آیا استفاده اجتماعی از رسانه ها برای جستجوی ارتباط و یا برای جلوگیری از انزوای اجتماعی است؟ مکانیسم های زیر بنایی استفاده از رسانه و بهزیستن ذهنی

Abstract This study provides a resolution for two contrasting hypotheses around media use, the augmentation and the displacement hypotheses. To do this, we conducted an online survey of 300 Korean adults examining the relationships among the social use of media, face-to-face communication, social isolation, connectedness, and subjective well-being. The results indicate that connectedness, not avoiding social isolation, mediates the effects of the social use of media on subjective well-being. On the other hand, both connectedness and avoiding social isolation mediate the effects of face-to-face communication on subjective well-being. These results suggest that the social use of media is limited to seeking connectedness to others, whereas face-to-face communication can facilitate avoiding social isolation as well as seeking connectedness, which can explain why the two contrasting hypothesis, the augmentation and the displacement hypotheses, can be right. In the domain of seeking connectedness, media can augment face-to-face communication. On the other hand, in the domain of avoiding social isolation, media may displace face-to-face communication.

Introduction Given the saturated media environment, media use has become an important part of people’s everyday lives. In the domain of media-mediated communication, such as connecting other individuals via media asynchronously (e.g., email, or social networking sites) or synchronously (chatting, texting, or talking on the phone), people make constant use of media to be connected to others, and it is clear that increased connections through media have played a critical role in improving the overall efficiency of diverse societies worldwide. The augmentation hypothesis posits that individuals often use media to develop social relations despite the limited bandwidth of media (Walther, 1996), and media use stimulates users’ existing social relations to be enhanced (Valkenburg and Peter, 2007 and Valkenburg and Peter, 2009). In the domain of media–human interaction, people tend to respond to fictional figures in media like television or films in a way similar to that for responding to real humans (Horton, 1956 and Klimmt et al., 2006). When a medium such as a computer provides a social feedback even without anthropomorphic figures, users are likely treat the medium as if it is a social actor (Reeves & Nass, 1996). Using media that embed social cues such as television provides the actual sense of belonging so that consuming media can serve as surrogacy of having social relations (Derrick, Gabriel, & Hugenberg, 2009). Despite the positive functions of media, however, the social use of media does not always benefit individual users. Lonely individuals who find media to mitigate social isolation often end up aggravating their social isolation (Kim, LaRose, & Peng, 2009). From the perspective of the displacement hypothesis, media use may consume a substantial amount of time sacrificing other valuable activities such as face-to-face communication without providing appropriate functions for facilitating social relations, thereby limiting actual social relations (Kraut et al., 1998, Nie, 2001 and Putnam, 1995). Such displacement often leads users to have negative sense of subjective well-being (Stepanikova, Nie, & He, 2010). Reflecting these contrasting perspectives of the augmentation and the displacement hypotheses, meta-analyses of media use and its effects on well-being support neither the displacement hypothesis nor the augmentation hypothesis. Huang (2010) reported very small correlation (r = −0.04) between various Internet use and well-being from 43 independent correlations. Similarly, Shklovski, Kiesler, and Kraut (2006) provided a meta-analysis that Internet use can either facilitate or hinder interactions with friends. Thus, both contrasting hypotheses, augmentation and displacement, have been neither confirmed nor disconfirmed. The purpose of this study is to provide possible underlying mechanisms for how media use can both augments and displaces valuable social activities such as face-to-face communication, and can both enhances and reduces well-being. To this end, this study will distinguish affect system and human relations into two distinctive systems (approaching rewards versus avoiding threats), and then will argue and provide evidence that media-mediated communication and interaction with media can function mainly for approaching rewards but not for avoiding threats, whereas face-to-face communication can function for both approaching rewards and avoiding threats. In terms of approaching rewards, media use can augment face-to-face communication improving well-being, whereas, in terms of avoiding threats, media use can displace face-to-face communication decreasing well-being.

6. Conclusion We considered two dimensions of relatedness, namely isolation and connectedness, and found that the social use of media is for seeking connectedness, not for avoiding social isolation. This distinction can explain why previous studies have produced mixed results for the effects of media use on subjective well-being and rationalized those results by using two contrasting hypotheses: the displacement and augmentation hypotheses. Previous studies’ mixed results imply that both hypotheses may be right, and this study’s results explain why. Media use can lead to displacement because this use reduces the amount of time spent on face-to-face communication without facilitating the avoidance of social isolation, thereby limiting subjective well-being. On the other hand, media use can result in augmentation because it can provide opportunities such as connectedness to others.