Transcript Analysing Social Network Sites

Analysing Social Network Sites
Aims
• This week
– Social capital vs. Social support
– Communities
– Persuasion technology in social networks
Social network sites
• It is easy to view social network sites simply as
bits of technology
– Like we did last week
• Profiles, avatars, friends lists, etc.
– But there is more behind that
– Last week we asked “why do people use social
network sites?”
• Same question this week!
But different perspective
• So what do people get from social network
sites?
– At a broader level, why do people use social
network sites?
• Not ‘what do they do on them?’
• But ‘what do they gain through that use?’
Social capital vs. social support
• Social capital is the value of social relationships
– It can take the form of knowledge, skills, access to
resources (e.g. job interviews), and more (e.g. money)
• Social support is the emotional experience of
being cared for
– Can be understood as one of the resources of social
capital
Social capital
• Social capital is an important concept for
sociologists
– It is one way to explain why people gather in
groups that are larger than can be explained by
evolution
– Today, it is seen as an explanation for many
changes in society
Bowling alone
• In 1996, Robert Putnam argued that society
(in America) was in decline because
individuals’ social capital was in decline
– Neighbourhoods, towns, clubs, organisations
– All these were ‘disappearing’ into cities
Social capital in the net
• Only online communities appeared to be
going against the trend
– Online communities were starting to grow and
provided access to people with knowledge, skills,
resources, that people didn’t normally have access
to
– Global village
Social networks
• That social capital on the internet was so
promising gave rise to the view of ‘networked
individualism’
– That is, individuals were not ‘in’ groups, but rather
maintained their individualism while being
connected to others
Networked individualism
• Individuals are connected to
others in order to share
resources, information,
knowledge, etc.
Social network analysis
• We can therefore analyse
the way people interact by
examining the flow of
resources through the
network
– E.g. Granovetter
– More likely to get a job from a
friend of friend than a friend
Community
“Sense of community is a feeling that members have of
belonging, a feeling that members matter to one
another and to the group, and a shared faith that
members’ needs will be met through their
commitment to be together.”
McMillan, 1976, as cited in McMillan and Chavis, 1986,
p.9.
The important features of communities include a feeling
of being part of something greater than ourselves,
something enjoyable and personally meaningful.
Features of community
1. is a feeling that members have of belonging,
2. a feeling that members matter:
to one another
and to the group
3. a shared faith that members’ needs will be met
4. through their commitment to be together
Are these features then necessarily restricted to the real world,
or can we successfully recreate communities on the
Internet?
Meaningful relationships may be formed online because
of, rather than in spite of, the inherent limitations..
“the medium will, by it’s nature..be a place where people
often end up revealing themselves far more intimately
than they would be inclined to do without the
intermediation of screens and pseudonyms”
Rheingold (1993, p.27)
• Some opposition to online communication
emphasis the transient nature of ‘friendships’
online, and fear that (particularly) young people
online become more concerned with collecting
numbers of friends than developing quality
friendships with offline peers.
• These ‘commodity’ friendships may reduce the
effort involved in maintaining friendships, but
also may lack the supportive permanence of
negotiating relationships in the real world
Friendship as a Commodity
• This is the current system within social
network sites
– And is useful for business and viral marketing
– But may be damaging to how we define
relationships
– It is at odds with providing Social Support
Social support online
• Seems to be a focus on the potential dangers of online
communication, with little acknowledgement of the
potential benefits of it.
• Geographically dispersed/mobility disabled individuals
who may share an unusual source of stress can now
communicate easily
• Rare illness support groups/groups discussing sensitive
emotional stress
• ‘Real world’ marginalised individuals who participate
in online groups (skinheads, believers in aliens on earth
etc.) reportedly feel greater social identification with
their online groups and thus had greater selfacceptance and less isolation from others.
Group polarisation online
• “the greatest loss in public discourse on the
net is the loss of moderate voices”
• Shirky (1995)
• Group polarisation may be at least partly responsible for the
level of extremism we see on the Internet
• Online it is easy to find like-minded others to reinforce our
views
Analysing Social network sites
• It is important to consider both the
technological and social
– Particularly the lived and felt lives of those who
interact online
– Social network sites have a lot of potential
• Particularly to change how we communicate
• But also our behaviours
Articles and resources
• http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ell
ison.html
• http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/
• http://www.people.ku.edu/~nbaym/research2
.html
• http://www.danah.org/researchBibs/sns.php
Persuasion
• Persuasion is the deliberate influence of
others in order to change their attitudes or
behaviour
Attitudes are our cognitive evaluations
of other people, objects, events.
