Social anxiety and social networks: what relationship?

By Cristiano Antonino On Mar 15, 2023

Let’s talk about the relationship between social anxiety and social networks: technology has undoubtedly improved everyday life, let’s think for example of how many things one can do while sitting in front of a computer, making an appointment, receiving and sending documents and, last but not least, relating to others thanks to social networks such as Facebook. But how risky can this be for people suffering from anxiety or social phobia?

Social networks: virtual relationships and social anxiety

This new way of relating has made it possible to widen the circle of (potential) human relationships, yet these mediated human interactions, from a computer or a telephone, have led to the loss of the intimacy necessary to create authentic individual relationships and to distort the meaning of the word ‘friend’.

How does this way of weaving friendships and cultivating relationships affect social anxiety sufferers?

People who suffer from social anxiety fear precisely ‘in person’ interactions: alongside the strong desire to establish friendships, friendships and affective relationships they experience the pain of not being able to do so for fear of giving a negative image of themselves, of appearing inadequate, awkward, of showing obvious symptoms of anxiety and that all this will lead to rejection, to social exclusion.

At first glance, therefore, it might prove useful for these people to approach others with these new technological means of communication: the person, in fact, at first may experience some sense of well-being as he or she is able to relate ‘non-directly’.

These opportunities to meet and exchange do in fact make it possible to escape from the gaze of others and from sending non-verbal bodily messages (such as not looking into the eyes of the person in front of one’s face or blushing) that could betray signs of anxiety and embarrassment, apparently having more control over the image one wants to give of oneself.

However, when this relational mode becomes the only one, it can lead them to isolate themselves more and more from the real world and prolong their suffering from social phobia.

Social anxiety also travels on social networks

Given the fear of relating even and especially in person, it leads social anxious people to establish virtual friendships as much as possible because they are hidden and protected from the gaze of others, and social networks actually allow them to avoid face-to-face interactions.

But the symptoms of social anxiety, such as embarrassment or the fear of not being liked and never feeling equal, also show up online, according to a recent study published in Computers in Human Behaviour.

The authors carried out an assessment of social anxiety and in parallel an analysis of different aspects of the Facebook profile pages of more than 70 students with an average age of 19 and found that several indices correlate with social anxiety, such as fewer online friendships or the number of photos posted.

Can social networks facilitate or inhibit social interactions?

Some scholars believe that social networks can be a useful means to ease the tension of the first meeting with an unknown person and thus facilitate the next live encounter.

However, a study published in Cyberpsychology, Behaviour, and Social Networking indicates that in reality, exactly the opposite is true, i.e. to make face-to-face interaction even more stressful and difficult, since supposedly providing preliminary information about oneself would increase the burden of expectations one would have to bear in front of the new interlocutor, and this was found to be more true for people suffering from social phobia.

Using the Galvanic Epidermal Reaction technique, the emotional reactions of 26 girls aged between 18 and 20 years were analysed during an encounter with a person previously contacted on Facebook or never before contacted on the social network, and it emerged that the ’emotional strain’ was greater in the former case.

This greater reactivity, according to the authors, suggests that the use of the social network, rather than facilitating the subsequent interaction, would instead represent an additional obstacle, making the social experience more painful.