Social Networks panel 1: Methodology
From SocialSoftwareSymposium
Amanda Lenhart
I've held a series of focus groups with middle and high school students to examine issues of privacy, expectations of privacy, utility of space, truth-telling, and self presentation. This was before Facebook allowed profiles to be private. Our findings included that some people make profiles younger than they are. Participants had some definite ideas about what one should and should not post. For example a home address, or anything that could lead others to recognize you physically in space was not considered something good to post. Young people have different ideas about what is and is not safe to share online in their profiles. Many people lie about their location because they use the network to stay in touch with people they already know, who already know where they live. They believe that things are essentially private.
Next work: More indepth interviews asking "How do you think about using social networks?" in telephone interviews with users and parents.
So far, we've found that there is a disconnect between responses when we've asked someone online if they have a profile versus when we've asked over the phone. Without prompting respondents with terms they relate to, we run into a blank wall: Q: Do you have a profile online? A (telephone): No. But they just answered that they use "Myspace or Facebook" online!
How can we ask about social network system use without prompting respondents with the name of a site when we want to ask more about behavior than where it is done?
There are also problems with potential bias in future studies as sites go in and out of fashion.
Zeynep Tufekci
First, I want to address the Metaverse metaphor. SNS not a metaverse. They are not virtual environments. Users use to keep offline, old friends, existing people connected. As technology changes, we have predictions that the world will so very different (e.g. radio will change the world). But though we have these technologies, how much change do we really end up with? - fundamental human aspects endure.
Contrary to early predictions that we will be playing with our identities, with people trying out different aspects of their identities, that has not been the case. In fact, the experience of kids growing up with this has been that having a profile is merges identity. It makes it more difficult to have multiple faces, multiple groups of friends, or the chance to try out different identities. Digital native kids use it more like a really intense phonebook instead of an identity experimentation. Students say "You can't cheat any more." If a student misses class, you can check their Facebook profile. If they were well enough to go to a party last night, they are well enough to be in class. These (SNSs) are creating more constraints. 90% use real name, the point is to be found. Most do not disable the features that could pin them to the wall.
Opposite of dystopia surveillence societies (Foucault, etc). They envisioned govt spying on us, but in reality, it is those around us that are. Here, everyone can see you -- your friends know you, and you have to participate (enourmous public pressure to be on it--those who aren't report pressure to be public in the network)
What does it mean when the things you did at 19 are available to all down the road? There is a concept of "super publicness". Be more afraid and restrictive now? Look forward to radical transparency?
Kara Dawson
Most interested to how research in SNS relates or doesn't to traditional ethnography. Ref "Visual Ethnography" book. It doesn't seem like methods in that book get at complexities of SNS. How do you get at that complexity? How does SNS research relate to traditional ethnography? Study on UF athletes -- thought had data on males using Facebook to show athletic prowess, hot girlfriends. Female athletes except gymnasts don't even reference sports--and are likely to have pictures of themselves at parties. We were going to publish our work, but when we went back to look at the data, it (the pictures, etc.) was gone -- the academic director put the kibbosh on athletes using Facebook (- or how they use Facebook). How can you bring cultural studies to this medium?
Andrea Forte
Facebook: "This is going to be a great way for faculty to connect with students!" New channel of communication?
work with Anne Hewlett -- looking into faculty infiltration into what many perceive as exclusively student environment. How are students negotiating these boundaries with faculty?
30% don't want faculty on Facebook.
Now setting up more in-depth interview study to understand more.
It is thought provoking to combine tagging with sns as a basis for symposium. Words associated with tagging include: "freedom, emergent, production of knowledge -- From the ILS perspective, these seem to indicate relinquishing control to general public" Social Networking software seems to be a technology of constraints. With SNS, we are attempting to operationalize things we've been doing forever in a constrained technological medium.
