Publications by authors named "Natalie Pennington"

Article Synopsis
  • Friendship is really important for people's happiness, but some research says friendships might be in trouble in America.
  • The American Friendship Project (AFP) is a study that looked at how many friends people have, how good those friendships are, and how they communicate.
  • The study found that Americans generally have more friends and are less lonely, but many still want to feel closer to their friends.
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This study explored, through quantitative and qualitative survey analysis ( = 307), the role of communication through social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected in April 2020 to understand how individuals engaged with their network through social media and the subsequent relationship with subjective well-being, conceptualized as loneliness, life satisfaction, and positive and negative affect. Results identified that passive social media use contributed to greater loneliness and a decrease in life satisfaction.

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This research examined how various members of a social network interact with the Facebook (FB) profile page of a friend who has died. From 43 in-depth qualitative interviews, FB friends of deceased FB users maintained their FB connection with the deceased. Most participants who visited the profile found it helpful to look at pictures; a few wrote messages to the deceased as a coping mechanism.

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