Psychometric modeling of the pervasive use of Facebook through psychophysiological measures: Stress or optimal experience? Pietro Cipresso a,⇑ , Silvia Serino a , Andrea Gaggioli a,b , Giovanni Albani c , Alessandro Mauro c , Giuseppe Riva a,b a Applied Technology for Neuro-Psychology Lab, IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Via Magnasco 2, 20149 Milano, Italy b Psychology Department, Catholic University of Milan, Largo Gemelli, 1, 20123 Milan, Italy c Division of Neurology and Neurorehabilitation, San Giuseppe Hospital, IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Piancavallo, VB, Italy article info Article history: Keywords: Psychometric modeling Psychophysiology Social network sites Mobile social networking Facebook Psychological stress abstract Social network sites have been studied extensively with an aim to understand users’ experience during their use. Facebook is the most frequently used social network site, with more than one billion active users. However, despite 819 million of active Facebook users currently accessing it using their mobile device, only a limited number of studies have investigated their experiences with Facebook. Our goal was to objectively verify in an experimental setting the subjective experience of users accessing Facebook through a PC and through a smart phone, which has a higher pervasiveness. Psychophysiological correlates of 28 subjects were measured using wearable biosensors, which record signals through an electrocardiogram; a 14-channel Electroencephalogram; facial Electromyography; an Electrooculogram, and a chest Respiration strip. An accurate signal processing permitted to compute twenty psychophysiological measures for the statistical analysis. The results showed significant patterns in arousal, valence, attention, and anxiety, indicating a subjects’ engagement during Facebook navigation, which was also more evident during the mobile session, suggesting an optimal experience during the per- vasive use of Facebook. Some hypotheses and the directions for future studies are presented, in particular, the suggestion to make further studies with higher ecological validity, outside the lab, to assess the ubi- quitous use of Facebook. Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Social networking sites (SNSs), such as Facebook, Linkedin, Google+, and Twitter, are becoming increasingly prevalent in many aspects of communication, interaction, human behavior, and even personality (Cheung, Chiu, & Lee, 2011; Orr, Ross, Simmering, Arseneault, & Orr, 2009; Riva, Wiederhold, & Cipresso, 2015a, 2015b; Ross et al., 2009). SNSs increase individuals’ visibility and availability within their social network (Boyd & Ellison, 2007; Riva, 2010). According to Boyd and Ellison (2007), social networking sites could be defined as web-based services that enable users (1) to create a personal profile with different privacy level, (2) to structure a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) to view and ana- lyze their behavior within the system and their list of connections. People navigate through SNSs anywhere a computer is available to connect, including their homes, workplaces, or in public places. Furthermore, the recent development and diffusion of mobile plat- forms enhance the possibility to connect to the Internet and navi- gate through social networks (Ran & Lo, 2006). In particular, most contemporary SNSs have developed pages to navigate through mobile devices, and many of them have developed specific applica- tions to improve mobile experiences (for example, http:// www.facebook.com/mobile/ for Facebook mobile App, http:// www.linkedin.com/static?key=mobile for LinkedIn, and http:// www.google.com/mobile/+/, for Google+). The most used SNS, as of June 30, 2013, is Facebook, with more than one billion active users (1.15 billion monthly active users at the end of June 2013); furthermore, there are about 819 million monthly active users (June 2013 data) currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices (http://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/). Navigating through SNSs using the PC and a mobile platform has two main differences: (1) mobile platform can be multifunc- tional, taking advantage of contextual affordances more than a http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.03.068 0747-5632/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail address: p.cipresso@auxologico.it (P. Cipresso). URL: https://www.pietrocipresso.com (P. Cipresso). Computers in Human Behavior 49 (2015) 576–587 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Computers in Human Behavior journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh