Online networks and subjective well-being

Fabio Sabatini and Francesco Sarracino

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: We argue that the use of online networks may threaten subjective well-being in several ways, due to the inherent attributes of Internet-mediated interaction and through its effects on social trust and sociability. We test our hypotheses on a representative sample of the Italian population. We find a significantly negative correlation between online networking and well-being. This result is partially confirmed after accounting for endogeneity. We explore the direct and indirect effects of the use of social networking sites (SNS) on well-being in a SEM analysis. We find that online networking plays a positive role in subjective well-being through its impact on physical interactions, whereas SNS use is associated with lower social trust. The overall effect of networking on individual welfare is significantly negative.

Keywords: social participation; online networks; Facebook; social trust; social capital; subjective well-being; hate speech; broadband; digital divide (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O32 O33 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-08-25, Revised 2014-08-25
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap, nep-ict, nep-ltv, nep-net, nep-soc and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/58119/1/MPRA_paper_58119.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Online Networks and Subjective Well-Being (2017)
Working Paper: Online networks and subjective well-being (2014)
Working Paper: Online networks and subjective well-being (2014)
Working Paper: Online networks and subjective well-being (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:58119

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().