Do Socially Anxious Adolescents Develop Social Support Online? A Longitudinal Study of Friendship Support.

Abstract: In this longitudinal study, we examined to what extent socially anxious adolescents developed supportive, intimate relationships online. A total of 584 adolescents (ages 10-24) in Swedish town Kumla answered questionnaires about their online friendship support, social anxiety, motives to compensate for lack of offline relationships with online relationships, and time spent chatting. In an eight-month follow-up, the same group answered questions about their friendship support. The results showed that social anxiety predicted an increase in online friendship support over time, while compensation motive predicted a decrease. These effects held regardless of how much they chatted. Social anxiety did not predict changes in offline friendship support. Findings indicate that socially anxious adolescents are the ones who find important relationships online.