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With almost half of college undergraduates engaging in friends with benefits relationships (FWBRs), the current study sought to explore the sexual decision making strategies and potential physical and psychological health outcomes behind these relationships.

Using self-report measures, Study 1 asked 207 undergraduates to rate the importance of motivations, maintenance rules, and future outcomes of FWBRs in their own personal experience and for other men and women. Study 2 sampled 142 undergraduate women who were asked to indicate the percentage of time they engaged in sexual behavior under the influence of alcohol or marijuana and the frequency with which they used safe sex practices in an FWBR.

Both genders appeared equally motivated to begin an FWBR; however women reported establishing permanence rules and avoiding over-attachment in the relationship as significantly more important than men. Men were more likely to prefer that the FWBR remain unchanged, however both genders agreed that a transition to a committed relationship was unlikely. Alcohol use was not significantly more prevalent in an FWBR, nor was the likelihood of practicing safe sex.

Both studies employed the use of self-report surveys from a single university and were subject to social desirability.

Quantitatively examining young adults’ reasoning behind choosing to engage in FWBRs provided insight into their overarching fear of “being hurt” and their preference for “easy access” to sexual experiences. These trends may suggest a shift in dating patterns and a preference for avoiding the emotional complexities of a committed, monogamous relationship.

To investigate how parental divorce and gender might influence the likelihood of engaging in a friends with benefits relationship (FWBR), and the likelihood of binge drinking and unprotected sex practices.

Using self-report measures, 99 undergraduates shared their parental marital history, experiences with FWBRs, and health risk behaviors.

Men, as compared with women, reported significantly more FWBRs as did participants with divorced/separated parents, as compared with those with married parents. Participants who had engaged in an FWBR reported significantly more binge drinking than those with no prior FWBR experience; however, no differences were found for gender or parental marital status. No significant differences emerged regarding the prevalence of unprotected sex.

The current study employed the use of self-report surveys, which can be subject to social desirability. All participants were recruited from a single liberal arts college with a limited sample of men with divorced or separated parents.

Using mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) to explore young adults’ predictors and outcomes of engaging in FWBRs provided unique insights into how gender and parental relationships influence both casual sex and health-related behaviors.

The purpose of this paper is to identify consumer segments based on the importance of food quality and prestige benefits when buying food for a special occasion; dinner party with friends.

Using cluster analysis, the importance of food quality benefits (quality, taste and health) and prestige benefits (prestige quality, hedonic, uniqueness, price and social) were investigated. The consumer segments were profiled using individual consumer characteristics (involvement in luxury, willingness to pay and socio-demographics).

Food quality benefits are the most important benefits when buying food for a party with friends and the authors identified four distinct consumer segments based on 20 different food quality and prestige benefits: perfectionists, premium, luxury seeking and value focussed. Three of the four consumer segments (perfectionists, premium and luxury seeking) find conventional food quality benefits important but differ in the importance they attribute to the different prestige benefits. The value focussed segment is not driven by prestige consumption but wants high quality at an affordable price.

This study demonstrates that consumers are driven by different food and prestige benefits when buying food for a special occasion.

This study suggest some important differences between premium consumers, looking for food quality and hedonic benefits, and luxury seeking, with a relatively higher focus on prestige quality, uniqueness and social benefits. This study also identifies a significant distinction between perfectionists and value focussed consumers. Both segments are focussed on food quality benefits but differ in their focus on value and prestige benefits.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically unpack whether and how WeChat network size is correlated with perceived social capital and life satisfaction among Chinese overseas students in Germany.

Based on a web-based survey data collected from 218 sojourners, zero-order correlation analyses and structural equation modeling were separately implemented to tackle the complicated research questions.

Findings demonstrate that an individual’s WeChat network size significantly and directly influences bridging, bonding and maintained social capital. Importantly, a path model demonstrates that these distinct dimensions of social capital are all significant predictors of life satisfaction. Furthermore, the empirical evidence reveals that bridging, bonding and maintained social capital can mediate the association between network size and well-being outcome.

Theoretically, the paper is an initial attempt contributing to the previous studies on estimating the influence of WeChat friendships on social capital and life satisfaction. Practically, these findings will contribute to a more nuanced understanding of effect of personal network characteristics derived from the dominant media interaction on social connectedness and life quality.