Methodological issue: Constraints --> design problems. Design itself can be very powerful tool to explore assumptions. Now we focus a lot on how to collect data. We used to be able to create the technologies that people are using -- we could create places for people to try out the things we were interested in studying. The interesting thing is now, we can't have control over design of these sites we want to study (Wikipedia, MySpace, Facebook). We need to intentionally incorporate an understanding of the context of production, what the designers of sites are intending, so we have this to compare to what actually happens. Best thing that can happen: site violates all expectations. Feature X meant to be used for Y, but people did D.
Nicole Ellison: we asked (in survey research) who has looked at your facebook profiles? Friends, classmates, named most. Faculty ('My professors) falls down at the bottom at 12%, with law enforcement, administration, etc.
Zeynep -- I caught students caught cheating. They claimed they didn't even know each other. I told them I found they were friends on Facebook. They were shocked that their teacher found them on Facebook.
Simon -- everything changes when you realize how naked you are online. You personally are naked rather than metaphorically.
Sarita -- if 1/3 don't want faculty on Facebook, that means 2/3 do want faculty to communicate with them online? Isn't that interesting?
Andrea -- But the question was phrased so that it was essentially asking "Is it ok for faculty to be on Facebook in general?," not asking "do you want faculty looking at your profile."
Sarita -- The meaning of the word "friend" is changing... even people you've never met in real life are online friends. I'm going to study HS kids in S. Atlanta, a group I wouldn't normally have access to. If I can reach out to populations on Friendster that I wouldn't be let into in real life, is that ok? Is this good for research? Does it offer us options in conducting research?
Alice -- comment for Zeynep (from identity theory) -- There is a big difference between current systems and systems studied in the older research. We need to be careful what we can infer from older research to current research -- old systems purely textual -- multi modal presentations common today. Most systems today are commercial and encourage a specific kind of presentation--they're really interested in specific forms of marketing etc. They try to get everyone to have just one profile.
Harry -- most peoples' behavior on sns/virtual worlds are boring and mundane. Maybe we don't need new ways to study these. The vision for these systems was much greater, but people are doing the same old things, just on a website. It's kind of disappointing. These are not an extension of the self as hoped (Englebart). All these sites closed systems, you have to redo profiles... your digital self is spread out, annoying -- this is fundamentally incompatible with the open information system we want the Internet to be. Essential to be able to import/export sns data and be able to host your profiles independently, not handing personal data to companies with agendas. This is possible w/ semantic web, microformats. Research will be hard if these closed systems keep going up and down.
Amanda -- But you are not the target user of these sites. this isn't mundane and boring to the people using the systems.
Harry -- but eventually they will grow up and want to move their profile
simon -- is it possible to separate social network from services hosted on it? It is surprising we've never ended up with proper universal distributed directory. basic infrastructure service could be easily fitted in, and you'd think it could be supported.
fred -- we will see sns be (de?)centralized to a certain extent. I'll talk more about this later this afternoon. Alice brought up a good point -- when founders were studying cyberculture, we were studying a radically different user base. The mainstreaming of these sites has to have radical effects on our assumptions, expectations, ways of doing research. When they become mainstream, behaviors begin to fall into culturally expected norms. we have to adapt to that and rewrite the literature on this.
cliff -- is myspace actually a social network? can a community that big actually be a network? is it more an online billboarding system for self?
? -- facebook requires you to register as your self, and you wouldn't get benefits if you didn't. myspace has different expectation/norms. need to think of affordances and design of the systems for research/analysis. Also need to consider what the network asks you to put in, as far as what info you give.
Zeynep -- You can register with a fake name in the newer iterations of Facebook, it is just not the social norm to do so. Media coverage of sns because of predator panic is skewed. We must consider the disposition of most 15 year olds. 15 year olds actually do want attention and to be found. Most 15 year olds are ignored by the world and want attention. There aren't that many predators. Research done by adults, parents are scared.
