Got publication? Well, now I do! 🙂 I just got word that the study that I worked on with some fabulous researchers just got published in the journal Media Psychology Review. The title of the study and journal article is “The rich get richer: Online and offline social connectivity predicts subjective loneliness.” We were the first study on the MPR website – very fabulous! 🙂 This was a study where we looked at how much connectivity college students have with social media (particularly on Facebook) and asked them to answer questions from the UCLA Loneliness scale. We found in our study that by finding the parallel loneliness behaviors in both online and offline domains, it appears that the global use paradigm is more appropriate for understanding SNS participants. The global use paradigm suggests that parasocial interaction is a universal human behavior, and the quality and extent of a person’s face-to-face interactions would not predict his or her use of parasocial technologies.
What I have really enjoyed about the Media Psychology Review is that it is a journal that encourages transdisciplinary collaboration. For example, there was a researcher in statistics, two from psychology, and one in public relations that worked on this study. Plus, what I also like about the journal is that it has really published a lot regarding human behavior online and social media. This is a journal that I believe is a great outlet for future research involving psychology, social media, and human interactions occuring online. Plus, the Media Psychology Center is an excellent resource to see what are the current trends occuring in new emerging technologies in research, and a great resource for researchers, professionals, and students to use for their class and own research projects.
Loneliness and use of social media are important variables for psychology and public relations professionals to be aware of. We first worked on this back in 2009 where we presented a poster at APS on this research, and then went to Greece for the ATINER conference. Our research was also discussed in an article that appeared in Scientific American. We need to understand the behavior and interactions individuals have when it comes to new technologies, and how that is impacted by the level of loneliness they feel. In addition, for public relations professionals – this research could be applied by taking proactive measures within universities to make sure that individuals attending, working, or are part of the academic community feel connected and that they are aware of the various resources available to make these social connections. Plus, this research can be transferred and applied to other industries and areas besides universities such as organizations (employee relations), sports teams (recruitment), and agencies within public relations. I am very excited to be part of this line of research, and I an looking forward to continuing working and researching this area in the future. Congratulations to my fellow research colleagues on this fabulous journal publication! 🙂 Hope you all are having a wonderful day!
Best Wishes,
Karen
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