangeably in the scientific literature. However, they are not the same. Social media refers to the web 2.0 capabilities of producing, sharing, and collaborating on content online (i.e., user-generated content, implying a social element). Accordingly, social media use includes a wide range of social applications, such as collaborative projects, weblogs, content communities, social networking sites, virtual game worlds, and virtual social worlds [ 9 ], each of which will be addressed below.

Collaborative projects can be shared and worked on jointly and simultaneously using cloud-based computing. Two different types can be distinguished: Wikis allow for creating, removing and modifying online content (e.g., Wikipedia ). Social bookmarking applications, on the other hand, allow for numbers of people to accumulate and appraise websites (e.g., Delicious ). Taken together, collaborative projects may produce a superior end result in comparison to individual projects [ 9 ], which can be linked to the concept of collective intelligence, whereby the intelligence in the group is greater than the sum of its parts [ 10 ].

Weblogs (or “blogs”) can also be considered social media. Blogs allow individuals to share personal online diaries and information (sometimes in the form of images and videos), which may or may not be commented upon by other internet users. Next, there are content communities and video-sharing sites (e.g., YouTube ). Content may include videos, but also text (e.g., BookCrossing ), photographs (e.g., Instagram ), and PowerPoint presentations (e.g., Slideshare ), and in most cases, there is no a need for individuals to have personal profiles, and if they do, these tend to include limited personal information. Virtual game worlds allow users to create an online alter ego in the form of an avatar and to play with other players in large gaming universes (and the next section covers gaming in more detail). Kaplan and Haenlein [ 9 ] differentiate these from virtual social worlds from virtual game worlds, whereby the former allow individuals to create online characters which live in an alternative virtual world that is similar to their real life environments on the one hand, but defies physical laws. Arguably the best example of these virtual social worlds is Second Life , populated by human-like avatars, who engage in activities users engage in on an everyday basis, such as furnishing houses, going shopping, and meeting friends.

Finally, there are social networking sites, which we have previously defined as “virtual communities where users can create individual public profiles, interact with real-life friends, and meet other people based on shared interests” ([ 3 ]; p. 3529). Social networking is particularly focused on connecting people, which does not apply to a number of the other social media applications outlined above. Engaging in social networking comprises a specific type of social media use, therefore they are not synonymous. Consequently, studies that have examined social media addiction and social networking addiction may also be using the terms interchangeably, suggesting nosological imprecision.

2.2. Social Networking Is Eclectic

Despite social networking being one type of social media use (as outlined in the previous section), the behavior is inherently eclectic because it includes a variety of apps and services that can be engaged in. For instance, social networking can be the use of traditional social networking sites, such as Facebook. Facebook can be considered an ‘egocentric’ SNS (rather than the previously more common virtual communities that focused on shared interests between members) because it allows individuals to represent themselves using individual profiles and wall posts. These can contain text and audiovisual content, whilst connecting to friends who often appear as real life friends and acquaintances given the main motivation of individuals to use SNSs such as Facebook is to maintain their connections [ 3 ].

In 2016, the most popular social networking site was Facebook with 1712 million active users [ 5 ]. Facebook has long established its supremacy in terms of active members, with membership numbers steadily increasing by 17%–20% annually [ 11 ]. Facebook is a very active network. Every minute, 510,000 comments are posted; 293,000 statuses are updated; and 136,000 photos are uploaded, whilst the average user spends approximately 20 min daily on the site [ 11 ].

Over the past few years, new networks have emerged that have gradually risen in popularity, particularly amongst younger generations. Instagram was launched in 2010 as a picture sharing SNS, claiming to “allow you to experience moments in your friends’ lives through pictures as they happen” [ 12 ]. In 2016, Instagram had 500 m active users [ 5 ]. Snapchat was launched in 2011 [ 13 ] as an SNS that allows users to message and connect with others using a smartphone and to send texts, videos, and make calls. Snapchat is different from other networks in that it has an inherently ephemeral nature, whereby any messages are automatically deleted shortly after the receiver has viewed them, allowing an increased experience of perceived privacy and safety online [ 14 ]. However, teenagers are especially aware of the transitory nature of Snapchat messages and therefore take screenshots and keep them stored on their mobile phones or in the cloud, simply to have proof of conversations and visuals spread on this medium. The privacy advantage of the medium is thereby countered. Snapchat had 200 million users in 2016 [ 5 ]. In the same year, Snapchat was the most popular SNS among 13–24 year-old adolescents and adults in the USA, with 72% of this group using them, followed by 68% Facebook users, and 66% Instagram users [ 15 ]. The popularity of Snapchat —particularly among young users—suggests the SNS landscape is changing in this particular demographic, with users being more aware of potential privacy risks, enjoying the lack of social pressure on Snapchat as well as the increased amount of control over who is viewing their ephemeral messages. However, it could also be the case that this may lead to the complete opposite by increasing the pressure to be online all the time because individuals risk missing the connecting thread in a continuing stream of messages within an online group. This may be especially the case in Snapchat groups/rooms created for adolescents in school or other contexts. This can lead to decreasing concentration during preparation tasks for school at home, and may lead to constant distraction because of the pressure to follow what is going on as well as the fear of missing out. From a business point of view, Snapchat has been particularly successful due to its novel impermanent approach to messaging, with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg offering $3 billion to buy the SNS, which has been declined by Evan Spiegel, Snapchat’s CEO and co-founder [ 13 ]. These facts suggest the world of traditional SNS is changing.

Social networking can be instant messaging. The most popular messaging services to date are WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger with 1000 million active users each [ 5 ]. WhatsApp is a mobile messaging site that allows users to connect to one another via messages and calls using their internet connection and mobile data (rather than minutes and texts on their phones), and was bought by Facebook in 2014 for $22 billion [ 16 ], leading to controversies about Facebook’s data sharing practices (i.e., Whatsapp phone numbers being linked with Facebook profiles), resulting in the European Commission fining Facebook [ 17 ]. In addition to WhatsApp , Facebook owns their own messaging system, which is arguably the best example of the convergence between traditional SNS use and messaging, and which functions as an app on smartphones separate from the actual Facebook application.

Social networking can be microblogging. Microblogging is a form of more traditional blogging, which could be considered a personal online diary. Alternatively, microblogging can also be viewed as an amalgamation of blogging and messaging, in such a way that messages are short and intended to be shared with the writer’s audience (typically consisting of ‘followers’ rather than ‘friends’ found on Facebook and similar SNSs). A popular example of a microblogging site is Twitter , which allows 140 characters per Tweet only. In 2016, Twitter had 313 million active users [ 5 ], making it the most successful microblogging site to date. Twitter has become particularly used as political tool with examples including its important role in the Arab Spring anti-government protests [ 18 ], as well as extensive use by American President Donald Trump during and following his presidential campaign [ 19 ]. In addition to microblogging politics, research has also assessed the microblogging of health issues [ 20 ].

Social networking can be gaming. Gaming can arguably be considered an element of social networking if the gaming involves connecting with people (i.e., via playing together and communicating using game-inherent channels). It has been argued that large-scale internet-enabled games (i.e., Massively Multiplayer Role-Playing Games [MMORPGs]), such as the popular World of Warcraft , are inherently social games situated in enormous virtual worlds populated by thousands of gamers [ 21 , 22 ], providing gamers various channels of communication and interaction, and allowing for the building of relationships which may extend beyond the game worlds [ 23 ]. By their very nature, games such as MMORPGs are “particularly good at simultaneously tapping into what is typically formulated as game/not game, social/instrumental, real/virtual. And this mix is exactly what is evocative and hooks many people. The innovations they produce there are a result of MMOGs as vibrant sites of culture” [ 24 ]. Not only do these games offer the possibility of communication, but they provide a basis for strong bonds between individuals when they unite through shared activities and goals, and have been shown to facilitate and increase intimacy and relationship quality in couples [ 25 ] and online gamers [ 22 , 23 ]. In addition to inherently social MMORPGs, Facebook -enabled games—such as Farmville or Texas Hold “Em Poker ”—can be subsumed under the social networking umbrella if they are being used in order to connect with others (rather than for solitary gaming purposes) [ 26 , 27 ].

Social networking can be online dating. Presently, there are many online dating websites available, which offer their members the opportunity to become part of virtual communities, and they have been especially designed to meet the members’ romantic and relationship-related needs and desires [ 28 ]. On these sites, individuals are encouraged to create individual public profiles, to interact and communicate with other members with the shared interest of finding a ‘date’ and/or long-term relationships, therewith meeting the present authors’ definition of SNS. In that way, online dating sites can be considered social networking sites. However, these profiles are often semi-public, with access granted only to other members of these networks and/or subscribers to the said online dating services. According to the US think tank Pew Research Center’s Internet Project [ 29 ], 38% of singles in the USA have made use of online dating sites or mobile dating applications. Moreover, nearly 60% of internet users think that online dating is a good way to meet people, and the percentage of individuals who have met their romantic partners online has seen a two-fold increase over the last years [ 29 ]. These data suggest online dating is becoming increasingly popular, contributing to the appeal of online social networking sites for many users across the generations. However, it can also be argued that online dating sites such as Tinder may be less a medium for ‘long-term relationships’, given that Tinder use can lead to sexual engagement. This suggests the uses and gratifications perspective underlying Tinder use points more in the direction of other motives, such as physical and sexual aspirations and needs, rather than purely romance.

Taken together, this section has argued that social networking activities can comprise a wide variety of usage motivations and needs, ranging from friendly connection over gaming to romantic endeavors, further strengthening SNS’ natural embeddedness in many aspects of the everyday life of users. From a social networking addiction perspective, this may be similar to the literature on Internet addiction which often delineates between addictions to specific applications on the Internet (e.g., gaming, gambling, shopping, sex) and more generalized Internet addiction (e.g., concerning problematic over-use of the Internet comprising many different applications) [ 30 , 31 ].

2.3. Social Networking Is a Way of Being

In the present day and age, individuals have come to live increasingly mediated lives. Nowadays, social networking does not necessarily refer to what we do, but who we are and how we relate to one another. Social networking can arguably be considered a way of being and relating, and this is supported by empirical research. A younger generation of scholars has grown up in a world that has been reliant on technology as integral part of their lives, making it impossible to imagine life without being connected. This has been referred to as an ‘always on’ lifestyle: “It’s no longer about on or off really. It’s about living in a world where being networked to people and information wherever and whenever you need it is just assumed” [ 32 ]. This has two important implications. First, being ‘on’ has become the status quo. Second, there appears to be an inherent understanding or requirement in today’s technology-loving culture that one needs to engage in online social networking in order not to miss out, to stay up to date, and to connect. Boyd [ 32 ] herself refers to needing to go on a “digital sabbatical” in order not be on, to take a vacation from connecting, with the caveat that this means still engaging with social media, but deciding which messages to respond to.

In addition to this, teenagers particularly appear to have subscribed to the cultural norm of continual online networking. They create virtual spaces which serve their need to belong, as there appear to be increasingly limited options of analogous physical spaces due to parents’ safety concerns [ 33 ]. Being online is viewed as safer than roaming the streets and parents often assume using technology in the home is normal and healthy, as stated by a psychotherapist treating adolescents presenting with the problem of Internet addiction: “Use of digital media is the culture of the household and kids are growing up that way more and more” [ 34 ]. Interestingly, recent research has demonstrated that sharing information on social media increases life satisfaction and loneliness for younger adult users, whereas the opposite was true for older adult users [ 35 ], suggesting that social media use and social networking are used and perceived very differently across generations. This has implications for social networking addiction because the context of excessive social networking is critical in defining someone as an addict, and habitual use by teenagers might be pathologized using current screening instruments when in fact the activity—while excessive—does not result in significant detriment to the individual’s life [ 36 ].

SNS use is also driven by a number of other motivations. From a uses and gratifications perspective, these include information seeking (i.e., searching for specific information using SNS), identity formation (i.e., as a means of presenting oneself online, often more favorably than offline) [ 37 ], and entertainment (i.e., for the purpose of experiencing fun and pleasure) [ 38 ]. In addition to this, there are the motivations such as voyeurism [ 39 ] and cyberstalking [ 40 ] that could have potentially detrimental impacts on individuals’ health and wellbeing as well as their relationships.

