Despite increasing use of social media and the potential benefits for people with social anxiety (SA) disorder, little is known about the online experience of people with SA. Our study aimed to investigate the occurrence of cognitive and behavioral processes during a series of online and off-line Facebook (FB)-based tasks among individuals with high and low levels of SA. Sixty-one undergraduates with low or high SA were asked to use FB in a laboratory setting, to make an FB post, and to imagine three ambiguous FB scenarios. Participants with high SA reported higher anxiety throughout the study with an interaction effect, indicating greater relative increases in anxiety for those with high SA over low SA across tasks. The high SA group were more likely to negatively interpret the ambiguous FB scenarios than the low SA group. They also reported using more safety-seeking behaviors and having more negative thoughts. The findings suggest that the cognitive and behavioral processes that characterize socially anxious face-to-face interaction are also evident in online communication. Suggestions are made for the clinical implications of such findings.

中文翻译：

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访问社交媒体：对社交焦虑症患者有帮助还是有障碍？


尽管社交媒体的使用越来越多，并且社交媒体对社交焦虑症 (SA) 患者有潜在的好处，但人们对社交焦虑症患者的在线体验知之甚少。我们的研究旨在调查 SA 水平高和低的个体在执行一系列基于 Facebook (FB) 的在线和离线任务期间认知和行为过程的发生情况。六十一名具有低或高 SA 的本科生被要求在实验室环境中使用 FB、发表 FB 帖子，并想象三个模糊的 FB 场景。在整个研究过程中，SA 高的参与者报告了更高的焦虑，并具有交互作用，这表明在任务中，SA 高的参与者比 SA 低的参与者的焦虑相对增加更大。高 SA 组比低 SA 组更有可能对模糊的 FB 场景做出负面解释。他们还报告说，他们有更多寻求安全的行为和更多的消极想法。研究结果表明，面对面互动中社交焦虑的认知和行为过程在在线交流中也很明显。针对这些发现的临床意义提出了建议。