Friendship
So you’re able to assess the size of this new community regarding deal with-to-deal with family unit members, those things on the Joy Questionnaire 
Display screen (Helliwell and Huang, 2013) were utilized: “Approximately exactly how many nearest and dearest do you have?.” So it concern was replied towards the a level of 1 lower than 5 family unit members so you can 5 over 50 household members. The question to evaluate how big is on the web friend channels are equivalent (Helliwell and you will Huang, 2013): “Everything exactly how many household members are you experiencing towards the Fb?” although response scale try more, anywhere between 1 less than fifty to 8 more 1000.
All the questions into quality of relationships utilized in the brand new European Personal Questionnaire had been adapted to evaluate quality of face-to-face and online relationships. The questions have been: “Exactly how many individuals are you experiencing that have who you normally mention intimate and private issues?” and you will “How many of these persons was your Facebook family members?.” The brand new impulse size ranged from one (none) so you can eight (ten or even more).
A principle components analysis with an oblique rotation was performed on the four friendship items. Examination of the Kaiser–Meyer Olkin measure of sampling adequacy (KMO = 0.511) and of the Bartlett’s test of sphericity (? 2 (6) = , p 2 (30) = ; p = 0.001) and Facebook friends’ observed variables (? 2 (49) = ; p = 0.003) are related to each other. Factor scores were used as indexes of friendship in the analyses.
Health
In order to determine physical health, along with the understood wellness goods will found in around the world surveys (age.grams., Eriksson mais aussi al., 2001 – “How will you rates your health typically” with answers towards a good 5-area scale, between pretty good so you’re able to terrible) new four bits of the health dimensions of your County regarding Fitness Survey SF-36 (Ware and you may Sherbourne, 1992) was indeed incorporated. A good example of all the questions try: “I seem to get sick a small easier than many other anybody.” These items was basically answered towards good 5-point size, between step 1 certainly not true so you’re able to 5 certainly true. The 5 points shown an adequate accuracy (? = 0.72) and also the average of your own four products are calculated while the indication off notice-reported health.
Mental health is actually examined via five issues on the SF-36 (Ware and Sherbourne, 1992). A good example try “How many times maybe you have believed most worried in the last 4 weeks?.” Such inquiries was in fact answered into the a good 5-section level, between not to ever constantly. Just like the quantity of internal feel of the items was good (? = 0.80), new indication out of psychological state try calculated, averaging the fresh new answers these types of five questions.
The assessment of subjective well-being was performed with two items (r = 0.722; p 2 (5) = ; p 2 (25) = ; p 2 (30) = ; p 2 (30) = ; p 2 (35) = ; p 1 (Figure 1). More specifically, we tested whether bridging and bonding social capital mediated the relationships among face-to-face friendship and health, as the direct pathway between Facebook friends and health proved not to be significant, ? = 0.09, p = 0.192. Age, gender, education, subjective SES, self-esteem, and living alone effects were controlled. Missing data were handled with listwise deletion.
The direct pathway between face-to-face friendship and health was totally mediated by bonding and bridging social capital. For the mediation of bonding, we found significant paths between friendship and bonding, ? = 0.18, t = 5.59, p 2 (6) = , p 2 (64) = ; p 2 (64) = ; p 2 /DF 0.95; CFI > 0.95; RMSEA 2 (5) = ; p 2 (25) = ; p = 0.039] and close friends [? 2 (30) = ; p = 0.028] than the older participants. The other side of the coin reveals that 9.8% of the respondents claimed to have less than five friends and around 8% affirmed having no close friends at all. Regarding older participants, aged 55 years or above, 8.3% referred to not having anyone to speak to about intimate issues and 9.9% indicated having only one intimate friend.