It has also been claimed that social networking meets basic human needs as initially described in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs [ 41 ]. According to this theory, social networking meets the needs of safety, association, estimation, and self-realization [ 42 ]. Safety needs are met by social networking being customizable with regards to privacy, allowing the users to control who to share information with. Associative needs are fulfilled through the connecting function of SNSs, allowing users to ‘friend’ and ‘follow’ like-minded individuals. The need to estimate is met by users being able to ‘gather’ friends and ‘likes’, and compare oneself to others, and is therefore related to Maslow’s need of esteem. Finally, the need for self-realization, the highest attainable goal that only a small minority of individuals are able to achieve, can be reached by presenting oneself in a way one wants to present oneself, and by supporting ‘friends’ on those SNSs who require help. Accordingly, social networking taps into very fundamental human needs by offering the possibilities of social support and self-expression [ 42 ]. This may offer an explanation for the popularity of and relatively high engagement with SNSs in today’s society. However, the downside is that high engagement and being always ‘on’ or engaged with technology has been considered problematic and potentially addictive in the past [ 43 ], but if being ‘always on’ can be considered the status quo and most individuals are ‘on’ most of the time, where does this leave problematic use or addiction? The next section considers this question.

2.4. Individuals Can Become Addicted to Using Social Networking Sites

There is a growing scientific evidence base to suggest excessive SNS use may lead to symptoms traditionally associated with substance-related addictions [ 3 , 44 ]. These symptoms have been described as salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, relapse, and conflict with regards to behavioral addictions [ 45 ], and have been validated in the context of the Internet addiction components model [ 46 ]. For a small minority of individuals, their use of social networking sites may become the single most important activity that they engage in, leading to a preoccupation with SNS use (salience). The activities on these sites are then being used in order to induce mood alterations, pleasurable feelings or a numbing effect (mood modification). Increased amounts of time and energy are required to be put into engaging with SNS activities in order to achieve the same feelings and state of mind that occurred in the initial phases of usage (tolerance). When SNS use is discontinued, addicted individuals will experience negative psychological and sometimes physiological symptoms (withdrawal), often leading to a reinstatement of the problematic behavior (relapse). Problems arise as a consequence of the engagement in the problematic behavior, leading to intrapsychic (conflicts within the individual often including a subjective loss of control) and interpersonal conflicts (i.e., problems with the immediate social environment including relationship problems and work and/or education being compromised).

Whilst referring to an ‘addiction’ terminology in this paper, it needs to be noted that there is much controversy within the research field concerning both the possible overpathologising of everyday life [ 47 , 48 ] as well as the most appropriate term for the phenomenon. On the one hand, current behavioral addiction research tends to be correlational and confirmatory in nature and is often based on population studies rather than clinical samples in which psychological impairments are observed [ 47 ]. Additional methodological problems are outlined below ( Section 2.10 ). On the other hand, in the present paper, the present authors do not discriminate between the label addiction, compulsion, problematic SNS use, or other similar labels used because these terms are being used interchangeably by authors in the field. Nevertheless, when referring to ‘addiction’, the present authors refer to the presence of the above stated criteria, as these appear to hold across both substance-related as well as behavioral addictions [ 45 ] and indicate the requirement of significant impairment and distress on behalf of the individual experiencing it in order to qualify for using clinical terminology [ 49 ], such as the ‘addiction’ label.

The question then arises as what it is that individuals become addicted to. Is it the technology or is it more what the technology allows them to do? It has been argued previously [ 34 , 50 ] that the technology is but a medium or a tool that allows individuals to engage in particular behaviors, such as social networking and gaming, rather than being addictive per se . This view is supported by media scholars: “To an outsider, wanting to be always-on may seem pathological. All too often it’s labelled an addiction. The assumption is that we’re addicted to the technology. The technology doesn’t matter. It’s all about the people and information” [ 32 ]. Following this thinking, one could claim that it is not an addiction to the technology, but to connecting with people, and the good feelings that ‘likes’ and positive comments of appreciation can produce. Given that connection is the key function of social networking sites as indicated above, it appears that ‘social networking addiction’ may be considered an appropriate denomination of this potential mental health problem.

There are a numbers of models which offer explanations as to the development of SNS addiction [ 51 ]. According to the cognitive-behavioral model, excessive social networking is the consequence of maladaptive cognitions and is exacerbated through a number of external issues, resulting in addictive use. The social skill model suggests individuals use SNSs excessively as a consequence of low self-presentation skills and preference for online social interaction over face-to-face communication, resulting in addictive SNS use [ 51 ]. With respect to the socio-cognitive model, excessive social networking develops as a consequence of positive outcome expectations, Internet self-efficacy, and limited Internet self-regulation, leading to addictive SNS use [ 51 ]. It has furthermore been suggested that SNS use may become problematic when individuals use it in order to cope with everyday problems and stressors, including loneliness and depression [ 52 ]. Moreover, it has been contended that excessive SNS users find it difficult to communicate face-to-face, and social media use offers a variety of immediate rewards, such as self-efficacy and satisfaction, resulting in continued and increased use, with the consequence of exacerbating problems, including neglecting offline relationships, and problems in professional contexts. The resultant depressed moods are then dealt with by continued engagement in SNSs, leading to a vicious cycle of addiction [ 53 ]. Cross-cultural research including 10,930 adolescents from six European countries (Greece, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands, Romania, and Iceland) furthermore showed that using SNS for two or more hours a day was related to internalizing problems and decreased academic performance and activity [ 54 ]. In addition, a study using a sample of 920 secondary school students in China indicated neuroticism and extraversion predicted SNS addiction, clearly differentiating individuals who experience problems as a consequence of their excessive SNS use from those individuals who used games or the Internet in general excessively [ 55 ], further contributing to the contention that SNS addiction appears to be a behavioral problem separate from the more commonly researched gaming addiction. In a study using a relatively small representative sample of the Belgian population (n = 1000), results suggested 6.5% were using SNSs compulsively, with this group having lower scores on measures of emotional stability and agreeableness, conscientiousness, perceived control and self-esteem, and higher scores on loneliness and depressive feelings [ 56 ].

2.5. Facebook Addiction Is Only One Example of SNS Addiction

Over the past few years, research in the SNS addiction field has largely focused on a potential addiction to using Facebook specifically, rather than other SNSs (see e.g., [ 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 ]). However, recent research suggests individuals may develop addiction-related problems as a consequence of using other SNSs, such as Instagram [ 66 ]. It has been claimed that users may experience gratification through sharing photos on Instagram , similar to the gratification they experience when using Facebook , suggesting that the motivation to share photos can be explained by uses and gratifications theory [ 66 , 67 ]. This may also be the reason for why individuals have been found to be less likely to experience addiction-related symptoms when using Twitter in contrast to Instagram [ 66 ]. In addition to the gratification received through photo sharing, these websites also allow to explore new identities [ 68 ], which may be considered to contribute to gratification, as supported by previous research [ 69 ]. Research has also suggested that Instagram use in particular appears to be potentially addictive in young UK adults [ 66 ], offering further support for the contention that Facebook addiction is only one example of SNS addiction.

Other than the presence and possible addictive qualities of SNSs other than Facebook , it has been contended that the respective activities which take place on these websites need to be considered when studying addiction [ 70 ]. For instance, Facebook users can play games such as Farmville [ 36 ], gamble online [ 71 ], watch videos, share photos, update their profiles, and message their friends [ 3 ]. Other researchers have moved beyond the actual website use that is referred to in these types of addictions, and specifically focused on the main activities individuals engage in, referring to constructs such as ‘e-communication addiction’ [ 72 ]. It has also been claimed the term ‘ Facebook addiction’ is already obsolete as there are different types of SNSs that can be engaged in and different activities that can take place on these SNSs [ 70 ]. Following this justified criticism, researchers who had previously studied Facebook addiction specifically [ 58 ] have now turned to studying SNS addiction more generally instead [ 73 ], demonstrating the changing definitional parameters of social networking in this evolving field of research.

2.6. Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) May Be Part of SNS Addiction

Recent research [ 74 , 75 ] has suggested that high engagement in social networking is partially due to what has been named the ‘fear of missing out’ (FOMO). FOMO is “a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent” [ 76 ]. Higher levels of FOMO have been associated with greater engagement with Facebook , lower general mood, lower wellbeing, and lower life satisfaction, mixed feelings when using social media, as well as inappropriate and dangerous SNS use (i.e., in university lectures, and or whilst driving) [ 76 ]. In addition to this, research [ 77 ] suggests that FOMO predicts problematic SNS use and is associated with social media addiction [ 78 ], as measured with a scale adapted from the Internet Addiction Test [ 79 ]. It has been debated whether FOMO is a specific construct, or simply a component of relational insecurity, as observed for example with the attachment dimension of preoccupation with relationships in research into problematic Internet use [ 80 ].

In one study using 5280 social media users from several Spanish-speaking Latin-American countries [ 74 ] it was found that FOMO predicts negative consequences of maladaptive SNS use. In addition, this study also found that the relationship between psychopathology (as operationalized by anxiety and depression symptoms and assessed via the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale) and negative consequences of SNS use were mediated by FOMO, emphasizing the importance of FOMO in the self-perceived consequences of high SNS engagement. Moreover, other research [ 75 ] using 506 UK Facebook users has found that FOMO mediates the relationship between high SNS use and decreased self-esteem. Research with psychotherapists working with clients seeking help for their Internet use-related behaviors also suggested that young clients “fear the sort of relentlessness of on-going messaging (…). But concurrently with that is an absolute terror of exclusion” [ 34 ]. Taken together, these findings suggest FOMO may be a significant predictor or possible component of potential SNS addiction, a contention that requires further consideration in future research. Further work is needed into the origins of FOMO (both theoretically and empirically), as well as research into why do some SNS users are prone to FOMO and develop signs of addictions compared to those who do not.

2.7. Smartphone Addiction May Be Part of SNS Addiction

Over the last decade, research assessing problematic and possibly addictive mobile phone use (including smartphones) has proliferated [ 81 ], suggesting some individuals may develop addiction-related problems as a consequence of their mobile phone use. Recent research has suggested problematic mobile phone use is a multi-faceted condition, with dependent use being one of four possible pathways, in addition to dangerous, prohibited, and financially problematic use [ 82 ]. According to the pathway model, an addictive pattern of mobile phone use is characterized by the use of specific applications, including calls, instant messaging, and the use of social networks. This suggests that rather than being an addictive medium per se , mobile technologies including smartphones and tablets are media that enable the engagement in potentially addictive activities, including SNS use. Put another way, it could be argued that mobile phone addicts are no more addicted to their phones than alcoholics are addicted to bottles.

Similarly, it has been argued previously that individuals do not become addicted to the Internet per se , but to the activities they engage in on the Internet, such as gaming [ 50 ] or SNS use [ 3 ]. With the advent and ubiquity of mobile technologies, this supposition is more pertinent than ever. Using social networking sites is a particularly popular activity on smartphones, with around 80% of social media used via mobile technologies [ 83 ]. For instance, approximately 75% of Facebook users access the SNS via their mobile phones [ 84 ]. Therefore, it can be suggested that smartphone addiction may be part of SNS addiction. Previous research [ 73 ] supported this supposition by specifically indicating that social networking is often engaged in via phones, which may contribute to its addictive potential. Accordingly, it is necessary to move towards nosological precision, for the benefit of both individuals seeking help in professional settings, as well as research that will aid developing effective treatment approaches for those in need.

2.8. Nomophobia May Be Part of SNS Addiction

Related to both FOMO and mobile phone addiction is the construct of nomophobia. Nomophobia has been defined as “no mobile phone phobia”, i.e., the fear of being without one’s mobile phone [ 85 ]. Researchers have called for nomophobia to be included in the DSM-5, and the following criteria have been outlined to contribute to this problem constellation: regular and time-consuming use, feelings of anxiety when the phone is not available, “ringxiety” (i.e., repeatedly checking one’s phone for messages, sometimes leading to phantom ring tones), constant availability, preference for mobile communication over face to face communication, and financial problems as a consequence of use [ 85 ]. Nomophobia is inherently related to a fear of not being able to engage in social connections, and a preference for online social interaction (which is the key usage motivation for SNSs [ 3 ]), and has been linked to problematic Internet use and negative consequences of technology use [ 86 ], further pointing to a strong association between nomophobia and SNS addiction symptoms.

Using mobile phones is understood as leading to alterations in everyday life habits and perceptions of reality, which can be associated with negative outcomes, such as impaired social interactions, social isolation, as well as both somatic and mental health problems, including anxiety, depression, and stress [ 85 , 87 ]. Accordingly, nomophobia can lead to using the mobile phone in an impulsive way [ 85 ], and may thus be a contributing factor to SNS addiction as it can facilitate and enhance the repeated use of social networking sites, forming habits that may increase the general vulnerability for the experience of addiction-related symptoms as a consequence of problematic SNS use.

