Scale of feelings and emotions in social networks and the internet (SERSI): reliability and validity

The emotions shared in social networks and the Internet (RSI) have great resonance in those who publish and receive them, producing a response called Social Sharing Emotional. There is any evaluation instrument for the positive-negative emotional construct and its relationship with the use of social networks and the internet. Objectives: (1) design a scale-screening on positive and negative feelings and emotions, and apply it to a representative sample of the students; and (2) analyze the psychometric properties of this scale. We worked with 2842 participants of 12-21, 1763 (62.7%) of 12-16 and 1379 boys (48.5%) randomly selected from the educational centers of the Basque Country. A set of psychometric tests were used for the analysis of convergent-divergent validity. The scale consists of eight items with two dimensions, one positive and one negative. Results: The severe prevalence in the positive and negative feelings goes throw 46.5%-67.9% and 23.4%-87.4% respectively. The reliability was α=.79 for positive emotions and α=.63 for negative, with test-retest scores of the items between r=.78 and r=.88. The analysis of Pearson´s correlations analysis with the variables studied demonstrates the convergent-divergent validity of the scale. The scale discriminates what kind of emotions cause greater risk of using RSI. It is a scale with rigorous psychometric properties.