Jacob -- most kids aren't stupid and wouldn't even respond to a creepy old person on myspace
Fred -- these are spaces with norms. kids wouldn't respond to a creepy dude in the mall either. often it is the younger people are actually using the system to try to be contating older people, which is something people don't want to think about/admit
Cal Lee -- aside from predator panic,... This stuff will persist, these are traces you leave online. Are parents concerned that their children are putting things online that will prevent them from getting a job later, etc. ?
Zeynep -- some people argue that every 15 year old goes through this stage where they put up stupid stuff, and if everyone has their stupid stuff up, when they are older, no one will care. The counter is that only the people that did nothing, and put up nothing stupid will rise through ranks.
Jacob -- Clinton and pot use was a huge thing. Now drug use in presidential candidates is assumed. The goalposts on these things move.
Lilly -- These will be read as evidence and not discounted. It's not so innocuous
Cliff -- as far as research, goes we talk about how ephemeral this stuff is, but then we say it will never go away
Zeynep -- so many young people list their sexual orientation and it seems it's no big deal because of changing culture
--will this or won't this be an issue? will the culture change? or will all these kids suffer?--
Sarita -- we are using this term sns, which i don't know if we've defined, but one distinction between MS and FB is FB may be used to maintain real life SN, and MS may be more how teenagers want space for performance -- more likely to play with identity?
Cliff -- We've always had these performative spaces. Christmas card as self-representational tool. Disagrees with difference between FB and MS. Both allow social surveillance of people you loosely know but don't have occasion to run into often.
Simon -- some sites like LJ (not sure if it's a SNS). on LJ, friending more of a committment than on FB, which is more of a committment than MS.
Harry -- How are social networks globalizing? for first time in recent history, the dominant discourse of social networks and their are questions of the nation state against social networks -- I don't think they're using MySpace, but AlQuaeda using internet to keep in touch --
Alice -- SNS should not be broadened to include all communication online. Email and im can help you keep in touch, but there's a difference with the profile-based sites with explicit relationships defined
Jacob -- It's clear that the same person uses different sites/services for very different purposes and that elements of the social network are distributed across different services. A really valuable survey to do would to look at users of multiple services and how they use them.
Cliff -- is a survey the best method? (no)
Andrea -- the fact that people don't recognize the terms we researchers use to refer to these things as what they are doing makes sense here. Maybe we don’t have all these different identities, maybe we are just trying to express this one self... I am not convinced.
Fred -- is there something nonunique about sns? having an explicit list of friends is cool and all. we do have identity production -- we've been doing that for a long time too. Is the critical mass the thing that makes it interesting, and what we're really studying?
Jacob -- the mass turns the SNS into a space, which becomes different than a tool. What makes the place a place is what is interesting.
Terrell: It is different than a tool.
Jacob: It is actually a place.
Vander Wal -- refers to Dyson (?) - You can see a bar as your social network. It's where your friends are. Your friends may bounce to different bars, but you are still you no matter what bar you are in
Zeynep -- but sns are public and traversable, and that makes it different
Vander Wal -- in a small town that sort of thing has always been public
Cathy -- what about the ones that haven't acheived placeness (Classmates)
Vander wal -- What makes one of these tools more likely to become a *place*? What about the design, etc that makes it a place people want to hangout.
Cathy -- maybe it has to do with things outside the tool. Maintaining current social relationships vs. reestablishing old broken relationships?
Weinberger -- Is the blogosphere a social network? It's my social sphere. It has persistence. It has connections.
Terrell -- isn't that the open source version of social networking?
Zeynep -- the fixed format of profiles in sns is helpful for connections
Weinberger -- the blogosphere is more folksonomic in this regard.
Cal -- Many bloggers don't even have profiles
Weinberger -- profiles are awful things in their constructedness. There may be an about link on a blog, leading to narrative. I'm very against all digital id schemes -- will all lead to disasterous effects. Why isn't it the blogosphere that we are looking for?
Cliff -- The blog takes more work to construct/maintain than FB/MS. Blogging well is hard and a big investment.
Jackson -- The blog can be a less expressive way to maintain that network. sns tools are specifically designed for this sort of communication--connecting, maintaining, qualifying. Blog is a generic format.