2.9. There Are Sociodemographic Differences in SNS Addiction

Research suggests there are sociodemographic differences among those addicted to social networking. In terms of gender, psychotherapists treating technology-use related addictions suggest SNS addiction may be more common in female rather than male patients, and describe this difference based on usage motivations:

(…) girls don’t play role-playing games primarily, but use social forums excessively, in order to experience social interaction with other girls and above all to feel understood in their very individual problem constellations, very different from boys, who want to experience narcissistic gratification via games. This means the girls want direct interaction. They want to feel understood. They want to be able to express themselves. (…) we’re getting girls with clinical pictures that are so pronounced that we have to admit them into inpatient treatment. (…) we have to develop strategies to specifically target girls much better because there appears a huge gap. Epidemiologically, they are a very important group, but we’re not getting them into consultation and treatment. [ 34 ]

This quote highlights two important findings. First, in the age group of 14–16 years, girls appear to show a higher prevalence of addictions to the Internet and SNSs, as found in a representative German sample [ 88 ], and second, teenage girls may be underrepresented in clinical samples. Moreover, another study on a representative sample demonstrated that the distribution of addiction criteria varies between genders and that extraversion is a personality trait differentiating between intensive and addictive use [ 89 ].

Cross-sectional research is less conclusive as regards the contribution of gender as a risk factor for SNS addiction. A higher prevalence of Facebook addiction was found in a sample of 423 females in Norway using the Facebook Addiction Scale [ 58 ]. Among Turkish teacher candidates, the trend was reversed, suggesting males were significantly more likely to be addicted to using Facebook [ 90 ] as assessed via an adapted version of Young’s Internet Addiction Test [ 79 ].

In other studies, no relationship between gender and addiction was found. For instance, using a version of Young’s Internet Addiction Test modified for SNS addiction in 277 young Chinese smartphone users, gender did not predict SNS addiction [ 91 ]. Similarly, another study assessing SNS dependence in 194 SNS users did not find a relationship between gender and SNS dependence [ 51 ]. In a study of 447 university students in Turkey, Facebook addiction was assessed using the Facebook Addiction Scale, but did not find a predictive relationship between gender and Facebook addiction [ 62 ].

Furthermore, the relationships between gender and SNS addiction may be further complicated by other variables. For instance, recent research by Oberst et al. [ 74 ] found that only for females, anxiety and depression symptoms significantly predicted negative consequences of SNS use. The researchers explained this difference by suggesting that anxiety and depression experience in girls may result in higher SNS usage, implicating cyclical relationships in that psychopathological symptom experience may exacerbate negative consequences due to SNS use, which may then negatively impact upon perceived anxiety and depression symptoms.

In terms of age, studies indicate that younger individuals may be more likely to develop problems as a consequence of their excessive engagement with online social networking sites [ 92 ]. Moreover, research suggests perceptions as to the extent of possible addiction appear to differ across generations. A recent study by [ 72 ] found that parents view their adolescents’ online communication as more addictive than the adolescents themselves perceive it to be. This suggests that younger generations significantly differ from older generations in how they use technology, what place it has in their lives, and how problematic they may experience their behaviors to be. It also suggests that external accounts (such as those from parents in the case of children and adolescents) may be useful for clinicians and researchers in assessing the extent of a possible problem as adolescents may not be aware of the potential negative consequences that may arise as a result of their excessive online communication use. Interestingly, research also found that mothers are more likely to view their adolescents’ behavior as potentially more addictive relative to fathers, whose perception tended to be that of online communication use being less of a problem [ 72 ]. Taken together, although there appear differences in SNS addiction with regards to sociodemographic characteristics of the samples studied, such as gender, future research is required in order to clearly indicate where these differences lie specifically, given that much of current research appears somewhat inconclusive.

2.10. There Are Methodological Problems with Research to Date

Given that the research field is relatively young, studies investigating social networking site addiction unsurprisingly suffer from a number of methodological problems. Currently, there are few estimations of the prevalence of social networking addiction with most studies comprising small and unrepresentative samples [ 3 ]. As far as the authors are aware, only one study (in Hungary) has used a nationally representative sample. The study by Bányai and colleagues [ 93 ] reported that 4.5% of 5961 adolescents (mean age 16 years old) were categorized as ‘at-risk’ of social networking addiction using the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale. However, most studies investigating social networking addiction use various assessment tools, different diagnostic criteria as well as varying cut-off points, making generalizations and study cross-comparisons difficult [ 53 ].

Studies have made use of several different psychometric scales and six of these are briefly described below. The Addictive Tendencies Scale (ATS) [ 94 ] is based on addiction theory and uses three items, salience, loss of control, and withdrawal, whilst viewing SNS addiction as dimensional construct. The Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS) [ 58 ] is based on Griffiths’ [ 45 ] addiction components, using a polythetic scoring method (scoring 3 out of 4 on each criterion on a minimum of four of the six criteria) and has been shown to have good psychometric properties. The Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale is similar to the BFAS in that ‘ Facebook ’ is replaced with ‘Social Media’ [ 95 ]. The E-Communication Addiction Scale [ 72 ] includes 22 questions with four subscales scored on a five-point Likert scale—addressing issues such as lack of self-control (cognitive), e-communication use in extraordinary places, worries, and control difficulty (behavioral)—and it has been found to have a high internal consistency, measuring e-communication addiction across different severity levels, ranging from very low to very high.

The Facebook Dependence Questionnaire (FDQ) [ 96 ] uses eight items based on the Internet Addiction Scale [ 97 ], with the endorsement of five out of eight criteria signifying addiction to using Facebook . The Social Networking Addiction Scale (SNWAS) [ 51 ] is a five-item scale which uses Charlton and Danforth’s engagement vs. addiction questionnaire [ 98 , 99 ] as a basis, viewing SNS addiction as a dimensional construct. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but those assessment tools highlighted here simply demonstrate that the current social networking addiction scales are based on different theoretical frameworks and use various cut-offs, and this precludes researchers from making cross-study comparisons, and severely limits the reliability of current SNS epidemiological addiction research.

Taken together, the use of different conceptualizations, assessment instruments, and cut-off points decreases the reliability of prevalence estimates because it hampers comparisons across studies, and it also questions the construct validity of SNS addiction. Accordingly, researchers are advised to develop appropriate criteria that are clinically sensitive to identify individuals who present with SNS addiction specifically, whilst clinicians will benefit from a reliable and valid diagnosis in terms of treatment development and delivery.

3. Discussion

In this paper, lessons learned from the recent empirical literature on social networking and addiction have been presented, following on from earlier work [ 3 ] when research investigating SNS addiction was in its infancy. The research presented suggests SNSs have become a way of being, with millions of people around the world regularly accessing SNSs using a variety of devices, including technologies on the go (i.e., tablets, smartphones), which appear to be particularly popular for using SNSs. The activity of social networking itself appears to be specifically eclectic and constantly changing, ranging from using traditional sites such as Facebook to more socially-based online gaming platforms and dating platforms, all allowing users to connect based on shared interests. Research has shown that there is a fine line between frequent non-problematic habitual use and problematic and possibly addictive use of SNSs, suggesting that users who experience symptoms and consequences traditionally associated with substance-related addictions (i.e., salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, relapse, and conflict) may be addicted to using SNSs. Research has also indicated that a fear of missing out (FOMO) may contribute to SNS addiction, because individuals who worry about being unable to connect to their networks may develop impulsive checking habits that over time may develop into an addiction. The same thing appears to hold true for mobile phone use and a fear of being without one’s mobile phone (i.e., nomophobia), which may be viewed as a medium that enables the engagement in SNSs (rather than being addictive per se ). Given that engaging in social networking is a key activity engaged in using mobile technologies, FOMO, nomophobia, and mobile phone addiction appear to be associated with SNS addiction, with possible implications for assessment and future research.

In addition to this, the lessons learned from current research suggest there are sociodemographic differences in SNS addiction. The lack of consistent findings regarding a relationship with gender may be due to different sampling techniques and various assessment instruments used, as well as the presence of extraneous variables that may contribute to the relationships found. All of these factors highlight possible methodological problems of current SNS addiction research (e.g., lack of cross-comparisons due to differences in sampling and classification, lack of control of confounding variables), which need to be addressed in future empirical research. In addition to this, research suggests younger generations may be more at risk for developing addictive symptoms as a consequence of their SNS use, whilst perceptions of SNS addiction appear to differ across generations. Younger individuals tend to view their SNS use as less problematic than their parents might, further contributing to the contention that SNS use has become a way of being and is contextual, which must be separated from the experience of actual psychopathological symptoms. The ultimate aim of research must be not to overpathologize everyday behaviors, but to carry out better quality research as this will help facilitate treatment efforts in order to provide support for those who may need it.

Based on the 10 lessons learned from recent SNS addiction research, the following recommendations are provided. First, researchers are recommended to consider including an assessment of FOMO and/or nomophobia in SNS addiction screening instruments because both constructs appear related to SNS addiction. Second, it is recommended that social networking site use is measured across different technologies with which it can be accessed, including mobile and smartphones. It is of fundamental importance to study what kinds of activities are being engaged in online (social networking, gaming, etc.), rather than the medium through which these activities are engaged in (i.e., desktop computer, tablet, mobile/smartphone). Third, risk factors associated with problematic social networking need to be assessed longitudinally to provide a clearer indication of developmental etiology, and to allow for the design of targeted prevention approaches. Fourth, clinical samples need to be included in research in order to ensure the sensitivity and specificity of the screening instruments developed. Fifth, in terms of treatment, unlike treating substance-related addictions, the main treatment goal should be control rather than abstinence. Arguably, abstinence cannot realistically be achieved in the context of SNS addiction because the Internet and social networking have become integral elements of our lives [ 3 , 8 , 33 ]. Rather than discontinuing social networking completely, therapy should focus on establishing controlled SNS use and media awareness [ 53 ].

4. Conclusions

This paper has outlined ten lessons learned from recent empirical literature on online social networking and addiction. Based on the presented evidence, the way forward in the emerging research field of social networking addiction requires the establishment of consensual nosological precision, so that both researchers and clinical practitioners can work together and establish productive communication between the involved parties that enable reliable and valid assessments of SNS addiction and associated behaviors (e.g., problematic mobile phone use), and the development of targeted and specific treatment approaches to ameliorate the negative consequences of such disorders.

Acknowledgments

This work did not receive any funding.

Author Contributions

The first author wrote the first complete draft of the paper based on an idea by the second author. The authors then worked collaboratively and iteratively on subsequent drafts of the paper.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Social Media Adoption, Usage And Impact In Business-To-Business (B2B) Context: A State-Of-The-Art Literature Review

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  • Published: 02 February 2021
  • Volume 25 , pages 971–993, ( 2023 )

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  • Yogesh K. Dwivedi 1 ,
  • Elvira Ismagilova 2 ,
  • Nripendra P. Rana 2 &
  • Ramakrishnan Raman 3  

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Social media plays an important part in the digital transformation of businesses. This research provides a comprehensive analysis of the use of social media by business-to-business (B2B) companies. The current study focuses on the number of aspects of social media such as the effect of social media, social media tools, social media use, adoption of social media use and its barriers, social media strategies, and measuring the effectiveness of use of social media. This research provides a valuable synthesis of the relevant literature on social media in B2B context by analysing, performing weight analysis and discussing the key findings from existing research on social media. The findings of this study can be used as an informative framework on social media for both, academic and practitioners.

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Using Social Media for Business: Tools, Benefits and Pitfalls

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1 Introduction

The Internet has changed social communications and social behaviour, which lead to the development of new forms of communication channels and platforms (Ismagilova et al. 2017 ). Social media plays an important part in the digital transformation of businesses (Kunsman 2018 ). Digital transformation refers to the globally accelerated process of technical adaptation by companies and communities as a result of digitalisation (Sivarajah et al. 2019 ; Westerman et al. 2014 ). Web is developed from a tool used to provide passive information into the collaborative web, which allows and encourages active user engagement and contribution. If before social networks were used to provide the information about a company or brand, nowadays businesses use social media in their marketing aims and strategies to improve consumers’ involvement, relationship with customers and get useful consumers’ insights (Alalwan et al. 2017 ). Business-to-consumer (B2C) companies widely use social media as part of their digital transformation and enjoy its benefits such as an increase in sales, brand awareness, and customer engagement to name a few (Barreda et al. 2015 ; Chatterjee and Kar 2020 ; Harrigan et al. 2020 ; Kamboj et al. 2018 ; Kapoor et al. 2018 ).

From a marketing and sales research perspective, social media is defined as “the technological component of the communication, transaction and relationship building functions of a business which leverages the network of customers and prospects to promote value co-creation” (Andzulis et al. 2012 p.308). Industrial buyers use social media for their purchase as they compare products, research the market and build relationships with salesperson (Itani et al. 2017 ). Social media changed the way how buyers and sellers interact (Agnihotri et al. 2016 ) by enabling open and broad communications and cooperation between them (Rossmann and Stei 2015 ). Social media is an important facilitator of relationships between a company and customers (Agnihotri et al. 2012 ; Tedeschi 2006 ). Customers are more connected to companies, which make them more knowledgable about product selection and more powerful in buyer-seller relationships (Agnihotri et al. 2016 ). Social media also helps companies to increase business exposure, traffic and providing marketplace insight (Agnihotri et al. 2016 ; Stelzner 2011 ). As a result, the use of social media supports business decision processes and helps to improve companies’ performance (Rossmann and Stei 2015 ).

