Master Thesis by Jim Stolze, April 2009
Lemniscaat Management School

Abstract
We asked five thousand readers of a magazine aimed at women to complete an online survey to assess the frequency and appreciation of their time spent with reading the magazine and the magazines’ online Forum. The goal was to examine the relationship between Internet usage and happiness by comparing the respondents media behaviour with their sense of belonging and self reported happiness. Although belonging is an important aspect of happiness, there was no significant difference in the (self-reported) happiness. However, a correlation between participation in online forums and feelings of belonging to a group was found.

Table of contents:

1. Introduction 3
2. Theoretical framework 4
3. Hypotheses 7
4. Methods 9
5. Analysis 13
6. Discussion 16
7. Conclusion 17
8. Limitations 18
9. Acknowledgment 18
10. References 19
11. Appendices 21

1. Introduction

In his book “Stumbling on happiness” Dan Gilbert describes how human beings are very bad at making the right choices in their pursuit of happiness. The happiness they do find is the happiness that they just randomly come across (stumble upon). In this thesis a little help is given to those millions of people who spend hours on the Web and are wondering what this does to their happiness.

Over the last 10 years we have seen a great shift in the way people use the Internet. In the early years (around 1998 – 2000) the Web was more or less the territory of big companies and universities. These organisations had a monopoly on producing online content, which put the normal people in the role of consumer; mostly consuming the information and buying the products at early e-commerce websites. In the years after 2000 however, we saw the rise of Web2.0 (O’Reilly 2005). The broad adoption of the Internet –amongst other things- lead to the democratizing of media, transforming consumers into producers who generate content and who build their own networks. That’s why Web2.0 is often referred to as the “social web”. It’s not a web that’s woven along institutions, but a infinite number of small webs woven along groups of people: online communities.

In April 2009 65% of the Dutch Internet population was involved in a personal social network and 33% participated in online forums . These numbers have grown in size the last couple of years. The biggest trend on the Web is the gathering of individuals all around the world to share their lives, relationships and interests. It is as if the Internet has become the new global campfire (Stolze, 2008).

Social psychologists have long explored the processes linking communication, social
resources, and psychological well being. People with larger social networks (more social resources) are likely to have better psychological functioning, lower levels of stress, and greater happiness (e.g., Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Cohen & Wills, 1985). If we look at the way that people use the Internet, we see that most of the time the resources mentioned above are met. As Kang (2000, p. 1150) put it, “the killer application of the Internet turns out to be other human beings.”

So, in the spirit of “Stumbling on happiness”, we have to ask ourselves: does the Internet make us happier?

2. Theoretical framework
Approaching a subject like happiness in a scientific way can be done from various perspectives. Scientists all around the world have tried to understand and explain the concept of happiness to help people in their pursuit of this ‘“degree to which an individual judges the overall quality of his or her life as a whole favorably” (Veenhoven, 1984).

Some of them use a physical approach by studying the brain and analyzing the way in which neurotransmitters and reward systems work (Berridge and Kringelbach 2008). Kent et al. (2008) found that you can “push a button” for instant happiness by injecting doses of XTO in the right place of the neocortex. Others choose a more spiritual path and found for example religion to be a good predictor for happiness (French and Joseph 1999). So is getting pregnant (Jayasvasti and Kanchanatawan, 2005) and exercising yoga (Kemei and Toriumi 2000).

Maslow and Web2.0
In this study we look at happiness from a social psychological point of view. To examine the relationship between and how people and groups interact, we focus on the hierarchical needs theory (Maslow, 1943). Our aim is to find out whether or not people use the Internet to fulfill the needs that Maslow describes.

According to Maslow the perceived quality of your life will largely be determined by the amount of satisfaction experienced. The more needs that are satisfied, the happier people will be (Bekhet, Zauszniewski, Nakhla, 2008). Maslow distinguishes between needs that are hierarchically structured. If physiological needs are gratified, safety needs emerge, then love and belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization.

Although Maslow’s theory is well known for it’s visualization in a pyramid, it’s on this proposed ranking of needs that Maslow has been criticised the most (Wabha and Bridwell, 1976). For example, there are a lot of artists and musicians who were able to satisfy their higher needs (self-actualization) while being in poor health (physical needs) or even being held in captivity. (Drenth, Thierry, Willems, and de Wolff, p. 138).

