Despite the fact that social media offers consumers opportunities to connect with each other, little work has focused on how what consumers do on social media interacts with why they do it to impact their feelings of connection. Further, the extent to which these social media interactions occur...

A basic tenet of self-determination theory is that feeling close and connected to others can lead to optimal life experiences and recent research supports the idea that when people use social media to interact with others, they are likely to feel more related to others. Yet, little is known...

Research supports the idea that when people use social media to interact with others, they are more likely to feel more related to others. But can using social media for more content-focused, less people-focused, pursuits lead to the same positive outcome of relatedness? We show that positive...

Current virtual worlds, such as Second Life, The Sims Online, HiPiHi, and There.com are visually rich three dimensional platforms for social and economic interaction that offer their users the ability to literally live virtual lives. In 2010, at any given point of time, upwards of 70,000 users...