102 Who Are Our Friends?
Regarding studies of social media use and general psychological health, self-
esteem has served as the most frequent outcome investigated to date. One early
study found most adolescents (78%) received generally positive responses from
their social media friends, with only a minority (7%) reporting generally nega-
tive responses; positive responses, in turn, predicted heightened self- esteem
(Valkenburg, Peter, & Schouten, 2006). Toma and Hancock (2013) further con-
tended that people use Facebook because the site is self- affirming, and research has
demonstrated that time spent viewing one’s own Facebook profile benefits self-
esteem (Gonzales & Hancock, 2011) more than viewing the profile of a stranger
(Toma, 2013); however, in turn, self- esteem may not be associated with the number
of friends maintained via social media (Krämer & Winter, 2008).
Future Directions for Research
Although both social media platforms and their attendant research are relatively
new, scholarship has covered an impressive range of topics relevant to friendship
across them. However, this diversity of topical focus also highlights the limited
selection of technological and relational contexts investigated thus far. Case in
point, even a cursory glance at the literature reveals an almost singular focus on
Facebook; more systematically, Rains and Brunner’s (2015) survey discovered that
80% of studies on single social media platforms addressed only that site. Research
on friendship (and indeed, interpersonal relationships generally) may be even more
lopsided. Despite Twitter’s roughly similar level of popular recognition, almost no
research addresses friendship across the platform, instead investigating Twitter use
for political/ informational purposes (e.g., Larsson & Moe, 2012); likewise, no or
few studies meaningfully address friendship processes across visually
oriented sites like Pinterest, discussion- oriented sites like Reddit, or mobile-
focused platforms like Instagram or SnapChat. That teenagers and young adults may
prefer such venues to Facebook (Madden et al., 2013) only heightens the impor-
tance of understanding them. Although Facebook’s relative age and global popu-
larity (Duggan & Smith, 2013) render it an appropriate starting point for social
media scholarship, it is not the only relevant form of social media when considering
friendship.
As for any field of scholarly inquiry, research comparing Facebook with other
social media platforms will be most valuable if it proceeds theoretically. As Sawhney
(2007) noted, much research has treated new technologies atheoretically, as though
they bear little relation to technologies that have come before, and thus has produced
descriptive studies possessing little heuristic value. Toward redressing this persistent
and pernicious problem, some scholars have articulated theoretical contours of dif-
ferent forms of communication media. For example, Papacharissi (2009) identified
four factors distinguishing social media site design and architecture: (1) public/