Weinberger -- we pay a price for that. all the implicit meaning gets pared away. I would get to know more about someone by reading their blogs, not their profiles – (their) misrepresentations…
Nicole -- Misrepresentations and playfulness...talks about impression formation in online dating sites. misrepresentation is very important and is seen to be a problem -- users would see a typo and interpret lack of education, etc, like other cues given off unintentionally as in real life...
Weinberger - what bothers me about profiles is when they ask you what your interests are, you don't know... It is such a meager way to ‘list’ interests, there are so many things that people would not list… people of my class won't list tv or porn no matter how much of it they consume. there's no possibility of accurate represnetation because we don't have interests such as those that profiles require us to list.
Nicole -- users do get around that. they can say "i like hiking" and warrant their claims through other mechanisms of the profile
Weinberger-- My real concern is not that people misrepresent claims… it is making explicit what is actually implicit = a lack of meaning and a problem, even if someone is making a good faith effort.
Sarita: any difference between high school yearbooks? Where it says “this person this, this person that…: do you think that this is different than what we have here?
?: There are a lot of things here that we should think of … this is so complex, so gnarly
Senom -- purpose matters. the reason you have a blog is to put out your ideas or whatever. MS/FB are more like party spaces... obviously people use it differently, but it is more entertainment and less serious. (It's a different kind of party.)
Zeynep -- when you comment on a blog, you comment on a substantive aspect. when you comment on a wall, you say "Hi" and someone says "Hi" back -- it's like chimps picking bugs -- it's pointless but still socially useful
Weinberger -- i blogged about something tagged "toy" recently and this post seemed to attract younger readers.I got different kinds of comments, like "hi" or "you're so gay". So they're signifying to me "I just wanted to contact you to tell you that you are gay"
Susan Gov -- going back to accurate portrayal through profiles, people on the sites have made profiles and they do understand the flattening effects of profile creation. my sense is that people ignore that, or read into interests to try to make a connection. They don't use the profile as a literal accurate indicator of who that person actually is.
Jacob -- I disagree. the things you list on profile are incredibly important -- it's how you show what tribe you belong to. you need the right answers (bands, tv show, etc). liking the films of x means something to the people you want it to mean something to. it's a powerful marker of identity.
Susan -- Music or other things you like play different roles in your life. They don't really mean that much.
Jacob -- but the matching with other members of your cohort is the powerful thing.
Cliff -- we did a chi study (?) -- we had contact variables, interest variables, and co-reference (both from michigan) variables. Signal most associated with number of friends was co-reference variables. If you had any interest mattered, but not number of interests. you are creating common ground by signalling.
Harry -- sns differentiations : global, public, structured or semi profiles, letting teens and other historically disenfranchised groups represent themselves--does it change things? does it have serious social/political effects? in the first life?
Cliff -- it's very hard to do research on these online/offline effects and determine causality
Nicole -- how can ask how/when people meet other people online and then met them offline? it is very difficult to identify how relationships begin online ... for example a student might see someone in class, make contact online, then meet them in person -- when did they actually meet?
Gary: would a few case studies be helpful with this?
Cliff -- there are online case studies on this, but we don't really know connections
Amanda (?) -- we did a little of that in our studies
Sarita -- are there numbers about people joining FB voluntarily or being invited?
Cliff -- people do experience pressure to join. We try to get some of the social pressure indices...
Nicole -- some people say they held out as long as they could, but joined because of pressure
Carolyn -- the peer pressure is overlooked in most popular coverage of sns or not drawn out in research. People don't talk about feeling pressure, about the “keeping up with the Jones” effect.
Zeynep -- the users get use out of it. FB gives you something, more than what you'd get just seeing someone in a bar and thinking they are attractive. You at least know something about them, whether they like the Titanic.
[and I finished, and then before I saved, my computer froze and I lost the rest :-( - This is where mine ends as well -L ]