Apart from this criticism one could say that Maslow gives us a very clear framework to look at the satisfaction with our lives in relation to the gratification of these needs. If not all needs are met, a person will be in deficit and keep on trying to meet them. Humans need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance, whether it comes from a large social group, such as clubs, colleagues at work, church attendance, sports teams, gangs or small social connections such as family, loved ones and confidants. In the absence of these social connections, many people become susceptible to loneliness, social anxiety, and depression.

Virtual Happiness Theory (Maslow meets Web2.0):

• we are a social species
• we have a deep need to interact with other people
• because of it’s lack of boundaries the Web is a popular way to do so
• this generates virtual happiness, “virtual” because all communication is done through bits and bytes and people are not necessary in the same room.

Uses and gratifications
This thesis examines how belonging -the third need of Maslow’s theory- is related to happiness. In particular we look at the way people use online media to participate in a group. Is there a difference between reading a magazine on paper and reading the magazines’ website? Do both activities stimulate feelings of belonging to a group, eventually leading to happiness?
If we want to understand the differences between one medium and another (in this case a print magazine and an online forum) a lot of help comes from the Uses and Gratifications-theory (Blumler & Katz, 1974). Uses and gratifications is an approach to the study of media audiences which proposes that audience members’ consumption of media output is motivated and directed towards the gratification of certain individually experienced needs (Wijngaert, 1999). The four primary categories for which people make use of media in uses and gratification are: diversion, personal relationships, personal identity and surveillance. This theory regards people as active media users rather than passive, and it explains why audiences choose to be subjected to the media that they select.

Quint Randle (2003) has done research to the gratifications of (monthly) print magazines and the Web among a group of special-interest subscribers. His findings suggest that the Web offers a wider array of gratifications than magazines, and delivers them in a superior fashion. The Web excels among cognitive, task-oriented uses; while magazines hold their ground for more affective, self-oriented uses.

Some examples of gratifications that were examined include: to offer information, to pass on to others, to help me understand what is going on, to offer immediate news, to locate exactly what I’m looking for, offer interesting stories to pass on, to offer companionship, to improve the quality of my lifestyle, to learn about famous people, to be happy, to combat boredom.

Uses and Gratification Theory:

• media use is typically goal-directed or motivated
• we select and use communication to satisfy felt needs or desires
• media compete among themselves for selection, attention, and use
• the choice that people make between online and offline media depends on the specific need at that specific moment.

3. Hypotheses

In chapter #2 we have elaborated on two theories: Virtual Happiness Theory and the Theory of Uses and Gratification Theory.

These two theories give us a starting point for predictions about the difference between taking part of an online community and being part of an offline (readers) community. By empirically studying the validity of these predictions we hope to improve theory formation and contribute to a more profound understanding of the social consequences of the Internet. First we need to validate Maslow’s third need

H1: Feeling part of a group/community will be positively correlated with happiness
If we want to know how online communities affect feelings of belonging, we will need data to compare these results to. Therefore we will also investigate the relationship between being involved in an offline community (readers of the magazine) and feelings of being part of a group. Because a magazine itself doesn’t talk back, we suppose that –because of the lack of interaction- the reader will experience less of a group feeling. This is the Virtual Happiness Hypothesis.
H2: Online participation will be related to belonging

H3: Reading a magazine will not be related to belonging

Besides measuring to what extent the medium of choice affects the feelings of belonging we would also like to measure the increase or decrease in the happiness of the user. Again, because of the interactive nature of the online medium (literally being connected to other users) we predict a positive relationship for the forum and no relationship for the print medium.
H4: Reading a magazine on paper will not be related to happiness.
H5: Online participation will be positively related to happiness.

Figure 1; initial model

4. Methods
When comparing two forms of media, it’s important to keep as many variables constant as possible. We focused on readers of a popular Dutch magazine. This magazine has both a loyal base of readers (25.000 in paid subscription; 60.000 sold through retail) as well as a very popular Internet forum (400.000 unique visitors monthly).

Participants
An e-mail newsletter was sent out to 50.000 people who appeared in the opt-in database of Viva. That means that they either have a subscription to the magazine or they are receiving the bi-weekly email newsletter of Viva. Nearly all respondents were women between 20 and 25 years of age, living in young one or two person households. As an incentive they were told that ten trendy purses would be given away among all respondents who had fully completed the survey. As a result 4154 people took the time to answer all questions.

Operational Measures
The online survey consisted of three parts:

1. Questions about the different forms of media usage in the context of Viva
2. Questions about feeling part of a group with other Viva-readers
3. Questions from the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire

Results and conclusions will be mailed on request. Please send an email to jimstolze (at) gmail (d0t) com.