Page 95 - Never Too Far Away? The Roles of Social Network Sites in Sojourners’ Adjustment

Measures
Facebook use. Items from the Facebook Intensity Scale (Ellison et al., 2007)
assessed Facebook usage, emotional connectedness to Facebook, and integration into one’s daily life (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). An example item is “Facebook is a part of my everyday activity.” Items were averaged to establish an SNS use intensity score, with higher values indicating more active participation in Facebook (Cronbach’s α = 0.80).
Relational maintenance behaviors. Stafford, Dainton, and Haas’s (2000) measure of maintenance behaviors was adapted to fit the Facebook context, and a few items were excluded because they were not relevant as Facebook maintenance behaviors (e.g., “I perform my household responsibilities”; 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). To differentiate the use of SNS in LDRR with respect to relevant (strategic) and mundane (routine) maintenance functions (Tong & Walther, 2011), items tapping strategic (e.g., “I say ‘I love you’ on Facebook”) and routine efforts (e.g., “I encourage my partner to share his/her feelings with me via Facebook”) were averaged to establish strategic (10 items, Cronbach’s a = 0.90) and routine (10 items, Cronbach’s α = 0.95) maintenance scores.
SNS partner surveillance. Items from Tokunaga’s (2011) Interpersonal Electronic Surveillance for SNS (ISS) Scale were used and adapted to be Facebook specific (e.g., “I visit my partner’s Facebook page often”; 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree; 9 items, Cronbach’s α = 0.90).
SNS jealousy. Six items from the scale developed by Muise et al. (2009) measured SNS jealousy. An example item is ‘‘How likely are you to become jealous after your partner has added an unknown member of the opposite sex on Facebook?” (1= very unlikely to 7= very likely; Cronbach’s α = 0.93).
Relationship quality. Several relationship quality components that have been found to have links with relationship maintenance were measured (Dainton & Aylor, 2002; Stafford et al., 2000; Weigel, Brown, & O’riordan, 2011): commitment (15 items; Cronbach’s α = 0.93) (Sternberg, 1986), relationship satisfaction (10 items, Cronbach’s a = 0.84) (Norton, 1983), trust (7 items, Cronbach’s α = 0.86) (Larzelere & Huston, 1980), and relational (un)certainty (2 items, Cronbach’s α = 0.73) (Dainton & Aylor, 2001).
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