We investigated associations between online and offline socialising and groups of social ties as postulated by the Social Brain Hypothesis (SBH). An online survey of social media use, social satisfaction and loneliness generated 249 complete responses from a sample of staff and students at the University of Manchester. Regression-based analyses showed that offline social activities and social time were positively associated with size of a core support group and social satisfaction. In contrast, social media time was positively associated with social satisfaction and the size of the total network, while the number of online contacts was positively related to social satisfaction, size of a wider sympathy group and total network size. No effect for loneliness was found. The number of ties reported for each SBH group was similar to that in previous studies. The more intimate support group (~5) appears to be more closely connected with offline social activities, whereas social media use and contacts influence the less intimate sympathy group (~15) and total network (~150). These findings provide further support for functional differences between different layers of closeness in personal networks, and they help us in further defining the boundaries of relationship enhancement via communication technology.

Introduction

Individuals often use social media to seek and obtain social support (Ellison, Steinfield & Lampe, 2011; Wright & Bell, 2003); however, the nature of the support afforded by social media may vary according to the intensity of relationships. Several studies have suggested that levels of social support are related to emotional closeness in social relationships and that intensity of social media use is related to the degree of intimacy in relationships (Ellison, Steinfield & Lampe, 2007, 2011; Lampe et al., 2006; Hsu, Wang & Yi-Tang, 2011). For example, intensity of social media use has been demonstrated to facilitate emotional support (Baker & Moore, 2008; Greenhow & Robelia, 2009) and perceived social support (Kim & Lee, 2011). Oh, Ozkaya and LaRose (2014) reported that an increased number of Facebook friends improved positive affect and social satisfaction among college students. However, other studies have reported contrasting results. For example, Pollet, Roberts and Dunbar (2011) found that use of social media did not enhance emotional closeness to friends or lead to larger offline social networks. Real world (offline) social networks and Facebook networks show a high degree of overlap (Ellison et al., 2007; Subrahmanyam et al., 2008) and the consensus from several studies is that Facebook in particular, and social media more generally, supplement rather than supplant offline social relationships (Wellman et al., 2001; Haythornthwaite 2002, Kraut et al., 2002; boyd & Ellison, 2007; Ellison et al., 2007; Ellison et al., 2007; Burke & Kraut, 2014). However, few studies have attempted to differentiate between the social structure (i.e. best, close and other friends) in an individual’s social network and how social support may vary between different types of relationship (Zhang & Leung, 2015). Further, previous findings have cast doubt on an ad hoc model that ascribes highest levels of support to the strongest online relationships (Burke & Kraut, 2013). Large-scale surveys with representative samples have demonstrated that strong ties (close friends) experience more Internet communication and social support than weak ties for North American (Boase et al., 2006) and Slovenian Internet users (Hlebec, Manfreda & Vehovar, 2015). While the association between social media use, provision of social support and emotional closeness in relationships has been established, it is less clear whether these relationships are linear or differentiated according to layers of intimacy, as posited in psychological theories of friendship (Hays, 1984; Oswald, Clark & Kelly, 2004; Sutcliffe, Dunbar, Binder & Arrow, 2012).