Reu Hci Symposium Poster

Social Network Sites: a Mirror of Society César E. Concepción-Acevedo, University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez Advisors: Andrea Kavanaugh, Ph.D., Virginia Tech Manuel A. Peréz-Quiñones, Ph.D. Virginia Tech

THE RUNDOWN Background It took a little more than a decade for Social Networks Sites (SNS) to become one of the most popular destinations for internet users. Based on the popularity of these sites, issues of privacy, identity, politics and socialization overall have been raised. Motivations Dichotomized perspectives of offline and online behaviors have been nurtured to understand the unique social scenarios created in response to SNSʼs. However, with recent research it is becoming more evident that the behaviors shown on these sites are only a mirror of individuals and furthermore, society. Implications SNSʼs are not only influenced by events that occur offline but are also prone to social factors like: institutionalized isomorphism, free market behavior, politics and normative social values. This medium of interaction has allowed people to magnify their social capital since social networks are more visible and more easily assessable.

METHODS

ISOMORPHISM

•  Research on SNSʼs from 2005 to 2009 was compiled and reviewed. •  A wiki was created to record the reviews and notes of the literature considered. (http://sns09.pbworks.com/) •  The Publications section of Virginia Techʼs Diggov website was updated and linked to the reviews contained in the wiki.

or the process of one thing looking like another.

INFO TO-GO •  “The internet mirrors and magnifies pre-existing [social] dynamics” (boyd, 2009) •  SNSʼs are imagined communities just like nations. •  The economy is being transformed by SNSʼs: producers are becoming consumers of the same product they produce. •  The democratic nature of SNSʼs and content management web-sites should be questioned to break away from the utopian view of the web. boyd,D.M.,& Ellison, N.B. (2007)

MySpace screenshot before 2005

NO SUCH THING AS OFFLINE Figure 1. SNSʼs Use in Relation to Parental Education (Income)

Figure 2. SNSʼs Use in Relation to Ethnicity

Facebook MySpace

MySpace screenshot, 2009 (Hargittai, 2007)

•  Online innequalities are not only due to a digital gap, but are also based on similar demographic characteristics as offline innequalities. •  Figure 1 shows how the use of SNSʼs differs when income variables (parental education) are taken into account. •  Demographics of early adopters of SNSʼs could be considered relevant in order to explain early trends; however later site migrations can not be fully based on that supposition. •  “Digital migration is revealing the same social patterns as urban whiteflight…” (boyd, 2009). •  “Offline” social networks are very similar to online social networks.

(Hargittai, 2007)

•  Type of network ties: latent, weak and strong •  Bigger networks mean bigger social capital, but this also generates an ease of communication for those with low social skills. •  The issue of privacy is more a matter of choice. •  Those who want to make the information available not only have the choice to upload the content but also assign tittles, descriptions and tags that can make the content more or less assessable to others. •  External politics affect the online world and viceversa. •  People that identify with the political left wing are more likely to actively communicate in SNS’s. Facebook screenshot, 2009

FUTURE RESEARCH

CONTACT INFORMACION

Much research is still neded to fully understand the implications of Social Network Sites in our society. (1) Understanding why popularity of these SNSʼs are higher in particular countriesover the other might reveal important insights about each society. Also, (2) understanding how SNSʼs like YouTube are being used (e.g. as coping mechanism during difficult situations) might pose as a valuable scientific contribution. In addition, (3) understanding the effects that online behavior has over “offline” relationships will provide a better understanding of how users will behave while online.

César E. Concepción-Acevedo Universidad de Puerto Rico-Mayagüez Email: [email protected] Blog: http://surfingcollege.wordpress.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/korinuo Find this poster @ http://tiny.cc/poster121

REFERENCES boyd, d. M., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 13(1), 210-230. boyd, danah. 2009. "The Not-So-Hidden Politics of Class Online." Personal Democracy Forum, New York, June 30. Hargittai, E. (2007). Whose space? Differences among users and non-users of social network sites. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 13(1), 276-297.