Abstract
Nearly half of the Irish population are using Facebook, this research focuses on Irish
adults over 21 years old and addresses Facebook use and its relationship to self-esteem, social
anxiety, loneliness, personality and stress. The total number of participants was 208 (152
female and 56 male). The snowball effect was used to generate participants from the
Facebook community. This involved simple random sampling and a quantitative design using
correlation. The questionnaire was created in Google Docs and contained demographic
questions and two questions on stress as well questionnaires to assess the variables. The
procedure involved participants receiving an email or an event request to join the survey on
Facebook. Respondents were informed of the nature of the study and that is was confidential
and they could withdraw at any time. The main results of the research found extraverts have
more Facebook Friends. There was a significant relationship found between Facebook use
and Perceived Stress on Facebook use as a way to avoid daily stressors and causing the user
stress. Participants using Facebook have experienced stress from use and also use it to avoid
daily stressors, this is prevalent in this research. More research is needed in the relatively
unexplored area of stress and Facebook use. Author keywords: stress, social anxiety, personality,
self-esteem, loneliness
