Introduction to Social Network Sites

CSC8008Dr. Rob Comber

Aims

• Over the next two weeks– Basics of social network sites• What defines social network sites?• Who uses them? How much? What do they do?

– Analysing social networks• Perspectives – social capital vs. social support,

persuasion, marketing and social contagion• Community vs. networks• Methods – qualitative vs. quantitative

A redundant introduction?

• In all likelihood you have visited a social network site in the last week, day or hour– 1 in 5 hours spent on the internet in the UK is

spent on Social Network sites (SNSs)

Who here use a social network site?

• What are the most popular?• What websites do you use that aren’t SNSs?

SNS vs. others

SNSFacebookTwitter

Not SNSBBCBlackboard?

Defining SNSs

• Lots of sites recognised as SNSs are available–But what makes a SNS a SNS?

• Get into groups of 3 and discuss.–Write a short description of a

‘generic’ SNS

A brief history…• The history of SNSs is not very well defined

• No clear ‘origin’• 1997: SixDegrees first SNSs (as we might recognise

them now) is launched• 1999: The features became incorporated in other

services, such as the blogging platform, LiveJournal.• 2000: SixDegrees closes• 2001: CyWorld, a Korean SNS, is launched (and still

going strong)• 2002: Friendster, the first widely popular American SNS,

is launched • 2003: LinkedIn, MySpace, Last.FM and other ‘interest-

based’ SNSs launch• 2004: Facebook launches as a Harvard only SNS• 2006: marks the launch of Twitter and the opening up

of Facebook to everyone

Defining social network sites• The most widely accepted paper on the history and

definition of SNSs, defines them as “web-based services that allow individuals to:– (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded

system, – (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a

connection, and – (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by

others within the system”

• boyd, and Ellison, 2007. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html

What do these mean?

• “construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system”– How do we ‘construct’?– Public/semi-public? But not private?– Within a bounded system?

Constructing

• ‘Construct’ usually means to build from the bottom up– But on SNSs, it usually means something more like

“fill in the blanks”– But this has been one of the big differences

between sites• What does the user “construct”?

MySpace vs. Facebook

Public/semi-public

• Most SNSs have some features to limit the availability of your profile/data– But are usually based on you opting out of making

your profile public• More important than this is the idea of which

publics you want to address– Who are the publics we address?

Bounded system

• What does this mean?– SNSs are ‘bounded’ be their domain address– But we interact with people outside of those• E.g. Face-to-face, but also on other sites (e.g. Like

button)

– What binds the system/users?

Working backwards

• Bounded system -> publics -> constructing.

• Bounded system of Social Network Sites is...– The Social Network

Social Network theory

• Social networks describe the people in a network and the relationships between them– People are nodes– Relationships are ties

A simple network

A

C

B

A knows B, and B knows C. A and C are connected through their relationship to B.

Strong tie

Weak tie

Node

Node Node

Strong tie

Draw your own social network

• Get a piece of paper and spend 5 minutes drawing your own social network

A more complex social network

• What did your social network drawing end up looking like?– Where did you put yourself?– How did you show the relationships between you

and others?– Did you differentiate between groups of people?– How did you show who you were close to?

Some example diagrams

Small/personal Corporate/Hierarchical Organisation/Hierarchical

Social networks

• Social networks are evident in all social interactions– We can examine organisations, corporations,

families, neighbourhoods, cities, clubs…• Just about anything as a social network

Family tree

Organisation

• Do you think this describes any real company?• Or a family tree really describes how a family

interacts?

From structure to publics

• The structures create opportunities for publics– Bob knows everybody• And is connected to everybody

– Andrew only knows Bob• So only Bob should see his information• Do you agree?

Publics

• Even if Andrew only knows Bob, he is present on Bob’s profile - in his friend list, and so on.

