kyle - undergraduate thesis - exploring facebook’s relationship to parental attachment

7/30/2019 Kyle - Undergraduate Thesis - EXPLORING FACEBOOKS RELATIONSHIP TO PARENTAL ATTACHMENT

1/57

1

EXPLORING FACEBOOKS RELATIONSHIP TO PARENTAL ATTACHMENT,INDEPENDENCE, AND ACADEMIC ADJUSTMENT OF COLLEGE STUDENTS

A Capstone Experience Manuscript

Presented by

Kyle William Lunt

Completion Date:

May 2012

Approved By:

Michael Morgan, Communication


2/57

2

ABSTRACT

Title: Exploring Facebooks Relationship to Parental Attachment, Independence, and

Academic Adjustment of College StudentsAuthor: Kyle Lunt, Communication

CE Type: Course Capstone ThesisApproved By: Michael Morgan, Communication

In a culture of ever-emerging social media technologies, our interpersonal interactions with those

around us are in a constant state of change. It is important to monitor that change in order toanalyze and understand its societal and cultural implications. This study seeks to investigate how

the use of Facebook relates to a number of critical variables important to the parent-college

student relationship. Existing research has explored how and by whom Facebook is used, while

other studies have looked at attachment and independence in relation to collegiate adjustment;however, there remains a gap in the research, in that these variables have not been previously

connected to Facebook use. This study investigates the potential role Facebook plays in

supporting one end of a two-tailed hypothesis: that student-parent Facebook use correlateswith healthy attachment, the promotion of individuation, and subsequently adjustment and

success, OR that it correlates negatively with attachment, leading to increased dependence,

suppressed individuation, and subsequently undermining adjustment. Independence, parental

attachment, and ability to adjust to the collegiate academic environment are all important factorsthat can impact the future success of students. Findings suggest that student-parent Facebook

communication correlates with attachment levels of parents and students of the same gender, and

for females, is also linked to independence, proposing that Facebook may play a supporting rolein completing a modified version of the first tail of the two-tailed hypothesis. While Facebook

use adds to total parental communication, it does not appear to play a superior role to other

media forms.


3/57

3

ABSTRACT

Title: Exploring Facebooks Relationship to Parental Attachment, Independence, and

Academic Adjustment of College StudentsAuthor: Kyle Lunt, Communication

CE Type: Course Capstone ThesisApproved By: Michael Morgan, Communication

In a culture of ever-emerging social media technologies, our interpersonal interactions with those

around us are in a constant state of change. It is important to monitor that change in order toanalyze and understand its societal and cultural implications. This study seeks to investigate how

the use of Facebook relates to a number of critical variables important to the parent-college

student relationship. Existing research has explored how and by whom Facebook is used, while

other studies have looked at attachment and independence in relation to collegiate adjustment;however, there remains a gap in the research, in that these variables have not been previously

connected to Facebook use. This study investigates the potential role Facebook plays in

supporting one end of a two-tailed hypothesis: that student-parent Facebook use correlateswith healthy attachment, the promotion of individuation, and subsequently adjustment and

success, OR that it correlates negatively with attachment, leading to increased dependence,

suppressed individuation, and subsequently undermining adjustment. Independence, parental

attachment, and ability to adjust to the collegiate academic environment are all important factorsthat can impact the future success of students. Findings suggest that student-parent Facebook

communication correlates with attachment levels of parents and students of the same gender, and

for females, is also linked to independence, proposing that Facebook may play a supporting rolein completing a modified version of the first tail of the two-tailed hypothesis. While Facebook

use adds to total parental communication, it does not appear to play a superior role to other

media forms.


4/57

1

INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM & THOERETICAL FRAMEWORK:

Significance of Study:

In a culture of ever-emerging social media technologies such as Facebook, Twitter,

YouTube, etc., our interpersonal interactions with those around us, including family, friends,

acquaintances, and the rest of the public sphere, are in a constant state of change. It is important

to monitor that change in order to analyze and understand its societal and cultural implications.

In addition to tracking how Facebook usage has evolved in recent years with respect to students

and parents, especially as Facebook continues to spread to older generations, the major goal of

this study is to investigate how the use of the most pervasive form of social media in our culture

relates to a number of critical variables important to the parent-college student relationship,

including parental attachment, overall independence (Individuation), and adjustment to college.

Thus the subjects of this study are college students.

Over time, the cultural norms surrounding college have shifted. For example, in previous

generations, many more students didnt graduate high school and many more high school

graduates didnt go on to study at a college or university before heading straight into the work

force, while today it is the expectation of many more students who graduate high school to

continue their education in college by whatever means necessary. In addition, when parents

shipped their children off to college in the past, it was generally more of a parting in terms of

communication than it is today due to the fact that we are increasingly immersed in a culture of

split-second communication technologies. Cell phones, email, instant messaging, social

networking, an ever-increasing prevalence of internet connectivity, and even smartphones which

connect all of these into one device, have increased the frequency and ease by which we stay in

contact with people in our lives. The longer we live with these technologies, the more


5/57

2

normalized and universal they become, even among older generations. In fact, it is one of the

hypotheses of this study that a higher percentage ofcollege students parents will have Facebook

accounts than what empirical evidence showed just a few years ago when data collected from

UMass Amherst college students showed that 30% of students had a parent with a Facebook

account (Connolly, 2009, p. 21). It is easier now more than ever to maintain constant

communication with family and friends we arent able to spend time with in person due to

physical distance and other limitations. This understandably affects the patterns of interaction

between college students and their parentsperhaps in terms of quality, but at least in terms of

frequency. If a student living away at college wrote a letter or called his or her parents once

every few weeks by payphone or landline even a decade or two ago, that would likely be his or

her only contact with them. However, today students and parents have the ability to keep up

much more regularly.

Therefore, if new information communication technologies such as Facebook have the

ability to alter our practices of interaction and both enable and constrain social action and social

relationships (Kling, Rosenbaum, & Sawyer, 2005, p. 20), then some important questions we

are inclined to ask while focusing this notion on the parent-college student relationship, are:

What connections can be drawn between Facebook use and parental attachment? What about

Facebook use and student independence? Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, what

connections can be drawn between Facebook use and academic and social adjustment? With this

information we are also able to draw general connections between college students parental

attachment and independence levels, subsequently analyzing how and if these potential

relationships correspond to academic and social adjustment (first without Facebook in the

equation). Then, the analysis will explore whether or not the overall use of Facebook by college


6/57

3

students, or the amount they use it to interact with their parents, plays a significant role or

appears to cause certain trends in the data that represent these connections. It is plausible that

Facebook is no different than other ICTs in this regard; that greater Facebook communication

may create the same effects among these key variables that other forms of communication like

texting or emailing do. What is unique about Facebook, however, is that unlike these other

technologies, communication is done in the public eye (or at least in the eyes of everyone who

can view ones Facebook profile). There is also the capability for trans-relationship

communication. For example, a parent is able to view, comment, and even take part in the

conversations that a student is already having, or has had in the past (since Facebook

conversations arent archived or deleted like in other messaging technologies) wi th other

Facebook friends, creating complex communication-relationship dynamics in any given

exchange. Conversely, in-person conversation, telephone calls, texting, video chat, and email are

all typically forms of private, one-on-one, communication. And unlike any of these other

technologies, Facebook combines emails ability to conveniently send and receive messages at

any time, instant messagings ability to create instant, shorter conversation back and forth,

textings ability to do so on-the-go (via virtually any mobile device with internet access), and

other social networking sites abilities to share pictures, videos, and personal information about

oneself.