Despite WeChat is immensely prevalent in Mainland China, only few studies have concentrated on the role of WeChat network size in fostering individuals’ social and psychological development. The work provides unique evidence that number of friends on the emerging technology could indirectly benefit sojourners’ satisfaction with life through processes involving diverse categories of social capital in a trans-cultural environment.

Social media experience a rapid rise in recent years and steep into almost every aspect of people's lives by altering their lifestyles and creating an impact on their wellbeing. The purpose of the present study is to examine the influence of SNSs on life satisfaction among university students by first exploring what are the key gratifications which motivates them to engage in SNSs and then focusing on the psychological outcomes including social overload and social benefit from using SNSs that affects life satisfaction among the university students.

Theory of social influence and uses and gratifications theory were used in this study to examine the motivations for using SNSs, and the impact of psychological outcomes associated with SNSs usage, i.e. social benefit and social overload on life satisfaction among university students of Pakistan. Partial least squares-structural equation modeling is used to analyze the data.

The outcomes indicate that the need for maintaining interpersonal interconnectivity, entertainment value and social enhancement value derives the students' participation in social networking sites through which they encounter social benefit and social overload. The presence of social benefit enhances life satisfaction while social overload results in decreasing life satisfaction of students. Using social networking sites influences life satisfaction in the presence of social overload and social benefit while there is no direct influence of social networking sites on life satisfaction was evidenced.

The present study investigated the needs that drive the use of social media through the lens of UGT & Social influence approach. The other potential determinants of social media usage intention should be analyzed by employing variables of the other models.In this study social media was examined as a general platform used by the university students of Pakistan. In future researches the driving needs should be examined in the context of specific social networking sites.

The presented findings embraces the implications for the authorities of higher education institutions and policy makers as it provides the useful insights about student 2019s motivations and participation behavior in SNSs which would help in developing strategies for desirable results.

Educational institutions can utilize the research findings by incorporating social media tools in the academic system, student's interaction with their mentors will lead towards enhanced involvement of students and intellectual skills along with upgraded academic performance which will positively influence life satisfaction of the students.

The scarcity of findings was observed in the local environment specifically in the context of SNSs usage and well-being of the higher education students. This study addresses the motivational factors of SNSs usage and their psychological outcomes simultaneously and focused on the investigation of social media usage drivers and its outcomes among the university students of Pakistan.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how social media usage affects people’s life satisfaction through two competing explanatory mechanisms.

An online survey was conducted to collect data. And the partial least squares method was used to examine the relationships among the usage of social media, social benefit, social overload and life satisfaction.

The results indicate that usage of social media can make people achieve social benefit, thus leading to enhanced life satisfaction. Unexpectedly, though usage of social media can bring the negative consequences (e.g. social overload), social overload cannot predict a decreased life satisfaction.

Concentrating on the outcomes of social aspects by using social media, this study proposes the double-sided role of social media instead of single effect.

This study aims to examine whether movies are pivotal in developing empathy, nostalgia, perceived risk, place familiarity and place image that can shape viewer attitude towards and intention to visit a place.

Data were collected from two sample frames of patrons at a large cinema chain located in a major shopping centre in Perth, Western Australia. The experimental group watched the romantic comedy, Friends with Benefits. The control group watched the romantic comedy, Desi Boyz which is set in London and India and is not associated with New York. A quota for data collection was set at 230 subjects in each group. The two groups watched their movies concurrently in different theatres at the same cinema chain in the same shopping centre. Subjects in both groups were asked for their responses to New York immediately after viewing the movie.

In an experimental study, subjects who watched a romantic comedy set in New York had significantly higher empathy, place familiarity, attitude towards and intention to visit New York and significantly lower performance/financial risk associated with visiting New York than the control group. However, perceived risk played no significant role in influencing place familiarity in the experimental group, whereas nostalgia played no significant role in influencing place familiarity in the control group.

The proposed decision-making framework provides academics with theoretical underpinning for future empirical tourism studies in the research area. The findings also encourage more collaboration between government, movie producers, destination management organisations and marketers to deliver a movie that provides consistent branding in its story, location and product placement strategies.

This two-country comparative study’s purpose is to investigate antecedents to, and the consequences of a sense of belonging to a firm’s Facebook community.