Due to digitalisation customers are becoming more informed and rely less on traditional selling initiatives (Ancillai et al. 2019 ). Buyers are relying more on digital resources and their buying process more often involves the use of social media. For example, in the research B2B buyer survey, 82% of buyers stated that social media content has a significant impact on the purchase decision (Ancillai et al. 2019 ; Minsky and Quesenberry 2016 ). As a result, these changes in consumer behaviour place high pressure on B2B salespeople and traditional sales companies (Ancillai et al. 2019 ). By using evidence from major B2B companies and consultancy report some studies claim that social media can be applied in sales to establish effective dialogues with buyers (Ancillai et al. 2019 ; Kovac 2016 ; McKinsey and Company 2015 ).

Now, business-to-business (B2B) companies started using social media as part of their digital transformation. 83% of B2B companies use social media, which makes it the most common marketing tactic (Pulizzi and Handley 2017 ; Sobal 2017 ). More than 70% of B2B companies use at least one of the “big 4” social media sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Additionally, 50% of the companies stated that social media has improved their marketing optimization and customer experience, while 25% stated that their revenue went up (Gregorio 2017 ; Sobal 2017 ). Even though B2B companies are benefitting from social media used by marketers, it is argued that research on that area is still in the embryonic stage and future research is needed (Salo 2017 ; Siamagka et al. 2015 ; Juntunen et al. 2020 ; Iannacci et al. 2020 ). There is a limited understanding of how B2B companies need to change to embrace recent technological innovations and how it can lead to business and societal transformation (Chen et al. 2012 ; Loebbecke and Picot 2015 ; Pappas et al. 2018 ).

The topic of social media in the context of B2B companies has started attracting attention from both academics and practitioners. This is evidenced by the growing number of research output within academic journals and conference proceedings. Some studies provided a comprehensive literature review on social media use by B2B companies (Pascucci et al. 2018 ; Salo 2017 ), but focused only on adoption of social media by B2B or social media influence, without providing the whole picture of the use of social media by B2B companies. Thus, this study aims to close this gap in the literature by conducting a comprehensive analysis of the use of social media by B2B companies and discuss its role in the digital transformation of B2B companies. The findings of this study can provide an informative framework for research on social media in the context of B2B companies for academics and practitioners.

The remaining sections of the study are organised as follows. Section 2 offers a brief overview of the methods used to identify relevant studies to be included in this review. Section 3 synthesises the studies identified in the previous section and provides a detailed overview. Section 4 presents weight analysis and its findings. Next section discusses the key aspects of the research, highlights any limitations within existing studies and explores the potential directions for future research. Finally, the paper is concluded in Section 6 .

2 Literature Search Method

The approach utilised in this study aligns with the recommendations in Webster and Watson ( 2002 ). This study used a keyword search-based approach for identifying relevant articles (Dwivedi et al. 2019b ; Ismagilova et al. 2020a ; Ismagilova et al. 2019 ; Jeyaraj and Dwivedi 2020 ; Williams et al. 2015 ). Keywords such as “Advertising” OR “Marketing” OR “Sales” AND TITLE (“Social Media” OR “Web 2.0” OR “Facebook” OR “LinkedIn” OR “Instagram” OR “Twitter” OR “Snapchat” OR “Pinterest” OR “WhatsApp” OR “Social Networking Sites”) AND TITLE-ABS-KEY (“B2B” OR “B to B” OR “Business to Business” OR “Business 2 Business”) were searched via the Scopus database. Scopus database was chosen to ensure the inclusion of only high quality studies. Use of online databases for conducting a systematic literature review became an emerging culture used by a number of information systems research studies (Dwivedi et al. 2019a ; Gupta et al. 2019 ; Ismagilova et al. 2020b ; Muhammad et al. 2018 ; Rana et al. 2019 ). The search resulted in 80 articles. All studies were processed by the authors in order to ensure relevance and that the research offered a contribution to the social media in the context B2B discussion. The search and review resulted in 70 articles and conference papers that formed the literature review for this study. The selected studies appeared in 33 separate journals and conference proceedings, including journals such as Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing and Journal of Business Research.

3 Literature Synthesis

The studies on social media research in the context of B2B companies were divided into the following themes: effect of social media, adoption of social media, social media strategies, social media use, measuring the effectiveness of use of social media, and social media tools (see Table 1 ). The following subsections provide an overview of each theme.

3.1 Effect of Social Media

Some studies focus on the effect of social media for B2B companies, which include customer satisfaction, value creation, intention to buy and sales, building relationships with customers, brand awareness, knowledge creation, perceived corporate credibility, acquiring of new customers, salesperson performance, employee brand engagement, and sustainability (Table 2 ).

3.1.1 Customer Satisfaction

Some studies investigated how the use of social media affected customer satisfaction (Agnihotri et al. 2016 ; Ancillai et al. 2019 ; Rossmann and Stei 2015 ). For example, Agnihotri et al. ( 2016 ) investigated how the implementation of social media by B2B salesperson affects consumer satisfaction. Salesperson’s social media use is defined as a “salesperson’s utilization and integration of social media technology to perform his or her job” (Agnihotri et al. 2016 , p.2). The study used data from 111 sales professionals involved in B2B industrial selling to test the proposed hypotheses. It was found that a salesperson’s use of social media will have a positive effect on information communication, which will, in turn, lead to improved customer satisfaction with the salesperson. Also, it was investigated that information communication will be positively related to responsiveness, which impacts customer satisfaction.

Another study by Rossmann and Stei ( 2015 ) looked at the antecedents of social media use, social media use by B2B companies and their effect on customers. By using data from 362 chief information officers of B2B companies the study found the following. Social media usage of sales representative has a positive impact on customer satisfaction. Age has a negative effect on content generation. It seems that older salespeople use social media in passive ways or interacting with the customer rather than creating their own content. It was found that the quality of corporate social media strategy has a positive impact on social media usage in terms of the consumption of information, content generation, and active interaction with customers. Also, the expertise of a salesperson in the area of social media has a positive impact on social media usage.

3.1.2 Value Creation

Research in B2B found that social media can create value for customers and salesperson (Agnihotri et al. 2012 ; Agnihotri et al. 2017 ). Agnihotri et al. ( 2012 ) proposed a theoretical framework to explain the mechanisms through which salespeople’s use of social media operates to create value and propose a strategic approach to social media use to achieve competitive goals. The study draws on the existing literature on relationship marketing, task–technology fit theory, and sales service behavior to sketch a social media strategy for business-to-business sales organizations with relational selling objectives. The proposed framework describes how social media tools can help salespeople perform service behaviors (information sharing, customer service, and trust-building) leading to value creation.

Some researchers investigated the role of the salesperson in the value creation process after closing the sale. By employing salesperson-customer data within a business-to-business context, Agnihotri et al. ( 2017 ) analysed the direct effects of sales-based CRM technology on the post-sale service behaviors: diligence, information communication, inducements, empathy, and sportsmanship. Additionally, the study examines the interactive effects of sales-based CRM technology and social media on these behaviors. The results indicate that sales-based CRM technology has a positive influence on salesperson service behaviors and that salespeople using CRM technology in conjunction with social media are more likely to exhibit higher levels of SSBs than their counterparts with low social media technology use. Data were collected from 162 salespeople from India. SmartPLS was used to analyse the data.

3.1.3 Intention to Buy and Sales

Another group of studies investigated the effect of social media on the level of sales and consumer purchase intention (Ancillai et al. 2019 ; Itani et al. 2017 ; Salo 2017 ; Hsiao et al. 2020 ; Mahrous 2013 ). For example, Itani et al. ( 2017 ) used the theory of reasoned actions to develop a model that tests the factors affecting the use of social media by salesperson and its impact. By collecting data from 120 salespersons from different industries and using SmartPLS to analyse the data, it was found that attitude towards social media usefulness did not affect the use of social media. It was found that social media use positively affects competitive intelligence collection, adaptive selling behaviour, which in turn influenced sales performance. Another study by Ancillai et al. ( 2019 ) used in-depth interviews with social selling professionals. The findings suggest that the use of social media improves not only the level of sales but also affects relationship and customer performance (trust, customer satisfaction, customer referrals); and organisational performance (organisational selling performance and brand performance).

It was investigated that social media has a positive effect on the intention to purchase (Hsiao et al. 2020 ; Mahrous 2013 ). For instance, Mahrous ( 2013 ) by reviewing the literature on B2B and B2C companies concluded that social media has a significant influence on consumer buying behaviour.

3.1.4 Customer Relationships

Another group of studies focused on the effect of social media on customer relationships (Bhattacharjya and Ellison 2015 ; Gáti et al. 2018 ; Gruner and Power 2018 ; Hollebeek 2019 ; Iankova et al. 2018 ; Jussila et al. 2011 ; Kho 2008 ; Niedermeier et al. 2016 ; Ogilvie et al. 2018 ). For example, Bhattacharjya and Ellison ( 2015 ) investigated the way companies build relationships with customers by using responsive customer relationship management. The study analysed customer relationship management activities from Twitter account of a Canadian company Shopify (B2B service provider). The company uses Twitter to engage with small business customers, develops and consumers. Jussila et al. ( 2011 ), by reviewing the literature, found that social media leads to increased customer focus and understanding, increased level of customer service and decreased time-to-market.

Gáti et al. ( 2018 ) focused their research efforts on social media use in customer relationship performance, particularly in customer relations. The study investigated the adoption and impact of social media by salespeople of B2B companies. By using data of 112 salespeople from several industries the study found that the intensity of technology use positively affects attitude towards social media, which positively affects social media use. Intensive technology use in turn positively affects customer relationship performance (customer retention). PLS-SEM was applied for analysis.

Another study by Gruner and Power ( 2018 ) investigated the effectiveness of the use of multiple social media platforms in communications with customers. By using data from 208 large Australian organisations, the paper explores how companies’ investment in one form of social media impacts activity on another form of social media. A regression analysis was performed to analyse the data. It was found that widespread activities on LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube have a negative effect on a company’s marketing activity on Facebook. Thus, having it is more effective for the company to focus on a specific social media platform in forming successful inter-organisational relationships with customers.

Hollebeek ( 2019 ) proposed an integrative S-D logic/resource-based view (RBV) model of customer engagement. The proposed model considers business customer actors and resources in driving business customer resource integration, business customer resource integration effectiveness and business customer resource integration efficiency, which are antecedents of business customer engagement. Business customer engagement, in turn, results in business customer co-creation and relationship productivity.

Niedermeier et al. ( 2016 ) investigated the use of social media among salespeople in the pharmaceutical industry in China. Also, the study investigated the impact of social media on building culturally specific Guanxi relationships-it involves the exchange of factors to build trust and connection for business purpose. By using in-depth interviews with 3 sales managers and a survey of 42 pharmaceutical sales representatives that study found that WeChat is the most common social media platform used by businesses. Also, it was found to be an important tool in building Guanxi. Future studies should focus on other industries and other types of cultural features in doing business.

Ogilvie et al. ( 2018 ) investigated the effect of social media technologies on customer relationship performance and objective sales performance by using two empirical studies conducted in the United States. The first study used 375 salespeople from 1200 B2B companies. The second study used 181 respondents from the energy solution company. It was found that social media significantly affects salesperson product information communication, diligence, product knowledge and adaptability, which in turn affect customer relationship performance. It was also found that the use of social media technologies without training on technology will not lead to good results. Thus, the results propose that companies should allocate the resources required for the proper implementation of social media strategies. Future research should examine how the personality traits of a salesperson can moderate the implementation of social media technologies.

While most of the studies focused on a single country, Iankova et al. ( 2018 ) investigated the perceived effectiveness of social media by different types of businesses in two countries. By using 449 respondents from the US and the UK businesses, it was found that social media is potentially less important, at the present time, for managing ongoing relationships in B2B organizations than for B2C, Mixed or B2B2C organizations. All types of businesses ascribe similar importance to social media for acquisition-related activities. Also it was found that B2B organizations see social media as a less effective communication channel, and to have less potential as a channel for the business.

3.1.5 Brand Awareness

Some researchers argued that social media can influence brand awareness (Ancillai et al. 2019 ; Hsiao et al. 2020 ). For instance, Hsiao et al. ( 2020 ) investigated the effect of social media in the fashion industry. By collecting 1395 posts from lookbook.nu and employing regression analysis it was found that the inclusion of national brand and private fashion brands in the post increased the level of popularity which leads to purchasing interest and brand awareness.

