Who wants to be “friend-rich”? Social compensatory friending on Facebook and the moderating role of public self-consciousness

The present research aims to provide insight into social compensatory friending on social network sites by investigating the effects of self-esteem and self-consciousness on number of friends in the context of Facebook use. It was hypothesized that Facebook users low in self-esteem, when compared with high-self-esteem individuals, would engage in friending more actively and thereby accumulate a large number of friends as a way to compensate for the deficiency in self-esteem. We also hypothesized that the relationship between self-esteem and number of Facebook friends would vary depending on the levels of public self-consciousness. Data were collected from a college student sample in the United States (N = 234) based on an online cross-sectional survey. The results supported the hypothesis on social compensatory friending, demonstrating a negative association between self-esteem and number of Facebook friends. Furthermore, the data yielded support for the hypothesized moderating role of public self-consciousness in social compensatory friending: the negative association between self-esteem and number of Facebook friends was significant only for Facebook users who are high in public self-consciousness but not for those who are low in public self-consciousness. Implications for understanding social network site users’ friending behavior in light of social compensation motives are discussed.

► We examined social compensatory friending in the context of Facebook use.
► Self-esteem had a negative association with number of friends.
► Public self-consciousness had a positive association with number of friends.
► Public self-consciousness moderated the effects of self-esteem on number of friends.