Moira Burke

Social capital on facebook: differentiating uses and users

Though social network site use is often treated as a monolithic activity, in which all time is equally social and its impact the same for all users, we examine how Facebook affects social capital depending upon: (1) types of site activities, contrasting one-on-one communication, broadcasts to wider audiences, and passive consumption of social news, and (2) individual differences among users, including social communication skill and self-esteem. Longitudinal surveys matched to server logs from 415 Facebook users reveal that receiving messages from friends is associated with increases in bridging social capital, but that other uses are not. However, using the site to passively consume news assists those with lower social fluency draw value from their connections. The results inform site designers seeking to increase social connectedness and the value of those connections.

Feed me: motivating newcomer contribution in social network sites

Social networking sites (SNS) are only as good as the content their users share. Therefore, designers of SNS seek to improve the overall user experience by encouraging members to contribute more content. However, user motivations for contribution in SNS are not well understood. This is particularly true for newcomers, who may not recognize the value of contribution. Using server log data from approximately 140,000 newcomers in Facebook, we predict long-term sharing based on the experiences the newcomers have in their first two weeks. We test four mechanisms: social learning, singling out, feedback, and distribution. In particular, we find support for social learning: newcomers who see their friends contributing go on to share more content themselves. For newcomers who are initially inclined to contribute, receiving feedback and having a wide audience are also predictors of increased sharing. On the other hand, singling out appears to affect only those newcomers who are not initially inclined to share. The paper concludes with design implications for motivating newcomer sharing in online communities.

Mopping up: modeling wikipedia promotion decisions

This paper presents a model of the behavior of candidates for promotion to administrator status in Wikipedia. It uses a policy capture framework to highlight similarities and differences in the communitys stated criteria for promotion decisions to those criteria actually correlated with promotion success. As promotions are determined by the consensus of dozens of voters with conflicting opinions and unwritten expectations, the results highlight the degree to which consensus is truly reached. The model is fast and easily computable on the fly, and thus could be applied as a self-evaluation tool for editors considering becoming administrators, as a dashboard for voters to view a nominees relevant statistics, or as a tool to automatically search for likely future administrators. Implications for distributed consensus-building in online communities are discussed.

Technology Adoption and Use in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans

Disasters are threatening and highly dynamic situations, marked by high levels of information need and low levels of information availability. Advances in communication technologies have given people more ways to seek information and communicate—a redundancy that can help people cope with disaster situations and support subsequent recovery. This article presents results from a longitudinal study of New Orleans musicians in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The authors found that in the immediate aftermath, musicians used cell phones and the Internet to locate family and friends and obtain information unavailable in broadcast news reports. Seeking and redistributing information resulted in the creation or discovery of online spaces that became virtual instantiations of the physical environments from which the musicians were barred. For those who had to leave New Orleans, these online spaces helped them maintain connection with their local communities. As recovery continued, many musicians discontinued or adjusted their use of technologies that did not fit the cultural and social context of their everyday lives. Those who returned to New Orleans focused their energies on rebuilding, often eschewing mediated communication for New Orleans—style in-person interaction. Those who remained away found that digital connections to the New Orleans community were insufficient to maintain a sense of belonging.

Social use of computer-mediated communication by adults on the autism spectrum

The defining characteristics of autism, including difficulty with nonverbal cues and need for structure, and the defining characteristics of computer-mediated communication (CMC), including reduction of extraneous cues and structured exchange, suggest the two would be an ideal match. Interviews and observations of 16 adults on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum reveal that many seek greater social connectedness and take advantage of interest-based online communities to foster successful, supportive relationships. However, CMC intensifies problems of trust, disclosure, inflexible thinking, and perspective-taking, making it difficult for some to maintain relationships. Interventions in the form of information visualization and CMC-specific social skills training are presented. Intervention considerations and participatory design opportunities are discussed.

Introductions and Requests: Rhetorical Strategies That Elicit Response in Online Communities

Online communities allow millions of people who would never meet in person to interact. People join web-based discussion boards, email lists, and chat rooms for friendship, social support, entertainment, and information on technical, health, and leisure activities [24]. And they do so in droves. One of the earliest networks of online communities, Usenet, had over nine million unique contributors, 250 million messages, and approximately 200,000 active groups in 2003 [27], while the newer My Space, founded in 2003, attracts a quarter million new members every day [27].

Membership Claims and Requests: Conversation-Level Newcomer Socialization Strategies in Online Groups

Early socialization experiences have a long-term impact on newcomers’ satisfaction, performance, and intention to stay in a group. We know that newcomers proactively shape their own socialization, but we know little about the behavioral tactics they employ, or how the words they choose affect their acceptance by the group. The present article highlights three common conversational strategies of newcomers to online groups: (a) group-based membership claims, in which newcomers describe initial participation in the group; (b) identity-based membership claims, in which they describe their similarity to the group’s focal social category; and (c) information requests, in which they ask for help. Using machine learning to identify these conversational strategies automatically in 12,000 newcomers’ messages to approximately 100 online groups, we find that they are correlated with increased group responsiveness. We follow this analysis with two controlled field experiments to demonstrate that when individuals attest to previous group participation and make specific requests for information, community responsiveness increases, but claims of shared identity with the group have no impact.

Error correction of voicemail transcripts in SCANMail

Despite its widespread use, voicemail presents numerous usability challenges: People must listen to messages in their entirety, they cannot search by keywords, and audio files do not naturally support visual skimming. SCANMail overcomes these flaws by automatically generating text transcripts of voicemail messages and presenting them in an email-like interface. Transcripts facilitate quick browsing and permanent archive. However, errors from the automatic speech recognition (ASR) hinder the usefulness of the transcripts. The work presented here specifically addresses these problems by evaluating user-initiated error correction of transcripts. User studies of two editor interfaces-a grammar-assisted menu and simple replacement by typing-reveal reduced audio playback times and an emphasis on editing important words with the menu, suggesting its value in mobile environments where limited input capabilities are the norm and user privacy is essential. The study also adds to the scarce body of work on ASR confidence shading, suggesting that shading may be more helpful than previously reported.