Ando and Sakamoto’s study reveals that online friendships have positive effects on an individual’s well-being, social efficacy and shyness.

​

Their motive:

"In this study, we examined what sort of people exhibited more conspicuous effects on their psychological health due to interaction with cyber-friends as evidenced in such prior studies."

(Ando & Sakamoto, 2007)

​

Ando and Sakamoto predicted that individuals with social anxiety reduce their loneliness through cyber relationships; such effects are said to be more prominent if those relationships consisted of opposite sexes.

​

Under "Results", it is noted that quantitative data was used to conclude that individuals with low self-esteem benefited more from cyber friendships than those with high self-esteem. According to Ando's  (2004) panel study: 

 

 “having a large number of cyber-friends of the same sex increased their social efficacy, while having a large number of cyber-friends of the opposite sex heightened their happiness or had a positive effect on psychological health.” (p. 995)

 

However, this study was only conducted with young male participants, and therefore not entirely clear if the same results would be achieved with both male and female participants.

​

For individuals with low self-esteem, “cyber-friends can be valuable human resources for reducing loneliness” (Ando & Sakamoto, 2007).

 

Similarly, McKenna, Green and Gleason’s study also highlight these positive effects. 

​