Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-27-2017
Publication Title
Journal of American College Health
Abstract
Objective: This research examines potential differences in social network use and motivation for social network use by non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) status. Participants: 367 (73% women; Mage = 20.60) college students were recruited in November–December 2011.
Methods: A random sample of 2,500 students was accessed through a university registrar to recruit students interested in an online survey assessing NSSI and various health-related behaviors.
Results: Social network use and motivations for social networks did not differ by NSSI status.
Conclusions: Results suggest that it is not patterns of use or motivation to use social networks that could lead to concern about online behavior (i.e., behavior increasing risk of future NSSI) among those with NSSI history. Rather, future preventive and intervention efforts should address the NSSI-related content that is available online, since this is unregulated, often explicit, and commonly includes “pro-NSSI” content that may be problematic and increase risk among vulnerable individuals.
Keywords
College students, Internet, non-suicidal self-injury, NSSI, online, social network
Volume
65
Issue
5
First Page
306
Last Page
312
DOI
10.1080/07448481.2017.1312410
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Rights
Licensed to Smith College and distributed CC-BY 4.0 under the Smith College Faculty Open Access Policy.
Recommended Citation
Jarvi Steele, Stephanie; Swenson, Lance P.; and Batejan, Kristen L., "Motivation for and use of social networking sites: Comparisons Among College Students With and Without Histories of Non-Suicidal Self-Injury" (2017). Psychology: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/psy_facpubs/206
Comments
Peer reviewed accepted manuscript.