• Therefore, some of Andrew’s data is made public to people he doesn’t know– And there is no real way to limit that, except not

to connect with anyone (a private profile isn’t a social profile)

Features of SNS ties• Social network ties are:

– Public• Your ties to others are visible to an unknown ‘networked public’

– Mutual• When you connect to someone, they connect to you

– There are no ‘one-sided’ ties

– Decontextualised• It doesn’t matter if you are a colleague, a friend, an aunt – you are connected in the

same network

– Univariate• Again, it doesn’t matter if you are my best friend, or someone I met at a party four

years ago, you are still my ‘Friend’ – there are only two levels of connection – on and off.– Donath and boyd, 2004

Social network ties

AE

BC

D

• When I connect with someone:• Others can see it (public)• The person I connect to, is connected to me

(mutual)• It doesn’t matter who I am connecting to, it is

shared all the same (decontextualised)• It is the same as every other tie I have

(univariate)

AB

Social network ties

• Get into groups of 3. Discuss:– What consequences might there be from all social

network ties being public?– Why does it matter that my relationships don’t

have the background information with them?– And that they are not expressed in a way that uses

the contextual information?

Why do people use SNSs?

• There a plenty of reasons to use SNSs– And they depend largely on what SNS you are

talking about– So let’s pick one…– Facebook

SNS = Facebook?

• “in April 2011 Facebook was visited by 24.8 million UK internet users, more than six times as many visitors as to the second most-visited site, Twitter.” - OfCom

• More than 90% of social networking time is spent on Facebook

• Facebook has dominated the SNS space, and many would consider it the only SNS worth developing for, analysing, or using.

Growth across demographics

AB: upper-middle/middle class, C1: lower middle, C2: skilled working, D: semi-/unskilled E: retired/unemployed

Cross-cultural?

• But SNS use is extremely cultural– Have you heard of Qzone? Habbo? Renren?– How about Orkut? Vkontakte? CyWorld? Hi5?

• Orkut belongs to Google, but has only become popular in India and Brazil– So they’ve launched Google+ to the rest of the

world

Why use Facebook?

• Joinson (2008)• Two part study – first part, 137 users (88

female, mean age=26.3)

• What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about what you enjoy most when using Facebook?

Uses and gratifications (Joinson,2008)Theme Number of mentions

‘Keeping in touch’ Contacting friends who are away from home Chatting to people I otherwise would have lost contact with

52

Passive contact, social surveillance Virtual people-watching.

19

‘Re-acquiring lost contacts’Finding people you haven't seen for a while

15

‘Communication’ Being poked Private messages Writing on walls

15

Photographs Tagged in picture Posting and Sharing pictures

11

Design related Ease of use

4

Perpetual contact Seeing what people have put as their 'status' Seeing what my friends have been up to today

4

‘Making new contacts’ Talking to singles Joining groups

5

Study 2

• 241 participants• Based on previous study:• “How important are the following uses of

Facebook to you personally?’ • 1 (very unimportant) to 7 (very important).

Factors of Facebook gratification• Social connections - Finding out what old friends are

doing now• Shared identities - Joining groups, events• Photographs• Content - Applications within Facebook, games, quizzes• Social investigation - Virtual people watching• Social network surfing - Viewing other people’s friends• Status updates

Predicting use - frequency

• Women logged in more often• Based on the 7 gratifications– Those more interested in photographs and status

updates logged in more often– Those interested in social investigation logged in

marginally more often

Predicting use - length

• Younger people spend longer online• Only content gratification predicted more

lengthy use– May be inherent in the time taken to play games,

quizzes, etc.

Predicting use – number of friends

• Younger people have more friends• People who are registered for longer, or who

visit more often have more friends• People more interested in content had less

friends• People with higher score on social

investigation had more friends

Users vs. Non-users

• Ofcom carried out qualitative analysis of users and non-users

Users• 5 categories of users

– Alpha Socialisers (a minority) – people who used sites in intense short bursts to flirt, meet new people, and be entertained.

– Attention Seekers – (some) people who craved attention and comments from others, often by posting photos and customising their profiles.

– Followers – (many) people who joined sites to keep up with what their peers were doing.

– Faithfuls – (many) people who typically used social networking sites to rekindle old friendships, often from school or university.

– Functionals – (a minority) people who tended to be single-minded in using sites for a particular purpose.

Non-users• 3 categories– Concerned about safety – people concerned about

safety online, in particular making personal details available online.

– Technically inexperienced – people who lack confidence in using the internet and computers.

– Intellectual rejecters – people who have no interest in social networking sites and see them as a waste of time.

Where do you fit?

• And of what interest is that position to others?– Advertising?– Recruitment?– University?

Next week

• We will be looking at how we can begin to analyse social network sites– Networks vs. communities– Persuasion, marketing and social contagion– Social capital vs. social support