Maintaining Facebook Friendships: Everyday Talk as a Mediator of Threats to Closeness

Abstract

This study evaluated a theoretical model of Facebook friends’ everyday talk. Participants included younger and older adult users reporting on a Facebook friendship. Results support the expectation, drawn from self-expansion theory, that both Facebook and face-to-face everyday talk is associated with relational closeness. Following the relational turbulence model, both forms of everyday talk mediated the association between relational uncertainty and closeness, whereas only face-to-face everyday talk mediated geographic distance. This pattern of results supports the model, suggesting that the management of interdependence is a function of everyday talk in the face of relational uncertainty.

Keywords:

• Everyday Talk
• Facebook
• Friendship
• Geographic Distance
• Uncertainty

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrew M. Ledbetter

Andrew M. Ledbetter (PhD, University of Kansas, 2007) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Texas Christian University, where

Amy T. Keating

Amy T. Keating received her MS in Communication Studies (2012).