Robert WilsonWashington University in St. Louis

Facebook in the Social Sciences: What do we know and where do we

go?

6.22.2012 webinar hosted by:David C. Evans Ph.D. david@psychster.com Psychster Inc.psychster.com@Psychster

Contact our speaker:Robert Wilson robertwilson@go.wustl.edu facebookinthesocialsciences.org

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901 million monthly active users125 billion friend connections 300 million photos uploaded per day80% of our monthly active users are outside the U.S. and Canada. 3500+ employeesValued at about $100 billion

face

book

.com

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What has empirical research in the social sciences discovered about Facebook?

Purpose of today’s talk…

“The biggest challenges Facebook has to solve are the same challenges [faced by] the social sciences” -Cameron Marlow Head of FB Data Team

MIT Technology Review

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REVIEW OF THE FACEBOOK LITERATURE

Conducted with Sam Gosling and Lindsay Graham

Wilson, R.E., Gosling, S.D., & Graham, L.T. (2012). A review of Facebook research in the social sciences. Perspectives in Psychological Science, 7(3), 203 - 220

This is the first major review of the Facebook literature

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To be included as relevant in our final review, a source must have:

1.specifically investigated Facebook

2.been published in a peer-reviewed academic journal or peer-reviewed conference proceedings

3.reported empirical findings

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Who studies Facebook?

• Scholars of law, economics, sociology, and psychology, to information technology, management, marketing, and computer-mediated communication.

• A large international presence• In short….everyone is trying to

better understand the impact of Facebook

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Why study Facebook?

1. Behavior residue leaves concrete, observable data.

2. To understand contemporary society, social scientists must study Facebook.

3. Necessary to carefully examine the positive and negative effects of Facebook on society.

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Users and Articles: Totals by Year To

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22,000 commercial organizations allowed to join

Feb, 2004: FB founded at Harvard

LAUNCH DATE OF FEATURES:

FB Wall FB Photos FB Mobile, News Feed, and API

FB Platform and Video

FB in Spanish, French, and German.Launch of FB Connect

Introduction of the ‘Like’ button and FB Payments

Launch of FB Places

Launch of Timeline and video calling

800 college networks allowed to join

FB expands to Stanford, Columbia, and Yale

FB expands to add high school networks

Anyone over 13 yrs with an email allowed to join

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5 Key questions

1. Who is using Facebook and what are users doing while on Facebook?

2. Why do people use Facebook? 3. How are people presenting

themselves on Facebook?4. How is Facebook affecting

relationships among groups and individuals?

5. Why are people disclosing personal information on Facebook despite potential risks?

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Facebook Stats: average user has 130 friends contributes 90 pieces of content per month connected to an average of 80 community pages, groups, and events

Who is using Facebook and what are users doing while on Facebook?

http://newsroom.fb.com/

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Facebook Data Team

• 12 person team of in-house researchers• Have full access to the anonymized web logs of all Facebook users• They plan on doubling their staff this year

MIT Technology Review, Facebook Data Team

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N = 721 million users, 69 billion friendships

(a) 92% of users were connected by only four degrees of separation

(b) researchers found a curvilinear, highly skewed distribution such that 20% of users had fewer than 25 friends, 50% of users had over 100 friends, and a small percentage of people had close to 5,000 friends

(c) the average number of Facebook friends in the United States was 214

Facebook Data Team 2 recent studies with the Universita degli Studi di Milano

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1)Recruitment of participants in offline contexts

2)Recruitment of participants via Facebook applications

3)Data crawling of public info

Research Methods

Ninety-seven (24%) of the 412 articles in our reviewfocused on descriptive analysis of Facebook users

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• n = 77,954 • In the U.S., the breakdown of ethnicities on Facebook has grown more diverse over time and currently mirrors the proportions represented in the U.S. population

Demographic Findings

Chang, Rosenn, Backstrom, & Marlow, 2010http://www.viewsoftheworld.net/?p=1011

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Top 5 countries- U.S. (155 million)- Indonesia (36.6 million)- U.K. (29.8 million)- India (25.5 million)- Turkey (28.4 million)

Demographic Findings

Carmichael, 2011For a breakdown of users by continent, see www.internetworldstats.com/facebook. htm).

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Seventy-eight (19%) articles examined what motivates peopleto use Facebook.

2. Why do people use Facebook?

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Weak verses strong tiesSocial grooming?

To keep in touch with friends?

= ?

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It’s complex Active verses passive FB use

Minimizing loneliness?

Burke et al., 2010Wise, Alhabash, & Park, 2010

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Facebook use remained high regardless of how busy people were

Relieve boredom?

Pempek, Yermolayeva, & Calvert, 2009

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Internal motives and external influence

54% of interactions between pairs of users who interact infrequently were directly attributable to Facebook’s birthday reminder feature

What motivates people to contribute content?

Viswanath et al., 2009

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Fifty (12%) of the articles in our review investigated identity presentation

Identity presentation centers on the user profile

3. How are people presenting themselves on Facebook?

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Researchers tested whether profiles represented idealized virtual identities or accurate portrayals of the users’ personalities

Are users presenting themselves accurately on Facebook?

