Cliff Lampe

A face(book) in the crowd: social Searching vs. social browsing

Large numbers of college students have become avid Facebook users in a short period of time. In this paper, we explore whether these students are using Facebook to find new people in their offline communities or to learn more about people they initially meet offline. Our data suggest that users are largely employing Facebook to learn more about people they meet offline, and are less likely to use the site to initiate new connections.

Connection strategies: Social capital implications of Facebook-enabled communication practices

This study assesses whether Facebook users have different ‘connection strategies,’ a term which describes a suite of Facebook-related relational communication activities, and explores the relationship between these connection strategies and social capital. Survey data (N = 450) from a random sample of undergraduate students reveal that only social information-seeking behaviors contribute to perceptions of social capital; connection strategies that focus on strangers or close friends do not. We also find that reporting more ‘actual’ friends on the site is predictive of social capital, but only to a point. We believe the explanation for these findings may be that the identity information in Facebook serves as a social lubricant, encouraging individuals to convert latent to weak ties and enabling them to broadcast requests for support or information.

A familiar face(book): profile elements as signals in an online social network

Using data from a popular online social network site, this paper explores the relationship between profile structure (namely, which fields are completed) and number of friends, giving designers insight into the importance of the profile and how it works to encourage connections and articulated relationships between users. We describe a theoretical framework that draws on aspects of signaling theory, common ground theory, and transaction costs theory to generate an understanding of why certain profile fields may be more predictive of friendship articulation on the site. Using a dataset consisting of 30,773 Facebook profiles, we determine which profile elements are most likely to predict friendship links and discuss the theoretical and design implications of our findings.

Changes in use and perception of facebook

As social computing systems persist over time, the user experiences and interactions they support may change. One type of social computing system, Social Network Sites (SNSs), are becoming more popular across broad segments of Internet users. Facebook, in particular, has very broad participation amongst college attendees, and has been growing in other populations as well. This paper looks at how use of Facebook has changed over time, as indicated by three consecutive years of survey data and interviews with a subset of survey respondents. Reported uses of the site remain relatively constant over time, but the perceived audience for user profiles and attitudes about the site show differences over the study period.

Slash(dot) and burn: distributed moderation in a large online conversation space

Can a system of distributed moderation quickly and consistently separate high and low quality comments in an online conversation? Analysis of the site Slashdot.org suggests that the answer is a qualified yes, but that important challenges remain for designers of such systems. Thousands of users act as moderators. Final scores for comments are reasonably dispersed and the community generally agrees that moderations are fair. On the other hand, much of a conversation can pass before the best and worst comments are identified. Of those moderations that were judged unfair, only about half were subsequently counterbalanced by a moderation in the other direction. And comments with low scores, not at top-level, or posted late in a conversation were more likely to be overlooked by moderators.

Bowling online: social networking and social capital within the organization

Within an organizational setting, social capital facilitates knowledge management processes in that it enables individuals to locate useful information, draw on resources and make contributions to the network. This paper explores the relationship between various dimensions of organizational social capital and the use of an internal social network site (SNS). We hypothesize that the use of a SNS contributes to social capital within the organization in that SNS users are able to maintain larger networks of heterogeneous contacts. Additionally, the affordances of the site support social interaction between users, thus helping individuals maintain existing relationships and deepen developing ones. We find that bonding relationships, sense of corporate citizenship, interest in connecting globally, and access to new people and expertise are all associated with greater intensity of use of the social network site.

Motivations to participate in online communities

A consistent theoretical and practical challenge in the design of socio-technical systems is that of motivating users to participate in and contribute to them. This study examines the case of Everything2.com users from the theoretical perspectives of Uses and Gratifications and Organizational Commitment to compare individual versus organizational motivations in user participation. We find evidence that users may continue to participate in a site for different reasons than those that led them to the site. Feelings of belonging to a site are important for both anonymous and registered users across different types of uses. Long-term users felt more dissatisfied with the site than anonymous users. Social and cognitive factors seem to be more important than issues of usability in predicting contribution to the site.

Student use of Facebook for organizing collaborative classroom activities

Social network sites such as Facebook are often conceived of as purely social spaces; however, as these sites have evolved, so have the ways in which students are using them. In this study, we examine how undergraduate students use the social network site Facebook to engage in classroom-related collaborative activities (e.g., arranging study groups, learning about course processes) to show how Facebook may be used as an informal tool that students use to organize their classroom experiences, and explore the factors that predict type of use. Data from two surveys (N = 302, N = 214) are used to analyze how Facebook use, social and psychological factors, self-efficacy, and types of instructor-student communication on Facebook are related to positive and negative collaboration among students. We found that predictors of Facebook use for class organizing behaviors include self-efficacy and perceived motivation to communicate with others using the site. When placed in the context of social and psychological factors, Facebook intensity did not predict either positive or negative collaboration, suggesting that how students used the site, rather than how often they used the tool or how important they felt it was, affected their propensity to collaborate.

Follow the (slash) dot: effects of feedback on new members in an online community

Many virtual communities involve ongoing discussions, with large numbers of users and established, if implicit rules for participation. As new users enter communities like this, both they and existing members benefit when new users learn the standards for participation. Slashdot is a news and discussion site that has developed a system of distributed moderation to provide feedback about the value of posts on their site. This study examines three explanations for how new users learn to participate in a digital community: learning transfer from previous experiences, observation of other members, and feedback from other members. We find that new user behavior is affected by a combination of their viewing behavior, the moderation feedback they receive, and replies to their comments.

Negotiating Privacy Concerns and Social Capital Needs in a Social Media Environment

Social network sites (SNSs) are becoming an increasingly popular resource for both students and adults, who use them to connect with and maintain relationships with a variety of ties. For many, the primary function of these sites is to consume and distribute personal content about the self. Privacy concerns around sharing information in a public or semi-public space are amplified by SNSs’ structural characteristics, which may obfuscate the true audience of these disclosures due to their technical properties (e.g., persistence, searchability) and dynamics of use (e.g., invisible audiences, context collapse) (boyd 2008b). Early work on the topic focused on the privacy pitfalls of Facebook and other SNSs (e.g., Acquisti and Gross 2006; Barnes 2006; Gross and Acquisti 2005) and argued that individuals were (perhaps inadvertently) disclosing information that might be inappropriate for some audiences, such as future employers, or that might enable identity theft or other negative outcomes.