| The need to belong has long been thought to be an essential need that has the potential to influence cognitive and emotional functioning. When it is not possible to easily engage with others, however, individuals may turn to "social snacking," a process wherein individuals can use small reminders of available social support to increase their sense of subjective well-being. One source of a "social snack" is online social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, or other similar outlets. In some psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia spectrum disorders, however, a prevalent symptom is social anhedonia, or a lack of interest in social contact. It has been suggested that this lack of interest may be due to a deficit in individuals' ability to represent the reward properties of stimuli that others would consider reinforcing. This paper sought to investigate whether individuals who experience social anhedonia have a drive for social contact and whether they engage in a process of social snacking through the use of online social networking to satisfy it. This was investigated using a variety of measures, including the Revised Social Anhedonia Scales, the Media and Technology Usage and Attitudes Scale, and the Need to Belong Scale. These act as measures of social anhedonia, frequency of use of social networking sites and other forms of technology, and the intensity of one's belonging need, respectively. Participants were also asked to complete a delayed discounting task, which will be used as a means of measuring their abilities to represent future reward. For this study, 56 participants were recruited, 31 from online communities for people with schizophrenia and 25 from an inpatient unit at St. John's Episcopal Hospital. It was hypothesized that the need for belonging would predict levels of social snacking as measured by the Media and Technology Usage and Attitudes Scale. Second, it was hypothesized that severity of social anhedonia would predict levels of social snacking. Finally, it was expected that performance on a delayed discounting task would predict participants' reported levels of social anhedonia. While none of these hypotheses were supported by the data, there was a modest, but nonsignificant relationship between social anhedonia and delayed discounting. This relationship suggests that anhedonia may be related to difficulties representing future reward and represents a possibility for future investigation. This study was also able to document the most frequently used social networking sites and social networking behavior among people with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. This is valuable information that has not been frequently explored in the past and may have the potential to influence the delivery of online treatments. |