While it is not possible with cross-sectional data to determine the direct level of causality

when it comes to Facebooks impact on academic and social adjustment, parental attachment, or

independence, relationships that are found bear significance of their own. For instance, these data

may not prove that greater Facebook communication with a parent specifically leads to a higher

level of attachment to that parent, or whether students who communicate heavily with their


7/57

4

parents via Facebook do so because of preexisting attachmentthe direction in this case is

indeterminablehowever, based on the relationship we are able to draw important conclusions

and interpretations of our own. Within the social-scientific theoretical framework ofthe media-

society interaction model (p. 600) discussed by Elkind which asserts that media both reflect

and determine society, we can reason that the relationship, rather than causality is what is most

significant. From this perspective, causality inherently goes in both directions because of media

and societys dynamic relationship, and thus a strong positive correlation between Facebook use

and healthy independence, for example, could mean that Facebook both contributes to and is a

result of student independence.

This study is pertinent because social media is still a relatively new, and still growing,

phenomenon in our culture. One of the fundamentally unique aspects of being human is our

unprecedented ability to communicate amongst each other; the more we understand the effects

and relationships caused by ICTs, the more we can understand ourselves and our culture. A more

solid understanding of our cultures relationship to Facebook will provide a stronger base of

preparedness and knowledge to adapt to future innovations in the growing realm of social media.

Existing research discusses how and by whom Facebook is used, and even how college students

feel about their parents using Facebook (Stern & Taylor, 2007; Connolly, 2009). In addition,

other studies have looked at attachment and independence in relation to collegiate adjustment

(Mattanah, Hancock, & Brand, 2004); however, there remains a gap in the research in that these

variables have not been connected to Facebook use. So, as a rational next step, it is interesting to

investigate how this increasingly popular form of communication relates to things our society

values in the growth and development of college studentsour societys future. Independence,

parental attachment, and ability to adjust to the collegiate academic and social environments are


8/57

5

all vital pieces of that puzzle and can impact the future success of students. This study

illuminates the potential role Facebook plays in this process.

Overview of Previous Research & Introduction of Hypothesis:

Secure attachment to parents has been shown to have a positive correlation with

independence (less anxiety about the separation process) which correlates to better adjustment to

college (Mattanah et al., 2004). Interacting more frequently with parents on Facebook, or simply

having them as a Facebook friend, might indicate either healthy attachment ordependence.

This opens the door for an intriguing two-tailed hypothesis: Could college student Facebook

use with parents correlate with healthy attachment, the promotion of individuation, and

subsequently adjustment and success? Or does it correlate negatively with healthy attachment,

leading to increased dependence, suppressed individuation, and subsequently undermining

adjustment and success?

Results from this study such as a possible correlation between Facebook use and lack of

independence may potentially be used as a springboard for further research, such as on whether

the communication patterns developed and engendered by the salience of social media play any

sort ofrole in the phenomenon of the boomerang generation of young adults who graduate

college and come back home to seek further support and nurturing from their parents

(Andreason, 2001, p. 11), which is commonly ascribed to socio-economic dimensions within

society. Results from this research could also potentially be applied to add to the discussion of

various social theories such as Demos (1994) notion that society forms the family more than a

good family creates a good societyfamily is influenced from without. Or it could be used as an

interesting jumping-off point in juxtaposition to Williams (2011) idea of having the family all in


9/57

6

the same room but not together because of all the different screens (and thus different worlds).

If data from this study indicate a strong correlation between parent-student interaction via

Facebook and parental attachment, an ironic, yet stable argument can be made that while ICTs

can cause families to be in the same room yet not interacting with each other, they can also

conversely lead to family closeness even when family members are very far away. In the same

way that the daughter in the Williams article can show her mom something interesting on her

screen that creates a bonding moment, if her daughter is away at college, she could just as

easily post a link on her Moms Facebook wall.

Using a combination of original questions and questions derived from previous

questionnaires, this study measured college students demographics, parental attachment to both

mother and father, independence, both social and academic college adjustment, general

communication practices by frequency and type, and in particular, Facebook usage including:

overall student usage, existence of parent accounts, friendship status with parents, and

frequency of student-parent Facebook interaction. It is with measurements derived from this last

set of variables that this study attempts to find correlations between parental attachment,

independence, and academic and social adjustment in college in relation to Facebook use.

LITERATURE REVIEW:

Facebook Literature:

The initial possibility of research questions for this study amounted to an embarrassment

of riches. Through reviewing existing literature to find a viable yet interesting research gap, and

after multiple iterations and revisions, the topic of discussion was able to be simplified and

broken down to a manageable form. The following is a literature review highlighting and


10/57

7

assessing relevant knowledge on the research topic and from which a direction of this study

emerged.

An article, Social Networking on Facebook, by Stern and Taylor (2007) looked at how

college students use Facebook. An impressive statistic showed that from a survey of 364

undergraduates of a mid-western university, 88% of them had Facebook accounts. 62% allowed

everyone in their university to access their profiles while only a small percentage of students

reported limiting their profiles for privacy reasons. In addition, most students reported giving

accurate representations of themselves on the site. Time spent on Facebook was limited in terms

of what we think of today, with almost half (49%) spending only 10 minutes per day on the site

and only 3% reporting that they spent more than two hours per day on Facebook. It is possible

that this low percentage is due to the fact that Facebook use has become more prevalent and

frequent since 2007, but social desirability may have played a more significant role four or five

years ago when Facebook was less normalized as a routine activity. Five years ago when

Facebook was newer, high daily usage may have been seen as not having a real social life

whereas today it is accepted as more of an intricate and necessary aspect of having one.

The researchers also found that the most common uses of Facebook were for sending

messages to friends and viewing photoskeeping in touch with old friends, making plans,

checking out people, checking up on their current boyfriend/girlfriend, entertainment and

procrastination (Stern & Taylor, p. 13). Data for these findings were collected though a closed-

ended set of questions with an option to add other uses that werent listed. This shows how

Facebook can play a crucial role in communication among peers which can act as a good

theoretical counterpoint for interaction with parents (with all the obvious caveats). The study also

found that only 17% of people never accepted friend requests from people they didnt know,


11/57

8

demonstrating that students are willing and open to share information about themselves with

strangers. Many reported accepting friend requests simply so as to not appear rude or mean.

In the studys determination of Facebook conflict it was shown that 20% of users reported ever

being stalked on Facebookand 86% reported that they had ever been in any trouble because of

Facebook. The connotation of stalked was assumed to be negative in this study and trouble

was left up to the surveyed to define.