The model was grounded in the theory of sense of community and tested through structural equation modelling. Consumer panels were used via online surveys.

Of the three antecedents hypothesised to influence an individual’s sense of belonging, enjoyment is a very strong predictor in both countries; while the credibility of posts was also a significant predictor for Australia, but not for South Africa. The findings also show no direct relationship between a sense of belonging and continuing behaviour. However, for both countries, there is a strong relationship between a sense of belonging and the involvement with firm offerings in Facebook; and that involvement is significant for the intention to continue engaging with firms through this social media environment.

The findings support the framing of the study, in the sense of community theory and enhance researchers’ understanding of the role of a sense of belonging in moving visitors from simply clicking “like” to a deeper sense of engagement with the firm’s social media community and the flow-on effect to managerial relevant outcomes.

The model is developed from the theory of sense of belonging, thus providing a fresh perspective to this research context. Additionally, there is limited research into the psycho-social antecedents and the outcomes of consumers’ sense of belonging to a firm’s Facebook community.

The study aims to explore the current experiences of Ukrainian adolescents affected by the Russia-Ukraine war. The study focused on the changes in adolescents’ lives caused by the war, adolescents’ emotional reactions to the disruptions caused by the war, coping strategies employed by adolescents in dealing with disruptions and the role of information technology in supporting new realities and coping strategies of adolescents.

This study relied on semi-structured interviews conducted on Zoom with 27 Ukrainian adolescents ages 10-18. Participants were recruited using the snowball sample and came from various regions of Ukraine. The interview notes and partial transcripts were analyzed using thematic analysis to identify the common and unique patterns in participant responses.

The interview data revealed the signs of traumatic experiences and various stages and methods of coping with them. Participants’ resilience was supported by external factors, including families, communities, continuous schooling, ability to talk to friends, information technology, as well as internal skills, including social competence, problem-solving, critical consciousness, autonomy and a sense of purpose. Participants shared specific recommendations for improving information platforms and online content, e.g. making them more accessible and affordable for Ukrainian users, improving content curation and personalization, creating and promoting Ukrainian content and others.

Research relied on convenience sample of participants who had access to information communication technology (ICT), were aware and had an ability to participate. Field work is needed to reach out to participants without access to ICT.

This study contains broad recommendations for improving information technologies for the use of Ukrainian adolescents.

This research offers three timely account of the first-hand experiences of Ukrainian adolescents affected by the Russia-Ukraine war and can inform future work aimed at improving life conditions for teen population.

This study relied on first-hand reports of Ukrainian adolescents’ experiences, feelings and coping strategies during the first three months of Russia-Ukraine war. The study applied war trauma and resilience frameworks to interpret the findings and translate some of the findings into practical recommendations for the information science community.

The use of social networking sites (SNSs) can promote life satisfaction mainly because of their social relationship benefits. Although prior studies examined the roles of different types of social capital (SC), the association between online and offline SC is ignored. This research addresses this gap by uncovering a mechanism of transformation between online and offline SC in terms of bonding and bridging types when linking SNSs usage and life satisfaction.

Categorizing the concept of SC into four sub-types from bonding/bridging and online/offline dimensions, the paper establishes a theoretical framework based on the transformation mechanism among these four kinds of SC. A component-based approach, partial least square method, is chosen for hypothesis testing with a survey-based sample collected from WeChat users.

First, SNSs usage is positively related to life satisfaction and four types of SC (i.e. online/offline and bonding/bridging SC). Second, both online bonding SC and offline bridging SC are positively related to life satisfaction and can mediate the relationship between SNSs usage and life satisfaction. Third, offline bonding SC is positively related to online bonding SC and can mediate the relationship between SNSs usage and online bonding SC; on the contrary, online bridging SC is positively related to offline bridging SC and can mediate the relationship between SNSs usage and offline bridging SC.

In the environment of SNSs, users can take vigorous strategies to better balance online and offline spaces and improve life satisfaction by adapting to the characteristics of SNSs in developing different types of SC. Specifically, it is encouraged for users to transfer online bridging SC into offline space and offline bonding SC into online space.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study exploring the association between online and offline SC when linking SNSs usage and life satisfaction. Instead of the single transformation direction from online to offline in prior Internet research, this research has revealed different transformation directions between online and offline SC in terms of bonding and bridging types in the context of SNSs.