Additional Articles for Paper

The Benefits of Facebook "Friends:" Social capital and college students' use of online social network sites.
N.B. Ellison, C. Steinfiled & C. Lampe. (2007) Journal of Computer-Meidated Communication. 1143-1168

This study examines the relationship between use of Facebook, and the formation and maintenance of social capital. It explores a dimension of social capital that assesses one’s ability to stay connected with members of a previously inhabited community; maintained social capital.

Social capital is seen as a positive effect of interaction among participants in social networks. This allows individuals to draw on resources from other members of the networks to which they belong. The concept of maintained social capital explores whether online network tools enable individuals to keep in touch with a social network after physically disconnecting from it, for example staying in touch with high school friends if you go away to college.

The method was a random sample of 800 Michigan State University undergraduate students. All 800 students were sent an email with a short description of the study, information about confidentiality and incentives, and a link to the survey. A total of 286 students completed the online survey and female, younger, in-state, and on-campus students were slightly overrepresented in the sample.

In the sample, 94% of the undergraduate students that were surveyed were Facebook members. These members report spending between ten and thirty minutes on average using Facebook each day and report having between 150 and 200 friends listed on their profiles. The data suggested that students’ primary audiences for their profiles are people whom they share an offline connection with. The data also showed that students reporting low satisfaction and low self-esteem appeared to gain in bridging social capital if they used Facebook, suggesting that the affordances of the social networking systems might be especially helpful for these students. Facebook appears to play an important role in the process by which students form and maintain social capital and suggested how social networking sites maintain relations as people move from one offline community to another.


Digital relationships in the ‘MySpace’ Generation: Results from a qualitative study.
C. Dwyer (2007) Proceedings of the 40th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. 1-10

The main objective of the research was to undertake a qualitative study of how individuals use technology to develop and maintain interpersonal relationships.

Social networking sites encourage social interaction by emphasizing connections through shared interests or causes. Facebook, intended for college students and MySpace, a large site with an emphasis on popular culture and music.

The research method used was the semi-structured interview. The interview was conducted primarily by undergraduate students as part of a class project for a required course within their degree program. The student researchers had to recruit subjects and complete a single interview and post transcripts for review. Then they each recruited two more subjected and completed two more interviews for a total of three each. Seventeen of the Eighteen student researcher interviews were used in the study, plus two additional interviews from a training session were added to the data set, for a total of 19 participants. They consisted of six females and thirteen males, two were graduate students and seventeen were undergraduate students.

Sixteen out of nineteen reported using social networking sites, they reported that their heavy use was motivated by convenience, easy access to friends and overall enjoyment when using these systems. One issues mentioned was that use of these sites is “addictive”. The data showed that 79% of the participants reported accessing these sites at least once a week, and 21% reported doing so several times a day, this demonstrates there is a regular use of these sites among the participants interviewed.

The study has found that convenience, easy access, low cost and enjoyment are the main drivers when using electronic communications media to maintain social connections.

Why Youth (heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life.
D. Boyd (2008) Youth, Identity, and Digital Media 119-142

Danah Boyd conducted a two year study of U.S.-based youth engagement with MySpace. She examined the practices of "teenagers" on social network sites, primarily focusing on MySpace. By early 20o6, many considered participation on the key social network site, MySpace, essential to being seen as cool at school. Danah's study questions why teenagers flock to these sites? What are they expressing on them? How do these sites fit into their lives? What are they learning from their participation? Are these online activities like face-to-face friendships or are they different, or complementary? The goal is to address these questions and explore their implications for youth identities. While particular systems may come and go, how youth engage through social network sites today provides long-lasting insights into identity formation, status negotiation, and peer-to-peer sociality.

The method employed was defined as “participant observation” and “deep hanging out” alongside qualitative interviews. Danah moved systematically observing, documenting and talking to young people about their practice and attitudes.

Teenagers use social network sites like MySpace as an avenue to hang out, jockey for social status, work through how to present themselves, and take risks that will help them to assess the boundaries of the social world. They do this because they seek access to adult society.