The authors describe Facebooks role in promoting relationship maintenance as well. In

this sense it allows people to stay in touch and establish or at least maintain positive relationships

with others. One critique of the study is that it does not raise the question of to what level these

interactions and friendships are superficial. This study also describes Facebooks ability to

provide a way to express ones personality and rapidly communicate with many users

simultaneously without having to type out multiple email addresses, for example (p. 18).

One major consideration in evaluating the Stern and Taylor study in comparison to the

one at hand is that the data were collected between February and September 2006. Like all social

research, it is limited to the time and place it was conducted, creating an incentive for this new

study to see what is going on now and evaluate the significant changes. At the time of the

previous study, Facebook was not open to everyone. It was already available to college students

and became open to High School students in March 2006, but was not open to the general public

until after the window of this study. Therefore, parent data were not included in any form. Since

then, privacy settings have also been vastly expanded upon, revamped, and simplified. The

emergence of the iPhone and other smart phones did not occur until 2007 which means Facebook

applications for mobile use also are not part of the equation in this study. Since the time of this

study Facebook has opened up to anyone including many corporations. Advertising has risen and


12/57

9

become more advanced, and due to this, the analysis of negative Facebook experiences might

look a lot different than it did before, including many more complaints about unwanted

invitations and spam regarding groups and events.

A study done by Eszter Hargittai (2008) which included a survey of 1,060 18-19 year old

college students in Illinois legitimized Facebook as the most popular social networking site

(SNS) at 78.8% usage compared to MySpace which was second at 54.5%. The study also

indicated that students whose parents had higher education levels were more likely to use

Facebook over other sites such as MySpace and that students who lived at home rather than away

at school were less likely to use social networking sites. Hispanics were the most likely to use

MySpace. Since people often use SNS to maintain existing relationships, they tend to use the

same SNS that the people they know already use.

A 2009 study by Corrine Connolly entitled Families on Facebook: Friend or Foe? was

designed to explore parent/child interactions and communication patterns on Facebook

(Connolly, 2009). A 44 question, ten minute survey was distributed to three general education

classes comprised of 203 respondents at UMass Amherst. One limitation to this study was that it

asked the students, rather than parents themselves, about how frequent the parents Facebook use

was. The question asks, How often does that parent (the one who uses it the most) use

Facebook? The problem this question poses is that students might not be the most accurate

judge of what parents are doing on Facebook all the timeespecially college students who spend

less time with their parents directly and tend to live apart from them. There are many times

where I personally go on Facebook to check on other people or see if anything exciting has

happened and dont post anything. College students in the study may be unaware of how

frequently their parents use Facebook or log on because they can only see the visible activity.


13/57

10

There is likely no way for the student to know how much the parent actually logs on. Using

Facebook could be different than logging in to Facebook in many cases as well. One must

also consider, however, that during the time of this study it was relatively new for parents to get

on Facebook at all, so the author may have suspected students would know more about their

parents usage based on their general relationships and discussions. The study also measured the

number of Facebook friends students have, how often the parent/student uses Facebook, and

whether or not the student had a parent on Facebook. It found that 30% of the sample did in fact

have a parent on Facebook.

My main critique of this study is that the author continually states findings of students

who are unhappy about their parents being on Facebook. She finds that unhappiness about

parents being on Facebook is correlated to blocking parents more online and communicating less

with parents in general. However, there is no question in the survey directly asking about a

students unhappiness with their parent on Facebook. There is only a question asking how

strongly they agree or disagree (1-5) with the statement Im happy to have my parent(s) on

Facebook (p. 23). Connolly then uses the reverse of this answer to measure each students

Unhappiness, which data, although it has a possibility of usefulness, could also be

fundamentally flawed in this context because lack of happiness about having a parent on

Facebook isnt necessarily tantamount with being unhappy about it. Presumably, many who

strongly disagree with the statement (which was only 20%) are unhappy about it, but some

may also be simply indifferent. For instance, am I happy that Pluto is no longer a planet? No. But

am I unhappy about it? Not really. Indifference might play villain to these results but its hard to

say. Either way, if Connolly wanted to measure student unhappiness she might have been better

off asking about it directly. This could account for why there is a high percentage of students in


14/57

11

her study who are not happy about their parents Facebookpresence, but who are not willing to

delete their own Facebook page over it or ask their parent to delete theirsalthough those would

be fairly extreme responses.

There could be a certain 3rd

person effect in the wording of the questions. This might

explain why 41% said it was embarrassing to be friends with a parent, and 63% said it was

weird to have a parent on Facebook, while only 13% said having a parent on Facebook makes

them look strange. Why would people be embarrassed about it if it didnt cause them to be

perceived differently or seen as strange? Connolly acknowledges that maybe uncool would be

a better term than strange. It can be mustered that a very low percentage of the 63% who think

its weird to have a parent on Facebook are the students who are actually Facebook friends with

their parents. Varied statistics may be a result in large part of the specific wording of the

questions. It is weird to have my parent(s) on Facebook allows the question to be read less

personally, as though it is weird for other people, or it is weird in general. But Having a parent

on Facebook makes me look strange to other users is directed more specifically toward the

answerer, possibly triggering a natural reaction of self-defense. No one wants to feel like

something makes them look strange. Students are more likely to say something is weird if the

question doesnt imply they are talking about themselves.

The study also found that there is no correlation between how many Facebook friends a

student had and whether they were Facebook friends with their parents. Another thing the study

measured was how frequently Facebook was used between parents and students compared to

calling and emailing which are more traditional. There were questions on how often students

called parents, how often parents called students, and how often students emailed parents, but


15/57

12

curiously no question on how often parents emailed students. It seemed odd to include 3 out of

the 4 questions.

This study also provides a good benchmark to examine how much Facebook interaction

between parents and students has increased. Only three years ago during this study, 30% of

students had parents as Facebook friends. It is reasonable to suspect that this number has gone up

significantly. In addition, in 2009, Facebookdidnt compare to phone and email as primary

forms of parent/student interaction. 78% of students spoke with parents on the phone at least a

few times a week, 39% emailed, and only 5-6% interacted with parents on Facebook at least a

few times a week. This study found that when parents do actually use Facebook, it becomes a

replacement for the other forms of traditional communication. Initially, I had expected to find

this result to have proliferated over time. Pre-data analysis, I also expected my study to

determine that Facebook usage in 2012 would rival phone use by percentage, while possibly

even surpassing email; however I still expected the phone to be the most common form of

communication (which has been re-confirmed). I also suspected that Facebook inboxing had

potentially replaced a large portion of emailing and expected to find that general Facebook

interaction between parents and children has gone up significantly, leading to a slight decline in

cell phone and email communicationthe old leaders.

A 2009 study from the London School of Economics (West, Lewis, & Currie, 2009) was

one of the few that had examined the idea of parents as possible Facebook friends. The study was

done through a series of semi-structured interviews with 16 students in 2007 with a mean age of

22, lasting about an hour each, gathering their thoughts on having a parent as a Facebook friend.

