Social Compensation and Enhancement via Mediated Communication in the Transition to College

This study extends the frameworks of social compensation and enhancement to examine students' social competence, daily well-being, and daily mediated communication with a parent when transitioning to college. First-semester college students (N = 155) completed a measure of social competence and 3-10 daily surveys (M = 6.94; SD = 4.24) regarding communication with a parent, loneliness, and stress. Consistent with social compensation, for participants with low social competence, higher previous-day stress was associated with more current-day use of text messaging with their parent, and more previous-day use of text messaging was associated with lower current-day stress. The findings advance understanding of the processes of social compensation and enhancement and suggest ways to improve students' transition to college.