Relationship of Online Belongingness, Offline Belongingness and Life Satisfaction: A Study on UP Manila Community

Abstract

The internet has been an active social engagement platform since the creation of online social networking sites and applications such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Since then, the issue of individual wellbeing with social media use has been a rising concern. The study, therefore, aimed to find the relationship between social media use and wellbeing. To achieve this aim, the study focused on the measure of the level of belongingness (online and offline) and life satisfaction of the University of the Philippines Manila social media users (n= 106) using Heinz Kohut’s self-psychology (1984) and Lee and Robbin’s measure of belongingness – Social connectedness scale (1995). Based on the participants’ report, it was found that online belongingness and offline belongingness both had a significant relationship with life satisfaction. Furthermore, offline belongingness was found to have a stronger positive correlational strength with the respondents’ life satisfaction compared to online belongingness. Participants reported that online belongingness (belongingness that is purely derived online) is harder to foster due to limitations in online communication such as non-verbal communication. Difficulty in confirming other people’s sincerity through facial expressions and non-verbal gestures in online settings were reported to hinder the establishment of quality trustworthy relationships.