3.1.6 Knowledge Creation

Multiple types of collaborative web tools can help and significantly increase the collaboration and the use of the distributed knowledge inside and outside of the company (McAfee 2006 ). Kärkkäinen et al. ( 2011 ) by analysing previous literature on social media proposed that social media use has a positive effect on sharing and creation of customer information and knowledge in the case of B2B companies.

3.1.7 Corporate Credibility

Another study by Kho ( 2008 ) states the advantages of using social media by B2B companies, which include faster and more personalised communications between customer and vendor, which can improve corporate credibility and strengthen the relationships. Thanks to social media companies can provide more detailed information about their products and services. Kho ( 2008 ) also mentions that customer forums and blog comments in the B2B environment should be carefully monitored in order to make sure that inappropriate discussions are taken offline and negative eWOM communications should be addressed in a timely manner.

3.1.8 Acquiring New Customers

Meire et al. ( 2017 ) investigated the impact of social media on acquiring B2B customers. By using commercially purchased prospecting data, website data and Facebook data from beverage companies the study conducted an experiment and found that social media us an effective tool in acquiring B2B customers. Future work might assess the added value of social media pages for profitability prediction instead of prospect conversion. When a longer timeframe becomes available (e.g., after one year), the profitability of the converted prospects can be assessed.

3.1.9 Salesperson Performance

Moncrief et al. ( 2015 ) investigated the impact of social media technologies on the role of salesperson position. It was found that social media affects sales management functions (supervision, selection, training, compensation, and deployment) and salesperson performance (role, skill, and motivation). Another study by Rodriguez et al. ( 2012 ) examines the effect of social media on B2B sales performance by using social capital theory and collecting data from 1699 B2B salespeople from over 25 different industries. By employing SEM AMOS, the study found that social media usage has a positive significant relationship with selling companies’ ability to create opportunities and manage relationships. The study also found that social media usage has a positive and significant relationship with sales performance (based on relational measurers of sales that focus on behaviours that strengthen the relationship between buyers and sellers), but not with outcome-based sales performance (reflected by quota achievement, growth in average billing size, and overall revenue gain).

3.1.10 Employee Brand Management

The study by Pitt et al. ( 2018 ) focuses on employee engagement with B2B companies on social media. By using results from Glassdoor (2315 five-star and 1983 one-star reviews for the highest-ranked firms, and 1013 five star and 1025 one-star reviews for lowest ranked firms) on employee brand engagement on social media, two key drivers of employee brand engagement by using the content analysis tool DICTION were identified-optimism and commonality. Individuals working in top-ranked companies expressed a higher level of optimism and commonality in comparison with individuals working in low-ranked companies. As a result, a 2 × 2 matrix was constructed which can help managers to choose strategies in order to increase and improve employee brand engagement. Another study by Pitt et al. ( 2017 ) focused on employee engagement of B2B companies on social media. By using a conceptual framework based on a theory of word choice and verbal tone and 6300 reviews collected from Glassdoor and analysed using DICTION. The study found that employees of highly ranked B2B companies are more positive about their employer brand and talk more optimistically about these brands. For low ranked B2B companies it was found that employees express a greater level of activity, certainty, and realism. Also, it was found that they used more aggressive language.

3.1.11 Sustainability

Sustainability refers to the strategy that helps a business “to meet its current requirements without compromising its ability to meet future needs” (World Commission Report on Environment and Development 1987 , p 41). Two studies out of 70 focused on the role of social media for B2B sustainability (Sivarajah et al. 2019 ; Kasper et al. 2015 ). For example, Sivarajah et al. ( 2019 ) argued that big data and social media within a participatory web environment to enable B2B organisations to become profitable and remain sustainable through strategic operations and marketing related business activities.

Another study by Kasper et al. ( 2015 ) proposed the Social Media Matrix which helps companies to decide which social media activities to execute based on their corporate and communication goals. The matrix includes three parts. The first part is focusing on social media goals and task areas, which were identified and matched. The second part consists of five types of social media activities (content, interaction/dialog, listening and analysing, application and networking). The third part provides a structure to assess the suitability of each activity type on each social media platform for each goal. The matrix was successfully tested by assessing the German B2B sector by using expert interviews with practitioners.

Based on the reviewed studies, it can be seen that if used appropriately social media have positive effect on B2B companies before and after sales, such as customer satisfaction, value creation, intention to buy and sales, customer relationships, brand awareness, knowledge creation, corporate credibility, acquiring new customers, salesperson performance, employee brand management, and sustainability. However, limited research is done on the negative effect of social media on b2b companies.

3.2 Adoption of Social Media

Some scholars investigated factors affecting the adoption of social media by B2B companies (Buratti et al. 2018 ; Gáti et al. 2018 ; Gazal et al. 2016 ; Itani et al. 2017 ; Kumar and Möller 2018 ; Lacka and Chong 2016 ). For instance, Lacka and Chong ( 2016 ) investigated factors affecting the adoption of social media by B2B companies from different industries in China. The study collected the data from 181 respondents and used the technology acceptance model with Nielsen’s model of attributes of system acceptability as a theoretical framework. By using SEM AMOS for analysis the study found that perceived usability, perceived usefulness, and perceived utility positively affect adoption and use of social media by B2B marketing professionals. The usefulness is subject to the assessment of whether social media sites are suitable means through which marketing activities can be conducted. The ability to use social media sites for B2B marketing purposes, in turn, is due to those sites learnability and memorability attributes.

Another study by Müller et al. ( 2018 ) investigated factors affecting the usage of social media. By using survey data from 100 Polish and 39 German sensor suppliers, it was found that buying frequency, the function of a buyer, the industry sector and the country does not affect the usage of social media in the context of sensor technology from Poland and Germany. The study used correlation analysis and ANOVA.

Lashgari et al. ( 2018 ) studied the adoption and use of social media by using face-to-face interviews with key managers of four multinational corporations and observations from companies’ websites and social media platforms. It was found that that the elements essential in forming the B2B firm’s social media adoption strategies are content (depth and diversity), corresponding social media platform, the structure of social media channels, the role of moderators, information accessibility approaches (public vs. gated-content), and online communities. These elements are customized to the goals and target group the firm sets to pursue. Similarly, integration of social media into other promotional channels can fall under an ad-hoc or continuous approach depending on the scope and the breadth of the communication plan, derived from the goal.

Similar to Lashgari et al. ( 2018 ), Shaltoni ( 2017 ) used data from managers. The study applied technology organisational environmental framework and diffusion of innovations to investigate factors affecting the adoption of social media by B2B companies. By using data from marketing managers or business owners of 480 SMEs, the study found that perceived relative advance, perceive compatibility, organizational innovativeness, competitor pressure, and customer pressure influence the adoption of social media by B2B companies. The findings also suggest that many decision-makers in B2B companies think that Internet marketing is not beneficial, as it is not compatible with the nature of B2B markets.

Buratti et al. ( 2018 ) investigated the adoption of social media by tanker shipping companies and ocean carriers. By using data from 60 companies the following was found. LinkedIn is the most used tool, with a 93.3% adoption rate. Firm size emerges as a predictor of Twitter’s adoption: big companies unveil a higher attitude to use it. Finally, the country of origin is not a strong influential factor in the adoption rate. Nonetheless, Asian firms clearly show a lower attitude to join SM tools such as Facebook (70%) and LinkedIn (86.7%), probably also due to governmental web restrictions imposed in China. External dimensions such as the core business, the firm size, the geographic area of origin, etc., seem to affect network wideness. Firm size, also, discriminates the capacity of firms to build relational networks. Bigger firms create networks larger than small firms do. Looking at geographical dimensions, Asian firms confirm to be far less active on SM respect to European and North American firms. Finally, the study analyzed the format of the contents disclosed by sample firms, observing quite limited use of photos and videos: in the sample industries, informational contents seem more appropriate for activating a dialogue with stakeholders and communication still appears formulated in a very traditional manner. Preliminary findings suggest that companies operating in conservative B2B services pursue different strategic approaches toward SMM and develop ad hoc communication tactics. Nonetheless, to be successful in managing SM tools, a high degree of commitment and a clear vision concerning the role of SM within communication and marketing strategy is necessary.

Gazal et al. ( 2016 ) investigated the adoption and measuring of the effectiveness of social media in the context of the US forest industry by using organisational-level adoption framework and TAM. By using data from 166 companies and performing regression analysis, the following results were received. Years in business, new sales revenue, product type, amount of available information on a company website, perceived importance of e-commerce and perceived ease of use of social media significantly affected social media use. Also, it was found that companies’ strategies and internal resources and capabilities and influence a company’s decision to adopt social media. Also, it was found that 94 of respondents do not measure the ROI from social media use. The reason is that the use of social media in marketing is relatively new and companies do not possess the knowledge of measuring ROI from the use of social media. Companies mostly use quantitative metrics (number of site visits, number of social network friends, number of comments and profile views) and qualitative metrics (growth of relationships with the key audience, audience participation, moving from monologue to dialogue with consumers. Facebook was found to be the most effective social media platform reported by the US forest industry.

The study by Kumar and Möller ( 2018 ) investigated the role of social media for B2B companies in their recruitment practices. By using data from international B2B company with headquarter in Helsinki, Finland comprised of 139 respondents it was found that brand familiarity encourages them to adopt social media platforms for a job search; however, the effect of the persuasiveness of recruitment messages on users’ adoption of social media platforms for their job search behavior is negative. The study used correlation analysis and descriptive analysis to analyse the data.

Nunan et al. ( 2018 ) identified areas for future research such as patterns of social media adoption, the role of social media platforms within the sales process, B2B consumer engagement and social media, modeling the ROI of social media, and the risks of social media within B2B sales relationships.

The study by Pascucci et al. ( 2018 ) conducted a systematic literature review on antecedents affecting the adoption and use of social media by B2B companies. By reviewing 29 studies published in academic journal and conferences from 2001 to 2017, the study identified external (pressure from customers, competitors, availability of external information about social media) and internal factors (personal characteristics -managers age, individual commitment, perceptions of social media-perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived utility), which can affect adoption of social media.

The study by Siamagka et al. ( 2015 ) aims to investigate factors affecting the adoption of social media by B2B organisations. The conceptual model was based on the technology acceptance model and the resource-based theory. AMOS software and Structural equation modelling were employed to test the proposed hypotheses. By using a sample of 105 UK companies, the study found that perceived usefulness of social media is influenced by image, perceived ease of use and perceived barriers. Also, it was found that social media adoption is significantly determined by organisational innovativeness and perceived usefulness. Additionally, the study tested the moderating role of organisational innovativeness and found that it does not affect the adoption of social media by B2B organisations. The study also identified that perceived barriers to SNS (uncertainty about how to use SNS to achieve objectives, employee’s lack of knowledge about SNS, high cost of investment needed to adopt the technology) have a negative impact on perceived usefulness of social media by B2B organisations. The study also used nine in-depth interviews with B2B senior managers and social media specialists about adoption of social media by B2B. It was found that perceived pressure from stakeholders influences B2B organisations’ adoption intention of social media. Future research should test it by using quantitative methods.

While most of the studies focused on the antecedents of social media adoption by B2B companies, Michaelidou et al. ( 2011 ) investigated the usage, perceived barriers and measuring the effectiveness of social media. By using data from 92 SMEs the study found that over a quarter of B2B SMEs in the UK are currently using SNS to achieve brand objectives, the most popular of which is to attract new customers. The barriers that prevent SMEs from using social media to support their brands were lack of staff familiarity and technical skills. Innovativeness of a company determined the adoption of social media. It was found that most of the companies do not evaluate the effectiveness of their SNS in supporting their brand. The most popular measures were the number of users joining the groups/discussion and the number of comments made. The findings showed that the size of the company does not influence the usage of social media for small and medium-sized companies. Future research should investigate the usage of social media in large companies and determine if the size can have and influence on the use. The benefits of using social media include increasing awareness and communicating the brand online. B2B companies can employ social media to create customer value in the form of interacting with customers, as well as building and fostering customer relationships. Future research should investigate the reasons why most of the users do not assess the effectiveness of their SNS. Future research should also investigate how the attitude towards technology can influence the adoption of social media.

Based on the reviewed studies it can be seen that the main factors affecting the adoption of social media by B2B companies are perceived usability, technical skills of employees, pressure from stakeholders, perceived usefulness and innovativeness.

3.3 Social Media Strategies

Another group of studies investigated types of strategies B2B companies apply (Cawsey and Rowley 2016 ; Huotari et al. 2015 ; Kasper et al. 2015 ; McShane et al. 2019 ; Mudambi et al. 2019 ; Swani et al. 2013 ; Swani et al. 2014 ; Swani et al. 2017 ; Watt 2010 ). For example, Cawsey and Rowley ( 2016 ) focused on the social media strategies of B2B companies. By conducting semi-structured interviews with marketing professionals from France, Ireland, the UK and the USA it was found that enhancing brand image, extending brand awareness and facilitating customer engagement were considered the most common social media objective. The study proposed the B2B social media strategy framework, which includes six components of a social media strategy: 1) monitoring and listening 2) empowering and engaging employees 3) creating compelling content 4) stimulating eWOM 5) evaluating and selecting channels 6) enhancing brand presence through integrating social media.

