Facebook: friend or foe? A comparison of Facebook and offline social network effects on wellbeing

The aims of this study were to (a) assess whether constraints described by the social brain hypothesis extend to limit benefits associated with large social networks in addition to size and closeness, and (b) assess the role that Facebook plays in extending the social network and contributing to wellbeing from the perspective of the social brain hypothesis. Participants included 38 males and 68 females between the ages of 18 and 40 recruited from various sources. Participants were randomly assigned to either not use Facebook for five days or to use Facebook as normal. Measures of stress and wellbeing were taken both at baseline and at the five day follow up. Additional measures assessed the offline and Facebook social networks, Facebook use and manipulation effectiveness. Results supported the hypothesis that the social network limits predicted by the social brain hypothesis extend to limits on the benefits associated with network size. They also supported the hypothesis that the offline network would be more predictive of wellbeing than the Facebook network and that the effect of the Facebook network would be moderated by the size of the offline social network. In conclusion, extended networks have the potential to harm wellbeing and Facebook presents a risk of over extending the social network when the offline social network is large. However, Facebook may be beneficial for those who have small social networks