Gosling, Gaddis, & Vazire, 2007Back et al., 2010

Strangers’ ratings of participants based solely on the participants’ user profiles were compared with an accuracy criterion and with participants’ ideal-self ratings.

Takeaway: Facebook profiles convey fairly accurate personality impressions of profile owners

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1)Friendships usually start offline2)People generally want to be

seen by others as they see themselves

3)Contributions by others is difficult to control

Why might people present themselves accurately?

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But might some people self-enhance? What about narcissists? Can you spot the self-enhancer?

Buffardi & Campbell, 2008

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A curvilinear relationship exists between a user’s number of friends and observers’ ratings of the user’s attractiveness and extraversion the attractiveness of the people leavingposts on a user’s wall affected impressions of the user

Content contribution by others

Walther, Van Der Heide, Hamel, & Shulman, 2009

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Research on social interactions was studied frequently, in 112 (27%) articles.

Positive and negative impacts between:Student-faculty; employee-management; business-customer; doctor-patient; ect.

How is Facebook affecting relationshipsamong groups and individuals?

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FB involvement shown to increase customer activity FB gives businesses instant customer feedback

Impact for business-customer relationship

Dholakia & Durham, 2010Pantano, Tavernise, & Viassone, 2010

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Students predicted a positive classroom environment and high motivation when a teacher shared more personal information on his or her Facebook profile page But other literature warns of being seen as “creepy” only 4% of users’ wall posting refer to education, and the vast majority of students report not contacting university staff for any reason A thorough review of this area exists (Hew, 2011)

Impact for student-faculty relationship

Lipka, 2007; Madge, Meek, Wellens, & Hooley, 2009 ; Mazer, Murphy, & Simonds, 2009; Selwyn, 2009

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Impact for business-employee relationship

Evaluating job candidates on Facebook?

Employers can inadvertently learn about a candidate’s marital status, age, and other off-limits info

These are topics that are not legal bases for hiring decisions according to equal opportunity laws in the United States

Karl, Peluchette, & Schlaegel, 2010a, 2010b; Kluemper & Rosen, 2009

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Some applicants are judged with disproportionate severity when they post inappropriate material.Ex. females typically judged more harshly

Takeaways: a)Don’t post inappropriate

material on FBb)Employers may be open to

discrimination lawsuits

Impact for business-employee relationship

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Users’ friends on Facebook often include overlapping social groups (e.g., family, friends, employers)Does this overlap cause tension? Users implement a number of strategies to mitigate tension

Tension across social spheres on FB?

Lampinen et al., 2009

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Research on privacy and personal information disclosure was the focus of 75 articles (18%) in our review.Facebook is only as good as the content that users shareMotivation to promote sharing Balanced with concern for privacy

5. Why are people disclosing personalinformation on Facebook despite potential risks?

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Over 50% of participants provided their current address and 40% of participants provided their phone number, but only a handful of individuals changed the highly permissive privacy settings

Awareness of privacy and security issues had increased over time But a disparity between users’ privacy concerns and behaviorEx. 16% of respondents who reported being “very worried” about the possibility that a stranger knew where they lived and the location of their classes still revealed both pieces of information on their Facebook profile

Privacy perception studies

Acquisti & Gross, 2006

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Privacy concerns were primarily determined by the perceived likelihood of a privacy violation and much less by the expected damage

Privacy concerns and disclosure were not negatively correlated, suggesting that they may not be two ends of the same spectrum but independent behaviors influenced by different aspects of personality

The privacy paradox

Krasnova, Kolesnikova, & Guenther, 2009; Christofides et al., 2009; McKnight, Lankton, & Tripp, 2011

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An influence of social learning on information disclosure

New members were closely monitoring and adapting to what their friends were doing and that the experiences in the first 2 weeks predicted long-term sharing.

The privacy paradox

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1. Who is using Facebook and what are users doing while on Facebook?

2. Why do people use Facebook? 3. How are people presenting

themselves on Facebook?4. How is Facebook affecting

relationships among groups and individuals?

5. Why are people disclosing personal information on Facebook despite potential risks?

CONCLUSIONS

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Facebook represents a fundamental shift in the role of the Internet in daily life

Research has been revealing but much remains to be discovered

We are maintaining a website that provides researchers with a rolling bibliography of Facebook articles. Facebookinthesocialsciences.org

Continuing Research

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Bibliography of social networking sites -  maintained by danah boyd: http://www.danah.org/researchBibs/sns.php

Facebook Data Team website: http://www.facebook.com/data

FB Data Team’s most recent publications.   http://www.facebook.com/data/app_190322544333196

The Facebook Project – A great general resource site http://www.thefacebookproject.com/about/index.html

Internet Research Ethics - A resource on best practice internet research methods and ethical considerations:  http://internetresearchethics.org/

World distribution stats of Facebook users: http://www.internetworldstats.com/facebook.htm

Useful Links

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Thank you!

Info:http://facebookinthesocialsciences.org/

Paper:Your school library or

http://pps.sagepub.com/content/7/3/203

Recording:http://psychster.com

Psychster Labs:info@psychster.com

@Psychster

Robert WilsonWashington University in St. Louis