Only undergraduates known to be active Facebook users were approached (p. 619). Still, at this

time, the prevalence of parents on Facebook was quite low with only one female in the group


16/57

13

reporting that her mother was her Facebook friend, but the thought had at least made its way into

the minds of many of these college-age users. There was an overall notion that parents would not

be welcomed due to underlying reasons of social norms, embarrassment, and worries about

mothers. Several thought it unlikely that their parents would even use Facebook, so the prospect

of their wanting to be friendswould not arise: Well,she doesnt know how to use the Internet

so I know that wont happen! (Charlotte).More generally, Theres that idea that you want to

keep certain things away from your parents (Luke) (p. 621). There was an overall notion in the

interviews that ones public personality somehow excluded the family as part of the public,

making the importance of separate worlds fundamental. However, the issue of normalization

of ICTs over time that I previously described already comes into play in these interviews from

2007. This is displayed most vividly in one of the participants responses:

Im not embarrassed that my mums on Facebook anymore because there seem to be a

lot more parents, oldies on Facebook. But at first it was just my mum, and I was pretty

embarrassed by that . . . I just knew that it was something I didnt want my mum

involved in, she could look at my photos, and that sort of stuff but I didnt want her

actively partaking in it. Just because thats not what mums do. (Hannah) (p. 621).

An interesting aspect of these interviewees was that their private life was something that was

seen as outside their family rather than inside it. Fahey (1995) has proposed that instead of one

public/private boundary, it may be more accurate to speak of a more complex re-structuring in a

series of zones ofprivacy (p. 688).

Venezuela, Park, and Kee (2009) looked at Facebook and enhancement of social capital

among college students by using data from a web survey taken by college students in Texas.

Although positive relationships[were found] between [amount] of Facebook use and students'


17/57

14

life satisfaction, social trust, civic engagement, and political participation, these relationships

were not determined to be very strong and thus Facebook was not deemed a significant catalyst

for creating civic duty and democracy among American youth. The study also concludes that the

typical moral panic behind the idea that Facebook is harmful to young Americans can be

eased.

College Student Attachment, Independence, and Adjustment Literature:

According to past research (Strage & Brandt, 1999), the number of students enrolling in

U.S. colleges and universities is at an unprecedented high, with new students reporting increased

confidence that they will successfully graduate. In spite of this confidence, once at college,

students are reporting record high levels of emotional and psychological stress (Sax, Astin, Korn,

& Mahoney, 1999; U.S. Department of Education, 1995). During the 1970s and 1980s, research

demonstrated that students with higher levels of separation-individuation (coded as healthy

independence in my study) reported better academic and social adjustment to college and fewer

symptoms of loneliness or depression (Hoffman, 1984; Hoffman & Weiss, 1987; Lapsley, Rice,

& Shadid, 1989; Levine, Green, & Millon, 1986; Lopez, Campbell, & Watkins, 1986, 1988;

Rice, Cole, & Lapsley, 1990). In these studies, separation-individuation was defined primarily

as the absence of negative feelings about the process of separation, including feelings of anxiety,

guilt, or expecting rejection when separating. Separation-individuation is seen as a

developmental process that begins with separation from parents, peers, and other significant

persons, but that extends to individuation and the development of a coherent, autonomous self

(Mattanah et al., 2004).
http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c72http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c67http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c67http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c73http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c29http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c30http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c42http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c42http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c44http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c47http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c48http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c62http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c62http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c48http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c47http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c44http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c42http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c42http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c30http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c29http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c73http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c67http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c67http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c72


18/57

15

The Mattanah study about the parental attachment of college students in relation to their

separation-individuation also examined three dimensions of adjustment in collegeacademic,

social, and personal-emotionalto explore whether attachment and separation-individuation

were equally relevant across these areas of adjustment for male and female college students

(Mattanah et al., 2004). 404 college students (158 [39.1%] men and 246 [60.9%] women) at a

middle-sized public regional university in the Northeastern United States participated in what

was described to them as a study of college student adjustment. Data collection took place over

a 3-year period and throughout the school year, from early in the fall semester to late in the

spring semester. It is my understanding that the students were not followed over time, but the

unusually long three year period was simply to gather more participants (it was a 90 minute

survey after all). Participants were recruited via flyers placed around campus and through

announcements made in undergraduate courses. Most of these announcements were made in

undergraduate psychology courses, but an effort was made to recruit students in other

departments as well (e.g., English, History, and Mass Communications). Interested students were

individually administered a packet of questionnaires to complete, which took about 90 minutes.

Upon completion, participants received a form that might be applicable for extra credit in their

courses and their name was entered into a raffle for a small gift certificate at the local bookstore.

To maintain confidentiality, participants signed a separate informed consent form but did not put

any identifying information on the questionnaires. An unusually long 90 minute survey and a gift

incentive allowed for a very comprehensive studysomething that was not a viable option, nor

deemed necessary, in the development of my own survey.

Of the 404 students, the mean age of the participants was 20.57 years. Using

Hollingshead's (1965) two-factor index of social class, 43.7% of the students were from families
http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c31http://web.ebscohost.com.silk.library.umass.edu/ehost/detail?sid=b60edfea-50ae-46c6-a592-b343712436cd%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=24&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#c31


19/57

16

in Social Classes I and II (i.e., executives, major professionals, and large business owners),

whereas 56.3% were from families in Social Classes III and IV (minor professionals, middle

management, small business owners, skilled workers, etc.; Mattanah et al., 2004). For my survey

I chose to drop the complicated social class measurements due to the format of the scan-tron

answer sheet. Instead the response options range from Working Class to Upper Class.

Overall, I was impressed with the thoroughness of this study. It took place over a 3 year

period (in which students were not followed), had a 90 minute survey, which is tough to get

students to take the time for, and many demographics were taken into account including race,

gender, age, and even social class.

Mattanah et al. gave the students in the study a survey comprised of three different

instruments that had already established credibility within the scholarly community. One, the

Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (Armsden & Greenberg, 1987), measured student

attachment levels to parents and peers with 25 questions. The second, the Separation-

Individuation Test of Adolescence (Levine, Green & Millon, 1986), contains 103 items that

students responded to on a 5-point rating scale, measuring their level of separation-individuation.

The third, the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (Baker & Siryk, 1989), is a 67-item

self-report questionnaire used to assess college students' academic, social, and personal-

emotional adjustment to college, all of which have been shown to correlate negatively with

college attrition and positively with student grade point average and participation in social

events. By combining the results of the three different test batteries, Mattanah et al. were able to

determine correlations among attachment, individuation, and successful adaptation to college.

The study supported a growing body of evidence suggesting that both a secure

attachment relationship to parents and a healthy level of separation-individuation are predictive


20/57

17

of positive academic, social, and personal-emotional adjustment to college. A simplified version

of these findings is illustrated in Figure 1. These results might be counter-intuitive to those who

think that attachment to parents during college leads to an inability of students to live on their

ownalmost as if the parents acted as a crutch and when you remove the crutch, the student

would fall flat. The key factor in defeating this notion is to recognize that healthy attachment

does not imply dependence; they are in fact separate variables. Instead, attachment with parents

seems to reinforce factors that improve a students ability to become a successful, more

independent individual at college (the positive correlations suggest that the relationships work in

the other direction as well).