Chirumalla et al. ( 2018 ) focused on the social media engagement strategies of manufacturing companies. By using semi-structured interviews (36), observations (4), focus group meetings (6), and documentation, the study developed the process of social media adoption through a three-phase engagement strategy which includes coordination, cooperation, and co-production.

McShane et al. ( 2019 ) proposed social media strategies to influence online users’ engagement with B2B companies. Taking into consideration fluency lens the study analysed Twitter feeds of top 50 social B2B brands to examine the influence of hashtags, text difficulty embedded media and message timing on user engagement, which was evaluated in terms of likes and retweets. It was found that hashtags and text difficulty are connected to lower levels of engagement while embedded media such as images and videos improve the level of engagement.

Swani et al. ( 2014 ) investigate the use of Twitter by B2B and B2C companies and predict factors that influence message strategies. The study conducted a longitudinal content analysis by collecting 7000 tweets from Fortune 500 companies. It was found that B2B and B2C companies used different message appeals, cues, links and hashtags. B2B companies tend to use more emotional than functional appeals. It was found that B2B and B2C companies do not use hard-sell message strategies.

Another study by Swani et al. ( 2013 ) aimed to investigate message strategies that can help in promoting eWOM activity for B2B companies. By applying content analysis and hierarchical linear modeling the study analysed 1143 wall post messages from 193 fortune 500 Facebook accounts. The study found that B2B account posts will be more effective if they include corporate brand names and avoid hard sell or explicitly commercial statement. Also, companies should use emotional sentiment in Facebook posts.

Huotari et al. ( 2015 ) aimed to investigate how B2B marketers can influence content creation in social media. By conducting four face-to-face interviews with B2B marketers, it was found that a B2B company can influence content creation in social media directly by adding new content, participating in a discussion and removing content through corporate user accounts and controlling employees social media behaviour. Also, it can influence it indirectly by training employees to create desired content and perfuming marketing activities that influence other users to create content that is favorable for the company.

Most of the studies investigated the strategies and content of social media communications of B2B companies. However, the limited number of studies investigated the importance of CEO engagement on social media in the company’s strategies. Mudambi et al. ( 2019 ) emphasise the importance of the CEO of B2B companies to be present and active on social media. The study discusses the advantages of social media presence for the CEO and how it will benefit the company. For example, one of the benefits for the CEO can be perceived as being more trustworthy and effective than non-social CEOs, which will benefit the company in increased customer trust. Mudambi et al. ( 2019 ) also discussed the platforms the CEO should use and posting frequencies depending on the content of the post.

From the above review of the studies, it can be seen that B2B companies social media strategies include enhancing brand image, extending brand awareness and facilitating customer engagement. Companies use various message strategies, such as using emotional appeal, use of brand names, and use of hashtags. Majority of the companies avoid hard sell or explicitly commercial statement.

3.4 Social Media Use

Studies investigated the way how companies used social media and factors affecting the use of social media by B2B (Andersson et al. 2013 ; Bernard 2016 ; Bolat et al. 2016 ; Denktaş-Şakar and Sürücü 2018 ; Dyck 2010 ; Guesalaga 2016 ; Habibi et al. 2015 ). For example, Vasudevan and Kumar ( 2018 ) investigated how B2B companies use social media by analysing 325 brand posts of Canon India, Epson India, and HP India on Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter. By employing content analysis the study found that most of the posts had a combination of text and message. More than 50% of the posts were about product or brand-centric. The study argued that likes proved to be an unreliable measure of engagement, while shares were considered a more reliable metric. The reason was that likes had high spikes when brand posts were boosted during promotional activities.

Andersson and Wikström ( 2017 ) used case studies of three B2B companies to investigate reasons for using social media. It was found that companies use social media to enhance customer relationships, support sales and build their brands. Also, social media is used as a recruiting tool, a seeking tool, and a product information and service tool.

Bell and Shirzad ( 2013 ) aimed to conduct social media use analysis in the context of pharmaceutical companies. The study analysed 54,365 tweets from the top five pharmaceutical companies. The study analysed the popular time slots, the average number of positive and negative tweets and its content by using Nvivo9.

Bernard ( 2016 ) aims to examine how chief marketing officers use social media. By using case studies from IBM experience with social media it was found that B2B CMO’s are not ready to make use of social media. It was proposed that social media can be used for after-sales service, getting sales leads, engaging with key influencers, building the company’s reputation and enhancing the industry status of key individuals. B2B firms need to exploit the capabilities of processing massive amounts of data to get the most from social media.

Bolat et al. ( 2016 ) explore how companies apply mobile social media. By employing a grounded theory approach to analyse interviews from 26 B2B company representatives from UK advertising and marketing sector companies. It was found that companies use social media for branding, sensing market, managing relationships, and developing content.

Denktaş-Şakar and Sürücü ( 2018 ) investigated how social media usage influence stakeholder engagement focusing on the corporate Facebook page of 30 3PLs companies. In total 1532 Facebook posts were analysed. It was found that the number of followers, post sharing frequency, negatively affect stakeholder engagement. It was found that content including photos facilitates more stakeholder engagement (likes, comment, share) in comparison with other forms. Vivid posts and special day celebration posts strengthen relationships with stakeholders.

Dyck ( 2010 ) discussed the advantages of using social media for the device industry. Social media can be used for product innovation and development, to build a team and collaborate globally. Also, there is an opportunity to connect with all of the stakeholders needed in order to deliver the device to the market. Additionally, it provides to receive feedback from customers (doctors, hospitals) in real-time.

The study by Guesalaga ( 2016 ) draws on interactional psychology theory to propose and test a model of usage of social media in sales, analysing individual, organizational, and customer-related factors. It was found that organizational competence and commitment to social media are key determinants of social media usage in sales, as well as individual commitment. Customer engagement with social media also predicts social media usage in sales, both directly and (mostly) through the individual and organizational factors analysed, especially organizational competence and commitment. Finally, the study found evidence of synergistic effects between individual competence and commitment, which is not found at the organizational level. The data obtained by surveying 220 sales executives in the United States were analysed using regression analysis.

Habibi et al. ( 2015 ) proposed a conceptual model for the implementation of social media by B2B companies. Based on existing B2B marketing, social media and organisational orientational literature the study proposed that four components of electronic market orientation (philosophical, initiation, implementation and adoption) address different implementation issues faced in implementing social media.

Katona and Sarvary ( 2014 ) presented a case of using social media by Maersk-the largest container shipping company in the world. The case provided details on the program launch and the integration strategy which focused on integrating the largest independent social media operation into the company’s broader marketing efforts.

Moore et al. ( 2013 ) provided insights into the understanding of the use of social media by salespersons. 395 salespeople in B2B and B2C markets, utilization of relationship-oriented social media applications are presented and examined. Overall, findings show that B2B practitioners tend to use media targeted at professionals whereas their B2C counterparts tend to utilize more sites targeted to the general public for engaging in one-on-one dialogue with their customers. Moreover, B2B professionals tend to use relationship-oriented social media technologies more than B2C professionals for the purpose of prospecting, handling objections, and after-sale follow-up.

Moore et al. ( 2015 ) investigated the use of social media between B2B and B2C salespeople. By using survey data from 395 sales professionals from different industries they found that B2B sales managers use social selling tools significantly more frequently than B2C managers and B2C sales representatives while conducting sales presentations. Also, it was found that B2B managers used social selling tools significantly more frequently than all sales representatives while closing sales.

Müller et al. ( 2013 ) investigated social media use in the German automotive market. By using online analysis of 10 most popular car manufacturers online social networks and surveys of six manufacturers, 42 car dealers, 199 buyers the study found that social media communication relations are widely established between manufacturers and (prospective) buyers and only partially established between car dealers and prospective buyers. In contrast to that, on the B2B side, social media communication is rarely used. Social Online Networks (SONs) are the most popular social media channels employed by businesses. Manufacturers and car dealers focus their social media engagement, especially on Facebook. From the perspective of prospective buyers, however, forums are the most important source of information.

Sułkowski and Kaczorowska-Spychalska ( 2016 ) investigated the adoption of social media by companies in the Polish textile-clothing industry. By interviewing seven companies representatives of small and medium-sized enterprises the study found that companies started implementing social media activities in their marketing activities.

Vukanovic ( 2013 ) by reviewing previous literature on social media outlined advantages of using social media for B2B companies, which include: increase customer loyalty and trust, building and improving corporate reputation, facilitating open communications, improvement in customer engagement to name a few.

Keinänen and Kuivalainen ( 2015 ) investigated factors affecting the use of social media by B2B customers by conducting an online survey among 82 key customer accounts of an information technology service company. Partial least squares path modelling was used to analysed the proposed hypotheses. It was found that social media private use, colleague support for using SM, age, job position affected the use of social media by B2B customers. The study also found that corporate culture, gender, easiness to use, and perception of usability did not affect the use of social media by B2B customers.

By using interviews and survey social media research found that mostly B2B companies use social media to enhance customer relationships, support sales, build their brands, sense market, manage relationships, and develop content. Additionally, some companies use it social media as a recruitment tool. The main difference between B2B and B2C was that B2B sales managers use social selling tools significantly more frequently than B2C managers.

3.5 Measuring the Effectiveness of Social Media

It is important for a business to be able to measure the effectiveness of social media by calculating return on investment (ROI). ROI is the relationship between profit and the investment that generate that profit. Some studies focused on the ways B2B companies can measure ROI and the challenges they face (Gazal et al. 2016 ; Michaelidou et al. 2011 ; Vasudevan and Kumar 2018 ). For example, Gazal et al. ( 2016 ) investigated the adoption and measuring of the effectiveness of social media in the context of the US forest industry by using organisational-level adoption framework and TAM. By using data from 166 companies it was found that 94% of respondents do not measure the ROI from social media use. The reason is that the use of social media in marketing is relatively new and companies do not possess the knowledge of measuring ROI from the use of social media. Companies mostly use quantitative metrics (number of site visits, number of social network friends, number of comments and profile views) and qualitative metrics (growth of relationships with the key audience, audience participation, moving from monologue to dialogue with consumers).

Another study by Michaelidou et al. ( 2011 ) found that most of the companies do not evaluate the effectiveness of their SNS in supporting their brand. The most popular measures were the number of users joining the groups/discussion and the number of comments made.

Vasudevan and Kumar ( 2018 ) investigated how B2B companies use social media and measure ROI from social media by analysing 325 brand posts of Canon India, Epson India, and HP India on Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter. By employing content analysis the study found that most of the post has a combination of text and message. More than 50% of the posts were about product or brand-centric. The study argued that likes proved to be an unreliable measure of engagement, while shares were considered a more reliable metric. The reason was that likes had high spikes when brand posts were boosted during promotional activities. Future research should conduct longitudinal studies.

By reviewing the above studies, it can be concluded that companies still struggle to find ways of measuring ROI and applying correct metrics. By gaining knowledge in how to measure ROI from social media activities, B2B companies will be able to produce valuable insights leading to better marketing strategies (Lal et al. 2020 ).

3.6 Social Media Tools

Some studies proposed tools that could be employed by companies to advance their use of social media. For example, Mehmet and Clarke ( 2016 ) proposed a social semiotic multimodal (SSMM) framework that improved the analysis of social media communications. This framework employs multimodal extensions to systemic functional linguistics enabling it to be applying to analysing non-language as well as language constituents of social media messages. Furthermore, the framework also utilises expansion theory to identify, categorise and analyse various marketing communication resources associated with marketing messages and also to reveal how conversations are chained together to form extended online marketing conversations. This semantic approach is exemplified using a Fairtrade Australia B2B case study demonstrating how marketing conversations can be mapped and analysed. The framework emphasises the importance of acknowledging the impact of all stakeholders, particularly messages that may distract or confuse the original purpose of the conversation.

Yang et al. ( 2012 ) proposed the temporal analysis technique to identify user relationships on social media platforms. The experiment was conducted by using data from Digg.com . The results showed that the proposed techniques achieved substantially higher recall but not very good at precision. This technique will help companies to identify their future consumers based on their user relationships.

Based on the literature review, it can be seen that B2B companies can benefit by using the discussed tools. However, it is important to consider that employee should have some technical skills and knowledge to use these tools successfully. As a result, companies will need to invest some resources in staff training.

