Table 4.

Qualitative Data Regarding Adaptive and Maladaptive Facebook Uses Based on Transcriptions

Use Type	Specific Use	Examples of Adaptive Facebook Uses
Distraction	Examine positive material (to get mind off stressor)	“I’m going to go to one of my favorite bands because I can’t wait to see what they’re doing… I feel excited, I feel like this could be something really good… I love their music… they always make me happy listening to them.” “I love this stuff… it makes me laugh… it’s a little cat holding balloons.” “Being on Facebook right now is taking my mind off the things with my boyfriend. I’m still thinking about it but I’m feeling a little less upset just from my mind being occupied and looking at the pictures.” “My friend just posted something that I think is really nice …It says, it has a lady jumping with joy… walking toward the sunshine… toward a beautiful, sunny field, and it says, ’I will no longer allow the negative things in my life to spoil all of the good things I have. I choose to be happy.’ Oh, I like that.”
	Examine informative material	“I liked a lot of news and article things. Usually that leads me into reading an article about something, which is kind of nice because then I feel informed and aware.”
	Post positive material	“I’m going to post a little status update of my own which is about the beautiful weather that we’re having and how happy it makes everybody, and again, 2 smiley faces… posting that.”
Social support	Active communication via posts, message, or chat	“Realized that it wasn’t the girl’s birthday yesterday but it is actually today so that makes me happy. I’m on time so I’m going to leave a comment on her wall… she’s in a club with me so I’m writing a comment about that club… for some reason, this is making me really happy.” “My little brother posted something for me, uh, from sister’s week. It says, ’Your sister is your first female friend in life. No one will ever understand your craziness like your sister. Even if you don’t get together or talk as much as you’d like, she always remains your friend. People come and go in your life. Your sister will always be in your heart for a lifetime. It’s National Sisters Week so share if you have a sister who you love with all your heart.’ Aww… that makes me very happy. I’m going to comment to my little brother. I’m going to say, ’Thank you so much. I needed this photo and it did make me smile and feel better for the moment.’ And that I love him.”
	Obtain new Facebook friend	“I have a friend request… someone who is the head of the house that I’m going to be living in at school so I’m confirming that friend request… that makes me feel good ’cause it’s a connection with someone I just made.”
Receive positive feedback	Seeing that people “like” one’s post	“I just got a job today so I put that as a status update, and a bunch of my friends liked it so that makes me feel good that people care about that.”
Downward social comparison	Compare self to others to feel better	“I don’t really know her so I’m going to go ahead and look through her photos. Um, she’s not that pretty so that kind of makes me feel better.”
Positive memory recall/Reminder of friends	Recall positive memories/remember friends; See others doing well	“I’m just gonna write lots of laughing smileys… yeah this reminds me of how we really have lots of fun together usually… I don’t see this friend a lot but she is a very good friend and… this reminds me of how much we have in common in terms of sense of humor and the kinds of things we like… and that is very enjoyable.” “This is making me really happy… seeing the faces of all of these people who I get along with really well or really close friends… I really enjoy [using Facebook] because it reminds me of, you know, people who I don’t see very often and who I can stay in touch with and that is just a nice thing to have… sometimes there’s this warm fuzzy feeling associated with it which I really like.” “When I see pictures or something posted by my close friends, that makes me happy they’re enjoying something.”
Use Type	Specific Use	Examples of Maladaptive Facebook Uses
Upward social comparison	Compare self to others’ situation and feel worse	“I’m not very happy so when I enter Facebook, I check profiles of the people who I think have nicer and happier lives… when I’m not doing quite well and I see other people quite happy, it makes me feel worse, but I keep checking.” “I see a message from a friend of mine from school… she just graduated, she got her bachelor’s and she’s planning on getting her master’s and I’m thinking, my gosh, she’s so young, by the time I get out of college, my hair will be totally grey or I’ll be totally bald… I’m happy for her because she achieved her dream and at least she’s young enough to see the fruits of her labor…” “She posted a picture, it says, ’Dear mom, one day I’ll make you proud, I promise.’ And I don’t like that because I didn’t have a relationship with my mother so it annoys me.” “I get upset every time I get on Facebook because everybody’s posting all the fun stuff that they do on, like during the summer, and I haven’t done anything fun this stupid summer because I had all these plans, all this great stuff I was going to do with my ex-boyfriend and then he broke up with me and now I get to see all the photos of him doing it without me… his profile picture is a picture of him at his parent’s beach house and I’m sitting at home.”
Rumination	Think about causes and consequences of recent stressor; Try to understand stressor	“It’s stupid because I know that we’re doing all the same things, we’re just doing them separately instead of together… he still wants to hang out and talk all the time, but he doesn’t want to be together. I don’t understand.” “It sends me a notification every time my ex-boyfriend updates his status so I’m clicking on it… It kind of makes it hard to not think about everything when you see his name come up on here… if I were like to go on his page and look at pictures of us, which I don’t want to do, that would definitely make me sad… but I don’t want to stalk him because Facebook is so easy to stalk people on. I kinda hate that. It becomes like an obsession.” “The other day, he posted a status that said, ’Hello single life, it’s been a while.’ And that made me feel like shit because that sounds like he’s glad that we’re not together anymore and that makes me feel really upset.”
	Increased awareness of online identity	“I’m deleting the last status update I made yesterday where I was complaining about how I’m having the worst summer ever and now I’m realizing I look like an idiot so now I’m deleting it.”
Viewing negative material	View material that increases negative affect (eg, sadness, irritation)	“I got people that [are] poking me… I really hate it when people do that because it’s irritating as crap.” “Couple of people that I hate to see on Facebook. That they get me depressed when they do something like showing some negative pictures and talking about some negative stuff…” “Someone that I’m friends with on Facebook but don’t really know in person posted all this memorial stuff about her dad dying. It’s really sad.”
Reassurance/attention-seeking	Post to get attention	“Facebook sucks because I feel like we wouldn’t talk if it weren’t for Facebook, and I wouldn’t know what was going on in his [ex-boyfriend] life if it weren’t for Facebook, and I feel like half the posts I make on Facebook are to get his attention. I feel like I just make like weird attention-getting posts all the time.”