Figure 1: Mattanah et al. Model, 2004

There are many studies on parent-child attachment/separation. Mattanah and others

extend these theories to apply them to college adaptation. The current study extends the subject

even further to see how a social media site like Facebook might fit into the equation since most

college students now use Facebook regularly. Based on the findings of Mattanah and the other

Separation-

individuation

AdjustmentDimensions

Attachment


21/57

18

studies, evidence suggests that healthy, attached relationships correlate to higher separation-

individuation (healthy independence), because good relationships with parents help students to

be less susceptible to anxiety, guilt, or rejection, which are all defined as negative feelings about

the process of separation when students go to college. Greater attachment to mothers and

fathers leads to less anxiety about the separation process, and less anxiety about separation leads

to greater academic, social, and personal-emotional adjustment to college (Mattanah et al.,

2004, p. 221). Therefore, the study presented here pursued a connection between those findings

and Facebook use. Greater Facebook use with parents might mean either healthy attachment or

greater dependency and therefore, use of Facebook with parents might transitively either hinder

or enhance college students healthy independence, thus impacting academic and social

adjustment at college. The model shown in Figure 2 illustrates the initial hypothesis tested in this

study.

Figure 2: Hypothesized Model

Communication

w/ Parents on FB

Independence

Academic &

Social

Adjustment

Attachment


22/57

19

This model assumes that the pre-existing relationships among parental attachment,

independence, and the social and academic dimensions of adjustment established in the Mattanah

et al. (2004) study hold true. Furthermore, it hypothesizes that Facebook usage with parents also

positively correlates with both parental attachment and independence, offering another

dimension to these relationships. A confirmation of this model suggests that student-parent

Facebook communication, due to the proposed unique nature and communication patterns of the

site, somehow plays an influential role in the status of students independence and/or attachment

to their mothers and fathers, therefore relating to levels of academic and social adjustment at

college.

METHODOLOGY:

Survey Description:

This study is based on a multi-part, 45 question survey administered to college

undergraduates. The survey was broken down into six basic sections: demographics, attachment

to mother and father, independence, academic and social adjustment, communication patterns

with parents, and Facebook related questions.

There were five demographic questions in the first section, which gathered information

on gender, year in school, the college/school the students major falls under, socio-economic

class, and race. These items were used as introductory data to gauge to general demographic

qualities of the group and to allow for the possibility of any of these factors, the most useful

being gender, to act as controls for major variable correlations.

Questions six through thirteen in next section measured academic and social adjustment

to college. Eight questions from the original 67 of the Student Adaptation to College


23/57

20

Questionnaire or SACQ (Baker et al., 1989) were chosen (and in some cases wording was

slightly adjusted for clarity). Due to issues of survey length, only a select few questions were

taken. The same applies for the Attachment and Adjustment sections of the survey. For ease and

consistency, the original nine-point scale was changed to a Likert-Type scale ranging from 1-

Strongly Disagree to 5-Strongly Agree with no labels under responses 2 through 4. Five of

the eight questions measure academic adjustment: two regarding motivation (e.g., I have well-

defined academic goals), two regarding application (e.g., I skip a lot of classes), and one

regarding performance (e.g., I struggle academically, considering the work I put in). The

remaining three questions of the section focus on the social aspect of adjustment: one each

regarding nostalgia (e.g., I often wish I were home instead of college), general (e.g., Im

satisfied with my social life at college), and environment (e.g., I am pleased about my decision

to come to UMass). Indices were created from this section to measure Academic Adjustment,

Social Adjustment, and also combined to measure Overall College Adjustment. Since we are

dealing with college students, these are the studys most significant dependent variables.

Questions 14 through 23 make up the third section and measure student attachment to

both mother and father. Of the 75 questions from the original Inventory of Parent and Peer

Attachment Survey or IPPA (Armsden et al., 1987), the 25 measuring peer attachment were

dropped. Of the 25 questions for each of the mother and the father, five were chosen: two

regarding communication, two regarding trust, and one alienation which was reverse-

scored. The questions chosen from the original survey were selected because they were deemed

most relevant to the study at hand. Ten questions were split into five each about the mother and

father. The questions for both the mother and father are identical. Response categories for these

ten questions range from Almost Never or Never True to Almost Always or always true. The


24/57

21

idea was taken into consideration of changing the response categories to match the Independence

and Adjustment sections which use the response categories from Strongly Agree to Strongly

Disagree because of suggestions for consistency, however, upon deliberation, the responses

were kept as-is for this sectionbecause a Never True to Always True measurement was

deemed more relevant to frequency, which is more pertinent to these questions than level of

agreement. One question for each parent that read, My mother/father doesnt understand what

Im going through, was reverse coded because of its negative implication, unlike the other four

questions per parent. In the process a decision was made to ask about both parents separately

rather than just the parent that uses Facebook the most (if at all). From the five questions on each

parent, an index was created for each parent measuring healthy attachment.

The fourth section, consisting of questions 24 to 31, is made up of eight questions from

the original 103 of the Separation-Individuation Test of Adolescence or SITA (Levine et al.,

1986). This section measures general student independence or lack of anxiety about the

separation process from friends and parents. Questions were selected to create a microcosm of

the full survey by selecting a relatively even array of three of the different categories of questions

listed on the original. Two questions from the category of engulfment anxiety (e.g., I feel my

parents restrict my freedom) and three from the category of separation anxiety (e.g., Being

alone is a very scary idea for me) were chosen and were reverse-scored. Three more were chosen

from the category of healthy separation (e.g., Regardless of how many friends I have, I feel I

can enjoy being by myself). Three questions asked about healthy independence in regards to

friends, two asked about parents, and the other three were ambiguous, for example, Being alone

is a very scary idea for me. The exact wording of a few of these items was marginally adjusted

from the original survey as well in order to create more useful, clearly understood questions. The


25/57

22

original five-point rating scale was changed to a Likert-type scale to create answer categories

more consistent with other sections. The scale ranged from Strongly Disagree to Strongly

Agree with the numbers in between unlabeled because of the intuitiveness of the scale. From

this section an index was created to measure general student independence.

The fifth section, from questions 32 through 36, measures frequency of different kinds of

parent-student communication. The questions were all asked in a similar format asking some

slight variation of: In general, how often do you [type of action] with a parent via [type of

communication]? The different types of communication with parents measured were phone call,

text, email, video chat, and in person. The response categories for these questions were Never

or Almost Never, A Few Time a Month, About Once a Week, Several Times a Week,

and Almost Everyday. These items, along with question 43, asking how often students

communicated with parents via Facebook, were combined to develop a total communication

index.