4 Weight Analysis

Weight analysis enables scrutiny of the predictive power of independent variables in studied relationships and the degree of effectiveness of the relationships (Jeyaraj et al. 2006 ; Rana et al. 2015 ; Ismagilova et al. 2020a ). The results of weight analysis are depicted in Table 3 providing information about an independent variable, dependent variable, number of significant relationships, number of non-significant relationships, the total number of relationships and weight. To perform weight analysis, the number of significant relationships was divided by the total number of analysed relationships between the independent variable and the dependent variable (Jeyaraj et al. 2006 ; Rana et al. 2015 ). For example, the weight for the relationship between attitude towards social media and social media is calculated by dividing ‘1’ (the number of significant relationships) by ‘2’ (the total number of relationships) which equals 0.5.

A predictor is defined as well-utilised if it was examined five or more times, otherwise, it is defined as experimental. It can be seen from Table 3 that all relationships were examined less than five times. Thus all studied predictors are experimental. The predictor is defined as promising when it has been examined less than five times by existing studies but has a weight equal to ‘1’ (Jeyaraj et al. 2006 ). From the predictors affecting the adoption of social media, it can be seen that two are promising, technical skills of employees and pressure from stakeholders. Social media usage is a promising predictor for acquiring new customers, sales, stakeholder engagement and customer satisfaction. Perceived ease of use and age of salesperson are promising predictors of social media usage. Even though this relationship was found to be significant every time it was examined, it is suggested that this variable, which can also be referred to as experimental, will need to be further tested in order to qualify as the best predictor. Another predictor, average rating of product/service, was examined less than five times with a weight equal to 0.75, thus it is considered as an experimental predictor.

Figure 1 shows the diagrammatic representation of the factors affecting different relationships in B2B social media with their corresponding weights, based on the results of weight analysis. The findings suggest that promising predictors should be included in further empirical studies to determine their overall performance.

figure 1

Diagrammatic representation of results of weight analysis. Note: experimental predictors

It can be seen from Fig. 1 that social media usage is affected by internal (e.g. attitude towards social media, technical skills of employees) and external factors (e.g. pressure from stakeholders) of the company. Also, the figure depicts the effect of social media on the business (e.g. sales) and society (e.g. customer satisfaction).

5 Discussion

In reviewing the publications gathered for this paper, the following themes were identified. Some studies investigated the effect of social media use by B2B companies. By using mostly survey to collect the data from salespeople and managers, the studies found that social media has a positive effect on number of outcomes important for the business such as customer satisfaction, value creation, intention to buy and sales, customer relationships, brand awareness, knowledge creation, corporate credibility, acquiring new customers, salespersons performance, employee brand management, and sustainability. Most of the outcomes are similar to the research on social media in the context of B2C companies. However, some of the outcomes are unique for B2B context (e.g. employee brand management, company credibility). Just recently, studies started investigating the impact of the use of social media on sustainability.

Another group of studies looked at the adoption of social media by B2B companies (Buratti et al. 2018 ; Gáti et al. 2018 ; Gazal et al. 2016 ; Itani et al. 2017 ; Kumar and Möller 2018 ). The studies investigated it mostly from the perspectives of salespersons and identify some of the key factors which affect the adoption, such as innovativeness, technical skills of employees, pressure from stakeholders, perceived usefulness, and perceived usability. As these factors are derived mostly from surveys conducted with salespersons findings can be different for other individuals working in the organisation. This it is important to conduct studies that will examine factors affecting the adoption of social media across the entire organisation, in different departments. Using social media as part of the digital transformation is much bigger than sales and marketing, it encompasses the entire company. Additionally, most of the studies were cross-sectional, which limits the understanding of the adoption of social media by B2B over time depending on the outcomes and environment (e.g. competitors using social media).

Some studies looked at social media strategies of B2B companies (Cawsey and Rowley 2016 ; Huotari et al. 2015 ; Kasper et al. 2015 ; McShane et al. 2019 ; Mudambi et al. 2019 ). By employing interviews with companies’ managers and analysing its social media platforms (e.g. Twitter) it was found that most of the companies follow the following strategies: 1) monitoring and listening 2) empowering and engaging employees 3) creating compelling content 4) stimulating eWOM 5) evaluating and selecting channels 6) enhancing brand presence through integrating social media (Cawsey and Rowley 2016 ). Some studies investigated the difference between social media strategies of B2B and B2C companies. For example, a study by Swani et al. ( 2017 ) focused on effective social media strategies. By applying psychological motivation theory the study examined the key differences in B2B and B2C social media message strategies in terms of branding, message appeals, selling, and information search. The study used Facebook posts on brand pages of 280 Fortune companies. In total, 1467 posts were analysed. By using Bayesian models, the results showed that the inclusion of corporate brand names, functional and emotional appeals and information search cues increases the popularity of B2B messages in comparison with B2C messages. Also, it was found that readers of B2B content show a higher message liking rate and lower message commenting rate in comparison with readers of B2C messages.

The next group of studies looked at social media use by B2B companies (Andersson et al. 2013 ; Bernard 2016 ; Bolat et al. 2016 ; Denktaş-Şakar and Sürücü 2018 ; Dyck 2010 ; Guesalaga 2016 ; Habibi et al. 2015 ). B2B companies use social media for enhancing and managing customer relationships (Andersson and Wikström 2017 ; Bolat et al. ( 2016 ); branding (Andersson and Wikström 2017 ; Bolat et al. 2016 ), sensing market (Bolat et al. 2016 ) and co-production (Chirumalla et al. 2018 ). Additionally, it was mentioned that some of the B2B companies use social media as a recruiting tool, and tool which helps to collaborate globally (Andersson and Wikström 2017 ; Dyck 2010 ).

It is important for companies to not only use social media to achieve positive business outcomes but also it is important to measure their achievements. As a result, some of the studies focused on the measuring effectiveness of social media (Gazal et al. 2016 ; Michaelidou et al. 2011 ; Vasudevan and Kumar 2018 ). Surprisingly, it was found that not so many companies measure ROI from social media (Gazal et al. 2016 ; Michaelidou et al. 2011 ). The ones who do it mostly use quantitative metrics (number of site visits, number of social network friends, number of comments and profile views) and qualitative metrics (growth of relationships with key audience, audience participation, moving from monologue to dialogue with consumers) (Gazal et al. 2016 ). Some future studies should investigate how ROI influences the strategy of B2B companies over period of time.

The last group of studies focused on social media tools used by B2B companies (Keinänen and Kuivalainen 2015 ; Mehmet and Clarke 2016 ; Yang et al. 2012 ). By using number of social media tools (Social Semiotic Multimodal) companies are able to improve their analysis of social media communications and identify their future consumers based on their user relationships. Studies investigating barriers and factors adoption of various social media tools by B2B companies are needed.

After reviewing studies on b2B social media, weight analysis was performed. Based on the results of weight analysis the conceptual model for future studies was proposed (Fig.  2 ). It is important to note that a limited number of studies focused and empirically tested factors affecting the adoption, use, and effect of social media. As a result, identified factors were considered as experimental (examined less than five times). It is too early to label these experimental predictors as worst or best, thus their further investigation is encouraged.

figure 2

Social media impact on digital transformation and sustainable societies

Additionally, our review of the literature on B2B social media identified dominant research methods used by scholars. Qualitative and quantitative techniques were used by most of these studies. Closer analysis of 70 publications reviewed in this study revealed the multiple techniques applied for gathering data. Quantitative methods used in the studies mostly used surveys (see Table 4 ).

The data was mostly gathered from salespersons, managers and data from social media platforms (e.g. Twitter, Facebook). Just a limited number of studies employed consumer reported data (see Table 5 ).

On the other hand, publications using qualitative methods mainly used interviews and web scraping for the collection of the required data. To analyse the data studies used a variety of techniques including SEM, regression analysis and content analysis being one of the most used (see Table 6 ).

5.1 Digital Transformation and Sustainability Model

Based on the conducted literature review and adapting the model by Pappas et al. ( 2018 ) Fig. 2 presents the digital transformation and sustainability model in the context of B2B companies, which conceptualise the social media ecosystems, and the factors that need to collaborate to enable the use of social media towards the achievement of digital transformation and the creation of sustainable societies. The model comprises of social media stakeholders, the use of social media by B2B companies, and effect of social media on business and society.

5.1.1 Social Media Stakeholders

Building on the discussion and model provided by Pappas et al. ( 2018 ), this paper posits that the social media ecosystem comprises of the data stakeholders (company, society), who engage on social media (posting, reading, using information from social media). The use of social media by different stakeholders will lead to different effects affecting companies, customers and society. This is an iterative process based on which the stakeholders use their experience to constantly improve and evolve their use of social media, which has impacts on both, business and society. The successful implementation of this process is key to digital transformation and the creation of sustainable societies. Most of the current studies (Andersson et al. 2013 ; Bernard 2016 ; Bolat et al. 2016 ; Denktaş-Şakar and Sürücü 2018 ; Dyck 2010 ; Guesalaga 2016 ) focus mostly on the company as a stakeholder. However, more research is needed on other types of stakeholders (e.g. society).

5.1.2 Use of Social Media by B2B Companies

Social media affects not only ways how companies connect with their clients, but it is also changing their business models, the way how the value is delivered and profit is made. To successfully implement and use social media, B2B companies need to consider various social media tools, antecedents/barriers of its adoption, identify suitable social media strategies which are in line with the company’s overall strategy, and measure effectiveness of the use of social media. There are various factors that affect the use of social media by B2B companies. The study found that social media usage is influenced by perceived ease of use, adoption of social media, attitude towards social media and age of salesperson.

The majority of the studies focus on the management of the marketing department. However, digital transformation is much bigger than just marketing as it encompasses the entire organisation. As a result, future studies should look like the entire organisation and investigate barriers and factors affecting the use of social media.

It is crucial for companies to design content which will be noticed on social media by their potential, actual and former customers. Social media content should be interesting and offer some beneficial information, rather than just focus on services the company provides. Companies could use fresh views on relevant industry news, provide information how they are contributing to society and environment, include humour in their posts, share information about the team, make it more personal. It is also useful to use images, infographics, and video content.

It is also important for companies to measure digital marketing actions. More studies are needed on how to isolate the impact of specific media marketing actions to demonstrate their impact on the desired business outcomes (Salo 2017 ). Thus, future studies can consider how particular social media channels (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn) in a campaign of a new product/ service influence brand awareness and sales level. Also, a limited number of studies discussed the way B2B companies can measure ROI. Future research should investigate how companies can measure intangible ROI, such as eWOM, brand awareness, and customer engagement (Kumar and Mirchandani 2012 ). Also, future research should investigate the reasons why most of the users do not assess the effectiveness of their SNS. Furthermore, most of the studies focused on likes, shares, and comments to evaluate social media engagement. Future research should focus on other types of measures. More research needs considering the impact of legislation on the use of social media by companies. Recent B2B studies did not consider recent legislation (General Data Protection Regulation 2018 ) in the context B2B (Sivarajah et al. 2019 ).

5.1.3 Effect of Social Media on Business and Society

Social media plays an important part in the company’s decision-making process. Social media can bring positive changes into company, which will result in improving customer satisfaction, value creation, increase in sales, building relationships with customers, knowledge creation, improve the perception of corporate credibility, acquisition of new customers, and improve employment brand engagement. Using information collected from social media can help companies to have a set of reliable attributes that comprise social, economic and environmental aspects in their decision-making process (Tseng 2017 ). Additionally, by using social media B2B companies can provide information to other stakeholders on their sustainability activities. By using data from social media companies will be able to provide products and services which are demanded by society. It will improve the quality of life and result in less waste. Additionally, social media can be considered as a tool that helps managers to integrate business practices with sustainability (Sivarajah et al. 2019 ). As a result, social media use by B2B companies can lead to business and societal changes.

A limited number of studies investigated the effect of social media on word of mouth communications in the B2B context. Future research should investigate the differences and similarities between B2C and B2B eWOM communications. Also, studies should investigate how these types of communications can be improved and ways to deal with negative eWOM. It is important for companies to respond to comments on social media. Additionally, future research should investigate its perceived helpfulness by customers.

Majority of studies (Agnihotri et al. 2016 ; Ancillai et al. 2019 ; Rossmann and Stei 2015 ; Agnihotri et al. 2012 ; Agnihotri et al. 2017 ; Itani et al. 2017 ; Salo 2017 ; Bhattacharjya and Ellison 2015 ; Gáti et al. 2018 ; Gruner and Power 2018 ; Hollebeek 2019 ) investigated positive effect of social media such consumer satisfaction, consumer engagement, and brand awareness. However, it will be interesting to consider the dark side of social media use such as an excessive number of requests on social media to salespeople (Agnihotri et al. 2016 ), which can result in the reduction of the responsiveness; spread of misinformation which can damage the reputation of the company.

