Gratifications on Social Networking Sites: The Role of Secondary School Students’ Individual Differences in Loneliness

Abstract

Social networking sites, such as Myspace and Facebook, have become popular online communities with large teenage user populations who engage in social media to interact, play, explore, and learn. Research based on uses and gratifications theory has revealed that among the gratifications on social media most sought specifically by adolescents between 12 and 18 years old are meeting new people, satisfying teenagers’ need to belong, and being entertained. Previous research also points to possible differences in the perception of gratifications among users of different media, depending on their level of loneliness. The current study examines whether associations between loneliness and gratifications obtained by adolescent social media users vary across different levels of loneliness. We conducted a survey among 344 Spanish secondary school students with an online profile on the Spanish friend-networking site Tuenti. Mixture modeling identified three classes of students with different levels of loneliness and distinct relationships between loneliness and gratifications for each class. This study contributes to more specific knowledge of the relationship between use of a friend-networking site by lonely teenagers and gratifications obtained and provides implications for the development of coping strategies for students of this age who suffer from loneliness. Further implications of findings for personalized educational computing and group management in on- and offline classrooms are discussed.