Communication pattern questions were placed toward the end of the survey, and the sixth

section, 37 through 45, of Facebook-oriented questions was placed after that in order to prevent

participants from going back and overthinking their answers on communication patterns while

answering the other questions. It was determined that this was the best placement order of

questions to get the most reliable data from the survey. Questions on Facebook determined

whether the student has a Facebook account, how often they use it, whether the mother or father

has a Facebook account, and if so, how often they go on Facebook, whether their parents have

Facebook, whether they are Facebookfriends with eachparent, as well as whether they

block information fromparents, which method that Facebook offers for communication they

use most with their parents, and the most important independent variable of this study, how often


26/57

23

students communicate with parents via Facebook. For the sake of more in-depth analysis,

question 43 on frequency of student-parent Facebook communication was collapsed into two

categories: Low (A few times a month or less) to High (About once a week or more).

Students were prompted on the survey to skip the last five questions if neither parent had a

Facebook account because by that point the questions were unanswerable and irrelevant.

Survey Creation & Distribution:

The UMass Amherst Spire system was used to find two large lecture classes that yielded

367 student responses. The professors were first asked about administering the surveys to their

classes through in-person meetings at office hours, and permission was granted in both instances.

Further communication was then followed up through email. On the same day during the middle

of the Spring 2012 semester, data was collected from ECON 103, which had a total enrollment of

about 200, and BIO 101, with a total enrollment of about 400. As expected, the majority of

students were present, but neither class was in full attendance. Both classes were decided on in

part because they were general education courses in order to yield a respectable diversity of

academic majors. The surveys and accompanying scan-tron sheets were distributed to all

students present at the beginning of each class and the majority of students finished them in

approximately five minutes. Before, and as, surveys were being handed out, information was

verbally given to the classes about the nature of the survey in addition to instructions to fill out

the surveys anonymously and as completely as possible to their own discretion. Surveys were

collected as students finished them and about ten minutes after the final surveys were handed

out, all surveys, including incompletes, were collected in order to resume class promptly. After

collection, completed surveys were brought to UMass Op-scan Services in order to render the


27/57

24

raw data. Once the raw data was available in spreadsheet form, it was deposited into SPSS

statistical program software for analysis.

Prior to production in high quantities, the survey went through many stages of revision. A

total of six pretests were done at various stages of the revision process. These six UMass

students, four males and two females, were timed and asked to take the draft surveys and give

any feedback, suggestions, questions, or concerns about the surveys regarding clarity or other

factors. These pretests along with several rounds of suggestions from other capstone students

were instrumental in coming up with the final version of the survey. Alterations were made over

multiple weeks including formatting, reordering of questions and question sections (to have

Facebook questions at the end for example), changing of question and instruction wording, as

well as the addition and deletion of certain questions and improvement of response categories for

reasons such as creating consistency across similar questions. At the conclusion of the pretests

and revision meetings, surveys were revised and final versions were printed.

RESULTS & ANALYSIS

Demographics

The results of the surveys yielded that 40.7% of the respondents were male and 59.3%

were female. In term of year in school, major, and race, a high majority of participants were

freshmen (68.9%), had majors in the School of Natural Sciences or Engineering (65.2%), and

were white (77%). Additionally, the highest reported socio-economic statuses were middle

(49.5%) and upper-middle class (26.9%).


28/57

25

Secondary Findings:

Prior to investigating intricacies of my proposed hypothesis model, there were some very

important secondary findings to be noted. First, 92.3% of students in this survey reported having

a Facebook account compared to 88% in 2007 (Sterns & Taylor, 2007). And quite staggeringly,

73% of students had at least one parent on Facebook (See Figure 3). That is compared to just

30% of UMass students who reported having a parent on Facebook only three years ago

(Connolly, 2009). This suggests that although its been around since 2004, Facebook has

continued to grow within the population, especially among the older generations. This is possibly

due to the fact that Facebook was first created for college students and young people, and since

theyve had access to it formuch longer, most students who would have a Facebook account

already do, leaving less room for the same type of rapid growth that is being witnessed among

parents. Additionally, now that Facebook has been around for about eight years, younger college

students, around 19 years old, would have had the opportunity to use Facebook at a relatively

young age in their teens, when parental supervision is usually much higher than it is when

students go to college, meaning that parents might be more likely to have Facebook accounts in

2012 compared to parents who had children that were in college when Facebook began because

parents of college students today are much more likely to have seen their children grow up in the

house with Facebook and possibly had rules about using it or even created a personal account to

monitor their children. It is also interesting to note that mothers made up the majority of parental

Facebook users, with 61% of students reporting that their mother was on Facebook, and 39% of

fathers. This is still double the 30% of students that reported having even one parent on

Facebook in 2009 (Connolly, 2009). In fact, over half (54%) report that they are Facebook

friends with their mothers while only about a third (31%) are friends with their fathers.. Three


29/57

26

years ago, with only 30% of students having parents on Facebook in the first place, that would

not have even been possible.

Figure 3: Parents on Facebook Breakdown

Additionally, in 2007, 49% of Stern & Taylors 364 respondents reported using Facebook

about 10 minutes per day. This study showed an incredible increase in usage in that 83%

reported going on Facebook at least 1-2 times a day and more than half (52.4%) of students

reported going on many time throughout the day. While the nature of Stern & Taylors version

of the question is geared more towards duration of use per day, it is safe to say that going on

Mom Only

33%

Dad Only

12%Both

28%

Neither27%

Parents on Facebook %

Mom Only

Dad Only

Both

Neither

73% ofstudents have at

least one parent onFacebook


30/57

27

Facebook 1-2 times daily, when that sometimes involves checking notifications, uploading

pictures, commenting, searching, or conversing with someone else, would often entail more than

10 minutes of use, and certainly going on many times throughout the day would allow us to

assume so. A large part of this phenomenon may be attributed to the addition of new features to

Facebook over the years like instant messaging as well as increased use of smartphones which

allow social media sites to be accessed at virtually all times just like a text message.

Contrary to Connollys 2009 study and my initial expectations, this study found that

Facebook does not, in fact, become a replacement for other forms of traditional communication,

but rather seems to grow and shrink alongside the compounded variable oftotal

communication, showing a particularly strong correlation between Facebooking with parents

and texting with them, but showing no negative correlations among any of the different forms

whatsoever. Unlike my previous prediction, this suggests that Facebook inboxing has done very

little, if anything, to replace student-parent emailing. The correlation between total

communication and Facebook communication (Tables 4 & 5) suggests that students who

communicate more with their parents in general also tend to do so via Facebook, simply

providing yet another outlet for connection. The strong correlation between texting and

Facebook use (r=.28, p


31/57

28

Furthermore, this study showed that Facebook usage with parents in 2012 still falls very

short of rivaling phone conversations, or texting, with Figure 4 illustrating that compared to

phone (46%) and text (44%), only 6% of students reported communicating with their parents via

Facebook several times a week or more (this percentage does not change when controlling for

students with/without a parent on Facebook, mostly because students who did not have a parent

on Facebook finished the survey before this question). Facebook also failed to surpass emailing,

which was reported at 9%. The lower percentages of (almost) all of these forms of

communication compared to the Connolly study (2009) are likely due to the slight difference in

her phrasing of the response being coded which read at least a few times a week versus

several times a week or more. One communication measurement the 2009 study did not

include was texting between parents and students, which in this study was reported as the second

most common form (44%) and was significantly higher than email (9%), which was the second

most common form reported in the 2009 study. As predicted, the phone remained the most

common form of communication between students and parents. The low percentage of parent-

student Facebook communication several times a week or more, compared to the other forms,

indicates that even though Facebook use is still becoming more prevalent for Students, and

especially parents, it is not (at this point at least) acting as a main form of communication for the

two groups between each other. This may be attributed to a common notion that Facebook is

mostly considered a cyberspace in which students interact with ones peers and friends rather

than with coworkers or family members for example.


