Communicating and sharing emotions on Facebook. A study with adolescents.

The study focused on adolescents' use of Facebook (FB), especially with respect to whether and how they communicate and share their emotions on FB. About 1350 adolescents (14 to 21 yrs), from Sardinia, Italy, took part in the study. Adolescents answered a survey that included many specific questions on FB usage, as well as judged 5 FP_real posts of people sharing an event and their thoughts and emotions on it. They also filled a loneliness scale that was employed as a well-being criterion. The main results are that adolescents generally speaking use FB on average up to everyday, but they see their friends too, and there is no relation between using FB and loneliness level. Adolescents do not share much their emotions, especially not the negative ones, and feel that you have to be careful with whom you share things. Both sexes in general have not shared with anyone both an emotionally positive nor a negative event. Girls have somewhat fewer friends and fewer FB accounts than boys, use FB more than boys to express their emotions, generally express on FB their emotions somewhat more often than boys, especially sadness, and share and comment them by posting links that express them. Although the sample is generally 'healthy', girls feel less lonely than boys (both socially and emotionally, and UCLA measure). In sum, the study shows that the tested Italian adolescents use FB 'cum grano salis', do not use FB because they lack friends, but - especially if feeling lonely - do tend to use FB to express their emotions (joy especially), and be consoled when down (they use FB for many other purposes, such as keep updated on politics and sports, share videos and music, keep in contact with people who are away, etc.). Sex is an important variable in differentiating FB usage in many respects, overall indicating that adolescents follow at least to some extent emotionally gender-congruent implicit norms.