Facebook users’ loneliness based on different types of interpersonal relationships: Links to grandiosity and envy

an article by Myung Suh Lim (Sangji University, Wonju, Republic of Korea) and Junghyun Kim (NEOMA Business School, Mont-Saint-Aignan Cedex, France) published in Information Technology & People Volume 31 Issue 3 (2018)

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate: first, the effects of a user’s grandiosity on the loneliness of another user on Facebook who detected it in terms of his/her well-being status; second, the mediational role of envy between grandiosity and loneliness; and, third, whether different effects are given on narcissism, envy, and loneliness depending on social or para-social relationships on Facebook.

Design/methodology/approach
This study’s focus is to investigate how observing others’ grandiose behaviors impact on individuals’ feeling of loneliness. The authors propose that this relationship is mediated by the feeling of envy. The authors further postulate that social relationships that participants may have with other Facebook users would play a key role in feeling different types of envy (i.e. malicious vs benign). Therefore, the current study employed a 2 (levels of grandiosity: high vs low) × 2 (social relationship: para-social vs social) between-subjects design.

Findings
The authors found that one’s grandiosity as reflected on Facebook significantly affects other users’ loneliness through malicious envy. However, no moderated mediation via envy (either benign or malicious) was found within the social relationship group.

Originality/value
Social comparison generated by the use of Facebook was found to have an effect on the user’s loneliness through the mediation of envy. In particular, the possibility that such effects could be triggered in para-social relationships was identified.

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