32/57

29

Figure 4: Parent-Student Communication Breakdown Several Times a Week or More

Lastly, it appears that while it was not the medium of choice, when students and parents

did in fact communicate on Facebook, the most common form was through wall posts and

comments (20.5%) rather than inboxing and Facebook chat (Figure 5).

Phone, 46

Text, 44

Email, 9

In Person, 7

Facebook, 6

Video Chat, 4

Percent of Students Who Report Using Each Form of Communication "Several Times a Week" or

More


33/57

30

Figure 5: Types of Facebook Communication

Testing the Model Hypothesis:

As I alluded to previously, the six different sections of the survey created seven key

variables to look at, six of them being indices created from sets of multiple questions. These key

variables for college students are: Facebook use with parents, total communication with parents,

attachment to mother, attachment to father, general independence, social adjustment, and

academic adjustment. Going back to Figure 2, the main research question was to investigate

whether Facebook has any relationship to parental attachment or independence, and thus

academic and social adjustment. However my first consideration was what to include in the

definition of Facebook usage with parents. Was that just communication frequency? Did it

incorporate friendship status with parents on Facebook in some way? So, the first correlations

I looked at were the correlations between being Facebook friends with ones mother or father

and frequency of Facebook communication with parents. As can be seen in Table 1, for both

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Mostly Wall Posts & Comments Mostly Inboxing and Facebook

Chat

Percent (56% Said Neither)

Percent (56% Said Neither)


34/57

31

males and females, being Facebook friends with either ones mother or fatherstrongly led to

greater Facebook communication with parents. The reason it can be said that this led to rather

than correlatedto greater Facebook communication, unlike many of the two-way relationships

in this study, is because (although in some cases they be able to see the main profile picture, etc.)

people cannot communicate effectively on Facebook until they are accepted Facebook friends.

Therefore it was determined that being Facebook friends with a parent was primarily an

imbedded factor in ones Facebook communication frequencies with that parent. Due to this

inherent relationship, exploration of separate models forFacebook communication with

parents and Facebook friendship with parents were not necessary, and instead, all Facebook

usage or Facebook communication measurements already involved the aspect of friendship.

With this in consideration, further references in this study to Facebook communication are

assumed to incorporate the intrinsic existence of Facebook friendship.

Table 1: Correlations of Facebook Communication w/ Parents and Friendship Status, by Gender

How often communicate with

parent on Facebook FB Friends with Mother FB Friends with Father

Males .21* .37**

Females .51**.21**

*p


35/57

32

correlate to attachment AND to independence. The next step of the hypothesis was that both of

those factors would then correlate to both forms of adjustment. However, it was desirable to first

test for direct correlations between Facebook communication and the three main variables

because of the possibility that Facebook would correlate directly with adjustment, showing a

significant and direct relationship regardless of attachment or independence. Additionally, to

fulfill the hypothesized model, student-parent Facebook use would, at the least, need to correlate

with attachment and/or independence, and a test for direct correlations to the main variables

would prove as a good starting point.

The results showed no significant correlations between student Facebook use and

Independence or either form of adjustment. There did appear to be a correlation between

Facebook use and parental attachment, however upon controlling for sex, it was discovered that

these correlations were gendered in that higher Facebook use with parents by males correlated to

higher attachment to fathers, while higher Facebook use with parents by females correlated to

higher attachment to mothers (Figure 6, Tables 4 & 5).


36/57

33

Figure 6:Discovering Direct Correlations

The gendered results of this study in terms of both students and parents so far suggested that the

overall model wouldnt apply to parents generally, but to mothers for females and fathers for

males. A slightly more complex version of the initial hypothesis model would be needed.

Since Facebook communication was found to correlate to parental attachment for

students and parents of the same gender, it was then necessary to test, with the new parameters of

gender, whether these attachments would go with higher levels of independence or adjustment.

Going back to Figure 1 of the Mattanah et al. study (2004), there is a premise that three basic

relationships exist:

1. Attachment correlates to independence.2. Independence correlates to overall adjustment to college (including social and

academic)

3. Attachment correlates to overall academic adjustment to college

Communication

w/ Parents on FB Independence

Academic &

SocialAdjustment

Attachment


37/57

34

Therefore, the next logical step was to test these relationships in regards to the new survey data

with gender differences factored in.

Female Analysis

Results varied, showing that for females, attachment to both mothers and fathers

correlated significantly with general independence (Figure 7, Table 2). Subsequently, it was

found that independence strongly correlated to both social and academic adjustment for females.

Both of these findings support the Mattanah et al. (2004) study. Additionally, attachment to

mothers and/or fathers strongly correlated to academic adjustment of college females, while

attachment to mothers in particular, also correlated with social adjustment. Aside from the lack

of connection between attachment to father and social adjustment, the findings of the Mattanah

et al. (2004) study sturdily hold up for females (Table 2). Since Facebook has been shown to

correlate with attachment to mothers, it can be determined that the main hypothesisthat

Facebook would lead to higher parental attachment levels, subsequently correlating to college

adjustment and independenceholds true for college females with their mothers. This

continuum can be followed by the bold arrows in Figure 7.


38/57

35

Figure 7: Model for Females

.01

-.05 .24*.32*

.07

.28*

.34*

.19* .30*

.00*p


39/57

36

between male attachment to father and independence is likely close to significance, but the

relationship between male attachment to mother and independence, r=.10, is even lower, while

the rvalue for females is more than double what it is for males with either parent). The lack of

a significant relationship between male parental attachment and independence is contrary to the

basic model proposed by Mattanah et al. (2004), creating a major disconnect in the hypothesized

model of Facebook and adjustment. Still, it remains significant that for males, Facebook

communication with parents correlates to attachment to father, which correlates to academic

adjustment, allowing for another indirect, yet important connection to be made. As for females,

attachment to either mother or father correlates to higher academic adjustment for males.

However, the full continuum is not completed with males and their mothers because, as with

females, there is no correlation between Facebook use with parents and attachment to the parent

of opposite sex. Additionally, there is no connection between academic adjustment and social

adjustment for males, meaning there is no connection (not even indirect) between male Facebook

usage with parents and social adjustment based on the variables at hand.


40/57

37

Figure 8: Model for Males

-.06

.12* .12.22*

-.03

.13.18*

.05 .10

-.01*p


41/57

38

took the correlations shown by Facebook use with parents and compared them to other forms of

parental communication. One of the connections that had been established previously for females

was that Facebook communication with parents correlated to higher attachment levels with their

mothers. However, upon testing the other forms of communication, it appeared that all the other

forms of communication on the survey besides In person communication (phone, text, email,

and video chat) also correlated with higher attachment levels to mothers (Table 4). Phone

communication for females was the only medium that proved to correlate with attachment to

both parents. Additionally for females, texting and emailing with parents showed direct

correlations to higher independence while phone conversations showed a direct correlation to

academic adjustment, links that are absent in the Facebook correlations.

One of the major results for males was that Facebook use with parents correlated to

higher attachment to fathers. However, texting and emailing with parents were also shown to

correlate with attachment to fathers, while unlike Facebook use, phone conversations, texting,

emailing, and video chatting for males correlated with attachment to mothers. Video chatting

with parents also revealed a direct correlation to academic adjustment for males, which Facebook

use did not (Table 5).

It was hard to make out why exactly some forms of communication with parents relate to

attachment, independence, and adjustment levels while others dont. However, one important

point to take from this was that Facebook was not alone in its ability to correlate with attachment

to parents for either males or females. This suggests that despite Facebooks relatively unique

and certainly more versatile interface, it does not act as a supreme medium for increasing

attachment to parents, independence, or social/academic adjustment compared to other media.


42/57

39

However, it is pertinent to recognize that all forms of communication with parents for

males or females in this study correlated verystrongly with total communication (Tables 4 &

5) which was an index created by taking the mean score of every communication medium in the

survey (FB, phone, text, email, video chat, in-person). What is significant about this is that total

communication was shown to create stronger correlations to attachment, independence, and

adjustment than Facebook or any other medium across the board. For females, the correlation

between total communication and attachment to mother had more than double the strength

of the already significant relationship between Facebook communication with parents and

attachment to mother. Additionally, total communication with parents was shown to correlate

with both independence and academic adjustment for females. In males, total communication

with parents was linked to a stronger level of attachment to fathers than Facebook

communication (or any other form) alone, and it also showed a strong correlation with

attachment to mother (Table 5).

Because individual forms of parent-student communication all appear to create a strong

funnel effect into total communication, it suggests that in order to increase the chances for an

environment of better attachment to parents for male and female students, and better

independence and academic adjustment for females in particular, it is more about increasing

ones overall communication with parents, and less about which medium it is done through.

Greater total communication between students and parent appears to facilitate positive results,

and Facebook use adds to this total value, allowing it to take on a complementary role. This both

weakens and strengthens the hypothesis, because while Facebook is not unique from other forms

of parental communication in its ability to impact attachment levels, it still plays a supportive

part in and adds to total communication, which exhibits even stronger correlations to


43/57

40

attachment, independence, and adjustment than any single form of communication on its own

(Figures 9 & 10, Tables 4 & 5).

Figure 9: Female Correlations to Total Communication

.17*

.13 .24*

.32*

.19*

.19* .28*

.51* .34*

.30*

.45*

-.05*p


44/57

41

Table 4: Major Correlations for Females

Total

Comm

Attachment

to Father

Attachment

to MotherIndependence

Academic

Adjustment

Social

Adjustment

FB .51* -.05 .20* .07 .01 .00

Phone Call .60* .27* .35* .13 .23* .00

Text .72* .05 .37* .14* .05 .04

Email .49* .01 .23* .17* .10 -.02

Video Chat .32* .06 .16* .04 .03 -.05

In person .28* -.07 -.01 .00 .06 -.14

TotalCommunication

--- .13 .45* .19* .17* -.05

*p


45/57

42

CONCLUSION:

Findings:

Findings showed that student-parent Facebook communication correlated with higher

attachment levels to parents of the same gender as the student, while direct relationships did not

exist between student-parent Facebook use and independence, academic adjustment, or social

adjustment (Figure 6). However, for females, because attachment to either parent correlates with

higher independence and academic adjustment, independence correlates with both academic and

social adjustment, and maternal attachment also correlates with better social adjustment, a chain-

of-relationships model, like the one shown in Figure 7 can be supported to show how greater

Facebook communication with parents plays a direct role in creating greater maternal

attachment, and a positive yet indirect role in creating healthy independence and better academic

and social adjustment to college.

Similarly for males, because Facebook communication was shown to have a direct

correlation with paternal attachment, and parental attachment correlates with academic

adjustment, Facebook use with parents may also play a positive and indirect role between those

variables (Figure 8).

In addition, Facebook use with parents, like other ICTs measured in the study, did show a

significant connection to a students total communication level with parents, which was linked

to maternal attachment, independence, and academic adjustment for females, as well as

attachment to both parents for males. These trends suggest that Facebook use with parents plays

a supporting role for college students in reaching healthier parental attachment levels, greater

independence, and consequently greater academic adjustment, supporting a slightly modified

version of the first thread of the original two-tailed hypothesis (Figure 2). As can be seen from


46/57

43

the diagrams in Figures 7-10, more of the hypothesized connections hold true for females than

males both when total communication is factored into the equation (which has been shown to

strengthen connections) and when it is not. Because parental attachment appears to be inherently

more important for independence, academic and social adjustment for females (Tables 2 & 3),

and Facebook communication shows both direct and indirect relationships to parental attachment

(Figures 7-10), it can be determined based on the data in this study that increased levels of all

forms of parental communication for students, not excluding Facebook, are more critical for

female students than males.

The major goal of this study was to investigate how the use of the most pervasive form of

social media in our culture relates to a handful of critical variables important to the parent-

college student relationship including: parental attachment, overall independence (Individuation),

and social/academic adjustment to college. Based on the results, it has been determined that

Facebook use is relevant due to its direct, gendered correlations with parental attachment levels,

as well as its relationship to increased overall communication with parents, which is

subsequently related to increased levels of independence and adjustment for female college

students.

Limitations:

One of the obvious limitations in virtually any undergraduate capstone study is lack of

funding. A known lack of funding at the outset of this study subsequently led to the

brainstorming and creation of methods that would of course require little to no funds in order to

collect as much reliable data as possible. An increased timeframe for data collection and

availability of funds to do so would have allowed for greater options, for example, the capability


47/57

44

to travel to more classes and even multiple universities to gain more diversity and quantity of

respondents while broadening the results of the study. A challenging part of any original study is

working with and trying to make the most of the (possibly limited) resources at hand.

In addition, while I was satisfied with the high rate of freshmen respondents in the study

based on the notion that as new college students, they are very immersed in this phenomenon of

adjustment, in a more ideal situation the study would have po tentially included more

upperclassmen in the interest of creating a more diverse sample among grade levels and possibly

measuring differences among them. This might also be considered a limitation to this study.

Another potential limitation in this research and its findings is the inherent issue of

causality. While one can deduce an educated analysis of the importance and direction of the

correlations found, such as Facebooks link to parental attachment, the nature of these

correlations are that the true causal direc

kyle - undergraduate thesis - exploring facebook’s relationship to parental attachment

Documents