Studies were performed in China (Lacka and Chong 2016 ; Niedermeier et al. 2016 ), the USA (Guesalaga 2016 ; Iankova et al. 2018 ; Ogilvie et al. 2018 ), India (Agnihotri et al. 2017 ; Vasudevan and Kumar 2018 ), the UK (Bolat et al. 2016 ; Iankova et al. 2018 ; Michaelidou et al. 2011 ). It is strongly advised that future studies conduct research in other countries as findings can be different due to the culture and social media adoption rates. Future studies should pay particular attention to other emerging markets (such as Russia, Brazil, and South Africa) as they suffer from the slow adoption rate of social media marketing. Some companies in these countries still rely more on traditional media for advertising of their products and services, as they are more trusted in comparison with social media channels (Olotewo 2016 ). The majority of studies investigate the effect of social media in B2B or B2C context. Future studies should pay attention to other contexts (e.g. B2B2B, B2B2C). Another limitation of the current research on B2B companies is that most of the studies on social media in the context of B2B focus on the effect of social media use only on business outcomes. It is important for future research to focus on societal outcomes.

Lastly, most of the studies on social media in the context of B2B companies use a cross-sectional approach to collect the data. Future research can use the longitudinal approach in order to advance understanding of social media use and its impact over time.

5.2 Research Propositions

Based on the social media research in the context of B2B companies and the discussion above the following is proposed, which could serve as a foundation for future empirical work.

Social media is a powerful tool to deliver information to customers. However, social media can be used to get consumer and market insights (Kazienko et al. 2013 ). A number of studies highlighted how information obtained from a number of social media platforms could be used for various marketing purposes, such as understanding the needs and preferences of consumers, marketing potential for new products/services, and current market trends (Agnihotri et al. 2016 ; Constantinides et al. 2008 ). It is advised that future research employs a longitudinal approach to study the impact of social media use on understanding customers. Therefore, the following proposition can be formulated:

Proposition 1

Social media usage of B2B companies has a positive influence on understanding its customers.

By using social media companies can examiner valuable information on competitors. It can help to understand competitors’ habits and strategies, which can lead to the competitive advantage and help strategic planning (Dey et al. 2011 ; Eid et al. 2019 ; Teo and Choo 2001 ). It is advised that future research employs a longitudinal approach to study the impact of social media use on understanding its competitors. As a result, using social media to understand customers and competitors can create business value (Mikalef et al. 2020a ) for key stakeholders and lead to positive changes in the business and societies. The above discussion leads to the following proposition:

Proposition 2

Social media usage of B2B companies has a positive influence on understanding its competitors.

Proposition 3

Culture influences the adoption and use of social media by B2B companies.

Usage of social media can result in some positive marketing outcomes such as building new customer relationships, increasing brand awareness, and level of sales to name a few (Agnihotri et al. 2016 ; Ancillai et al. 2019 ; Dwivedi et al. 2020 ; Rossmann and Stei 2015 ). However, when social media is not used appropriately it can lead to negative consequences. If a company does not have enough resources to implement social media tools the burden usually comes on a salesperson. A high number of customer inquiries, the pressure to engage with customers on social media, and monitor communications happening on various social media platforms can result in the increased workload of a salesperson putting extra pressure (Agnihotri et al. 2016 ). As a result, a salesperson might not have enough time to engage with all the customers online promptly or engage in reactive and proactive web care. As a result, customer satisfaction can be affected as well as company reputation. To investigate the negative impact of social media research could apply novel methods for data collection and analysis such as fsQCA (Pappas et al. 2020 ), or implying eye-tracking (Mikalef et al. 2020b ). This leads to the following proposition:

Proposition 4

Inappropriate use of social media by B2B companies has a negative effect on a) customer satisfaction and b) company reputation.

According to Technology-Organisation-Environment (TOE) framework environmental context significantly affects a company’s use of innovations (Abed 2020 ; Oliveira and Martins 2011 ). Environment refers to the factors which affect companies from outside, including competitors and customers. Adopting innovation can help companies to change the rules of the competition and reach a competitive advantage (Porter and Millar 1985 ). In a competitive environment, companies have a tendency to adopt an innovation. AlSharji et al. ( 2018 ) argued that the adoption of innovation can be extended to social media use by companies. A study by AlSharji et al. ( 2018 ) by using data from 1700 SMEs operating in the United Arab Emirates found that competitive pressure significantly affects the use of social media by SMEs. It can be explained by the fact that companies could feel pressure when other companies in the industry start adopting a particular technology and as a result adopt it to remain competitive (Kuan and Chau 2001 ). Based on the above discussion, the following proposition can be formulated:

Proposition 5

Competitive pressure positively affects the adoption of social media by B2B companies.

Companies might feel that they are forced to adopt and use IT innovations because their customers would expect them to do so. Meeting customers’ expectations could result in adoption of new technologies by B2B companies. Some research studies investigated the impact of customer pressure on companies (AlSharji et al. 2018 ; Maduku et al. 2016 ). For example, a study by Maduku et al. ( 2016 ) found that customer pressure has a positive effect on SMEs adoption of mobile marketing in the context of South Africa. Future research could implement longitudinal approach to investigate how environment affects adoption of social media by B2B companies. This leads to the formulation of the following proposition:

Proposition 6

Customer pressure positively affects the adoption of social media by B2B companies.

6 Conclusion

The aim of this research was to provide a comprehensive systematic review of the literature on social media in the context of B2B companies and propose the framework outlining the role of social media in the digital transformation of B2B companies. It was found that B2B companies use social media, but not all companies consider it as part of their marketing strategies. The studies on social media in the B2B context focused on the effect of social media, antecedents, and barriers of adoption of social media, social media strategies, social media use, and measuring the effectiveness of social media. Academics and practitioners can employ the current study as an informative framework for research on the use of social media by B2B companies. The summary of the key observations provided from this literature review is the following: [i] Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the most famous social media platforms used by B2B companies, [ii] Social media has a positive effect on customer satisfaction, acquisition of new customers, sales, stakeholder engagement, and customer relationships, [iii] In systematically reviewing 70 publications on social media in the context of B2B companies it was observed that most of the studies use online surveys and online content analysis, [iv] Companies still look for ways to evaluate the effectiveness of social media, [v] Innovativeness, pressure from stakeholders, perceived usefulness, and perceived usability have a significant positive effect on companies’ adoption to use social media, [vi] Lack of staff familiarity and technical skills are the main barriers that affect the adoption of social media by B2B, [vii] Social media has an impact not only on business but also on society, [viii] There is a dark side of social media: fake online reviews, an excessive number of requests on social media to salespeople, distribution of misinformation, negative eWOM, [ix] Use of social media by companies has a positive effect on sustainability, and [x] For successful digital transformation social media should change not only the way how companies integrate it into their marketing strategies but the way how companies deliver values to their customers and conduct their business. This research has a number of limitations. First, only publications from the Scopus database were included in literature analysis and synthesis. Second, this research did not use meta-analysis. To provide a broader picture of the research on social media in the B2B context and reconcile conflicting findings of the existing studies future research should conduct a meta-analysis (Ismagilova et al. 2020c ). It will advance knowledge of the social media domain.

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Yogesh K. Dwivedi

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Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune & Symbiosis International, Deemed University, Pune, India

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Dwivedi, Y.K., Ismagilova, E., Rana, N.P. et al. Social Media Adoption, Usage And Impact In Business-To-Business (B2B) Context: A State-Of-The-Art Literature Review. Inf Syst Front 25 , 971–993 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-021-10106-y

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Social networking sites and our lives.

Questions have been raised about the social impact of widespread use of social networking sites (SNS) like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter. Do these technologies isolate people and truncate their relationships? Or are there benefits associated with being connected to others in this way? The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project decided to examine SNS in a survey that explored people’s overall social networks and how use of these technologies is related to trust, tolerance, social support, and community and political engagement.

The findings presented here paint a rich and complex picture of the role that digital technology plays in people’s social worlds. Wherever possible, we seek to disentangle whether people’s varying social behaviors and attitudes are related to the different ways they use social networking sites, or to other relevant demographic characteristics, such as age, gender and social class.

The number of those using social networking sites has nearly doubled since 2008 and the population of SNS users has gotten older.

In this Pew Internet sample, 79% of American adults said they used the internet and nearly half of adults (47%), or 59% of internet users, say they use at least one of SNS. This is close to double the 26% of adults (34% of internet users) who used a SNS in 2008. Among other things, this means the average age of adult-SNS users has shifted from 33 in 2008 to 38 in 2010.  Over half of all adult SNS users are now over the age of 35. Some 56% of SNS users now are female.

Facebook dominates the SNS space in this survey: 92% of SNS users are on Facebook; 29% use MySpace, 18% used LinkedIn and 13% use Twitter.

There is considerable variance in the way people use various social networking sites: 52% of Facebook users and 33% of Twitter users engage with the platform daily, while only 7% of MySpace and 6% of LinkedIn users do the same.

On Facebook on an average day:

  • 15% of Facebook users update their own status.
  • 22% comment on another’s post or status.
  • 20% comment on another user’s photos.
  • 26% “Like” another user’s content.
  • 10% send another user a private message

Facebook users are more trusting than others.

We asked people if they felt “that most people can be trusted.” When we used regression analysis to control for demographic factors, we found that the typical internet user is more than twice as likely as others to feel that people can be trusted. Further, we found that Facebook users are even more likely to be trusting. We used regression analysis to control for other factors and found that a Facebook user who uses the site multiple times per day is 43% more likely than other internet users and more than three times as likely as non-internet users to feel that most people can be trusted.

Facebook users have more close relationships.

The average American has just over two discussion confidants (2.16) – that is, people with whom they discuss important matters. This is a modest, but significantly larger number than the average of 1.93 core ties reported when we asked this same question in 2008. Controlling for other factors we found that someone who uses Facebook several times per day averages 9% more close, core ties in their overall social network compared with other internet users.

Facebook users get more social support than other people.

We looked at how much total support, emotional support, companionship, and instrumental aid adults receive. On a scale of 100, the average American scored 75/100 on a scale of total support, 75/100 on emotional support (such as receiving advice), 76/100 in companionship (such as having people to spend time with), and 75/100 in instrumental aid (such as having someone to help if they are sick in bed).

Internet users in general score 3 points higher in total support, 6 points higher in companionship, and 4 points higher in instrumental support. A Facebook user who uses the site multiple times per day tends to score an additional 5 points higher in total support, 5 points higher in emotional support, and 5 points higher in companionship, than internet users of similar demographic characteristics. For Facebook users, the additional boost is equivalent to about half the total support that the average American receives as a result of being married or cohabitating with a partner.

Facebook users are much more politically engaged than most people.

Our survey was conducted over the November 2010 elections. At that time, 10% of Americans reported that they had attended a political rally, 23% reported that they had tried to convince someone to vote for a specific candidate, and 66% reported that they had or intended to vote. Internet users in general were over twice as likely to attend a political meeting, 78% more likely to try and influence someone’s vote, and 53% more likely to have voted or intended to vote.  Compared with other internet users, and users of other SNS platforms, a Facebook user who uses the site multiple times per day was an additional two and half times more likely to attend a political rally or meeting, 57% more likely to persuade someone on their vote, and an additional 43% more likely to have said they would vote.

Facebook revives “dormant” relationships.

In our sample, the average Facebook user has 229 Facebook friends. They reported that their friends list contains:

  • 22% people from high school
  • 12% extended family
  • 10% coworkers
  • 9% college friends
  • 8% immediate family
  • 7% people from voluntary groups
  • 2% neighbors

Over 31% of Facebook friends cannot be classified into these categories. However, only 7% of Facebook friends are people users have never met in person, and only 3% are people who have met only one time. The remainder is friends-of-friends and social ties that are not currently active relationships, but “dormant” ties that may, at some point in time, become an important source of information.

Social networking sites are increasingly used to keep up with close social ties.

Looking only at those people that SNS users report as their core discussion confidants, 40% of users have friended all of their closest confidants. This is a substantial increase from the 29% of users who reported in our 2008 survey that they had friended all of their core confidants.

MySpace users are more likely to be open to opposing points of view.

We measured “perspective taking,” or the ability of people to consider multiple points of view. There is no evidence that SNS users, including those who use Facebook, are any more likely than others to cocoon themselves in social networks of like-minded and similar people, as some have feared.

Moreover, regression analysis found that those who use MySpace have significantly higher levels of perspective taking. The average adult scored 64/100 on a scale of perspective taking, using regression analysis to control for demographic factors, a MySpace user who uses the site a half dozen times per month tends to score about 8 points higher on the scale.

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Table of contents, social media fact sheet, 7 facts about americans and instagram, social media use in 2021, 64% of americans say social media have a mostly negative effect on the way things are going in the u.s. today, share of u.s. adults using social media, including facebook, is mostly unchanged since 2018, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

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