Add Me as a Friend: Face to Face vs. Online Friendships and Implications for Happiness

Friendships are beneficial to individual happiness. Studies have examined virtual relationships; however, the quality and utility of adult, online gaming friendships and their relationship with happiness is still not well understood. Respondents were surveyed about friendship quality with their closest friends across two modalities (face-to-face or online via gaming), as well as other relationship characteristics including communication frequency and friendship length. We identified a statistically significant difference between the modalities in friendship quality. We also identified a relationship between friendship quality and happiness. We discuss these results in terms of practical implications concerning friendship quality in faceto-face and online gaming best friendships and their influence on happiness.

Research has also identified benefits associated with creating and maintaining friendships. Friendships are important for establishing social development and adjustment skills in children (Berndt, 2002;Ladd et al., 1996) and for sustaining the vital need for social connectedness in older adults (Blieszner et al., 2019). Friendships are associated with reduced loneliness (Nicolaisen & Thorsen, 2017), increased positive perceptions of life quality (Abbey & Andrews, 1985), better coping abilities during times of hardship (Skovdal & Ogutu, 2012), as well as decreased stress, diminished risk of mortality, and better health (Cohen, 1988;House et al., 1988;van der Horst & Coffé, 2012).
Additionally, friendship also has strong ties to happiness (Demir & Ozdemir, 2010). The term "happiness" is often used interchangeably and colloquially with the concept of "subjective well-being" (Demir & Weitekamp, 2007;Diener, 2000;World Happiness Report, 2012), which is defined as "a person's cognitive and affective evaluations of his or her life as a whole," (Diener et al., 2009, p. 187). Happiness is connected to people's traits, and their network of social relationships (Myers & Diener, 1995). Individuals with several close, highly selfdisclosing friendships are happier than people who have few or no such friendships (Myers & Diener, 1995). Diener & Seligman (2002) found that very happy people reported higherquality close friendships and spent more time with their family, friends, and romantic partners compared to average and very unhappy people.

How Computer-Mediated Communication Shapes Modern Friendships
While friendships typically develop through face-to-face interaction (Chan & Cheng, 2004), the nature of modern friendships is rapidly changing due to the prevalence of computermediated communication (e.g., instant messaging, social media, online gaming). In adults, internet use is associated with reduced rates of depression and loneliness (Cotton et al., 2012) as well as improved quality and quantity of social ties (Barbosa Neves et al., 2018). Friendships are facilitated by the internet, with users leveraging the internet's capabilities to maintain and extend social relationships that were formed offline and to create new friendships with other online individuals (Rice et al., 2007).
Online gaming affords opportunities for developing and maintaining social relationships and friendships (Herodotou et al., 2014;Huang et al., 2015;Lai & Fung, 2019;Lenhart et al., 2015). Many studies have provided evidence of positive social interactions experienced by online gamers (Domahidi et al., 2018;Frostling-Henningsson, 2009;Kowert & Oldmeadow, 2015;Lai & Fung, 2019). A recent report produced by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL; 2019) reported that online games provide players with opportunities to connect with others, build friendships and communities, and supply spaces for learning and knowledge sharing. While some studies have found that gamers report significantly higher perceptions of friendship quality among their online friends compared to their offline friends (Frederick & Zhang, 2021;Zhang & Frederick, 2018), the influence of online gaming friendships have on friendship quality and happiness is still not well understood. Considering the prevalence of online gaming and friendships as well as the importance of happiness, it is important to understand how online gaming shapes friendship quality and happiness.

The Present Study: Differences in Friendship Based on Modality
To assess differences in face-to-face and online gaming friendship quality, we propose the following hypotheses: • H1: Friendship quality will significantly differ based on modality (face-to-face or online gaming).
• H2: Face-to-face friendship quality will be positively related to overall life happiness.
• H3: Online gaming friendship quality will be positively related to overall life happiness.

Participants, Measures and Design
Participants (N = 182) were recruited from the United States using a convenience sample of users from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) platform. Screening criteria required potential participants to be at least 18 years old and to be able to reflect on their closest online gaming friendship, as well as their closest face-to face friendship with a different individual. Participants were invited to respond to a survey, which included demographic items, characteristics of respondents' relationships with their closest face-to-face friend and closest online gaming friend, age of these friends, the length of these relationships in years, frequency of communication with each of these friends, the McGill Friendship Questionnaire (Mendelson & Aboud, 1999)

Effects of Friendship Quality on Happiness (Hypotheses 2 and 3)
We performed a multiple regression to determine if respondents' perceptions of friendship quality in their relationships with their face-to-face friend and online gaming friend significantly predicted respondents' perceptions of happiness. Perceptions of happiness was the dependent variable and perceptions of quality in respondents' relationships with their faceto-face friend and online friend were predictors. We also used participants' age, friendship lengths, and communication frequencies as covariates. Our multiple regression significantly predicted respondents' perceptions of happiness, F(9, 160) = 10.91, p < .001, adjusted R2 = .35. This model accounts for approximately 35% of the variance observed in respondents' perceptions of happiness. Overall averages of perceptions of face-to-face friendship quality significantly affected perceptions of happiness with a positive standardized beta weight (p < 0.001, β = .53). Overall averages of perceptions of online gaming friendship quality significantly affected perceptions of happiness with a negative standardized beta weight (p = 0.024, β = -.17). Thus, our second hypothesis was supported while our third hypothesis was not supported.

Discussion
This research explored differences in self-reported happiness based on key characteristics of friendships, including friendship quality and friendship modality (face-to-face or online). We hypothesized that friendship quality would differ based on modality, which was supported.Descriptive and inferential analyses showed higher friendship quality scores for faceto-face friendships.We also hypothesized that face-to-face friendship quality would be positively related to overall life happiness. Our regression results suggested that face-to-face friendship quality significantly predicts perceptions of happiness in our sample with a positive standardized beta weight. Finally, we hypothesized that online gaming friendship quality would be positively related to overall life happiness.We did not identify a significant positive correlation between online gaming friendship quality and overall life happiness. Further, ourregression results indicate that online gaming friendship quality significantly predicted perceptions of happiness in our sample with a negative standardized beta weight.Since these results suggest that as online gaming friendship quality increases, overall happiness decreases, our third hypothesis was not supported. One potential explanation for these findings is that online gaming friendships inherently possess limitations on shared activities, which has been shown to be a universal characteristic of friendships (Plummer et al., 2016). This work provided insights into the science of interaction modalities (face-to-face and online) regarding friendships and happiness. However, this study does have limitations. First, we had a relatively small sample for a survey study. Second, we did not screen participants to focus on an age range or those who play any particular types of games. We also did not examine personality or mental health correlates of friendship, nor did we consider the effect of gaming addiction on friendship. These aforementioned characteristics are limitations, however, they do represent avenues for future research. Future research could investigate perceptions of friendships with those who have less familiarization with technology. Similarly, studies could examine how demographic variables influence attitudes and perceptions of friendships. As recent events have shown, online interaction has become vitally important in maintaining connections with family and friends. However, our understanding of how online interaction influences human relationships is lagging behind the actual use of virtual technologies. While the present study illuminates some differences in face-to-face and online gaming friendships in terms of friendship qualities and happiness, more research in this area is needed.