How much we like or dislike something.
Behaviours are the overt responses we
make to our environment.
The things we do.
Persuasion
• List five ways you may have been persuaded
today
• Has someone or something changed what you
were doing?
• Or changed your evaluation of another person
or product?
Captology
• “Computers As Persuasive Technology”- ology
• “...captology focuses on the design, research, and
analysis of interactive computing products created for
the purpose of changing people’s attitudes or
behaviour.” Fogg, 2003, p5
• It is not so concerned with
– Computer mediated communication (i.e. person to person
influence through computers)
– Coercion and deceit
• Though these are arguably very important in the study of
persuasion
Advantages over human persuaders
• More persistent
– E.g. software registration reminders
– “no human can be as persistent as a machine” p8
• Greater anonymity
– “At times anonymity makes it easier for people to
change” p8
• Manage huge volumes of data
– E.g. Amazon recommendations
Source: BJ Fogg. Persuasive Technology.
More advantages
• Use many modalities to influence
– Visual, auditory, haptic
• Scale easily
– Computers and software can scale easily.
• Go where humans cannot go or are not welcome
(ubicomp)
• Immediacy, interactivity, ubiquity, persistence.
Interactivity
• Interactivity is the key feature of persuasive
interfaces
– Sets it apart from other persuasive media such as
TV, print, radio.
• “As a general rule, persuasion techniques are
most effective when they are interactive, when
persuaders adjust their influence tactics as the
situation evolves.” P6
Persuasive technology
• List five ways that technology might change
your behaviour or attitude?
– what you are doing or your evaluation of an
object, person, event
Levels of persuasion
• Macrosuasion – describes the overall
persuasive intent of a product.
• Microsuasion – products that do not have an
overall persuasive intent may still incorporate
persuasive elements to achieve a different
goal.
– E.g. continuous feedback on task completion.
Microsuasion
• Fogg argues that buttons on webpages such as
“Sign-up” can be considered microsuasion.
– This seems to apply to any aspect of a site, including
for instance, the curiosity people have about
Facebook. Does a site design curiosity?
– This is also applied to in-game rewards and other cooccurring elements in success (e.g. the noise of a
dying enemy in a game or haptic feedback from a
controller). There is also promise or anticipation (e.g.
gaining new powers or levelling up). And getting on a
high score list.
Functional Triad
Computer as Tools
Increases capability
Computers as Social Actor
Creates relationships
Computer as Medium
Creates experiences
Functional Triad
• Computers as tools:
• Make behaviour easier to do, lead through the process, perform tasks that
motivate
– Helping
• Computer as medium:
• Allow people to explore cause-and-effect relationships, provide people
with vicarious experiences, help people rehearse a behaviour
– Simulating
• Computers as social actor:
• Reward people with positive feedback, modelling a target behaviour or
attitude, providing social support
– Relating
Tool, Medium, Social Actor
Helping, simulating, relating
Functional Triad
Computers as Social Actor
Creates relationships
Computer as Tools
Increases capability
Computer as Medium
Creates experiences
As a tool
• Seven techniques of persuasive technology:
– Reduction
– Tunnelling
– Tailoring
– Suggestion
– Self-monitoring
– Surveillance
– Conditioning
Reduction
• Persuasion through simplification
• Benefit/cost ratio maximisation through cost
reduction – usually in terms of cognitive load
• May also increase self-efficacy, and therefore,
positive attitude toward behaviour
– That is, when we think we are good at something
we tend to like it more
“Traffic lights” are very popular!
Reduction
Tunnelling
• Leading users through a predetermined set of
steps.
• User gives up control and self-determination
• Captive audience
– ethical problems: must show ‘exits’ from tunnel
Tunnelling
Tailoring
• Persuasion through customisation
– e.g. information filtering.
– Tailored information is more effective at changing
attitudes/behaviour than generic
– May only require the perception that information
is tailored.
• Includes personalisation/customisation
Tailoring
Problem?
Suggestion
• “An interactive computer product that
suggests a behaviour at the most opportune
moment” (p43)
• Also known as kairos
Suggestion
Urinal fly
Focuses attention at the right time
Also uses techniques of reduction and tunnelling
Drastically reduces ‘spillage’
Radar speed sign
Gives you information at the right time
Suggestion
• Suggestion is most powerful
– when people are in a good mood;
– when asked they can act immediately;
– when they feel obliged due to reciprocity;
– when they have recently denied a request.
Suggestion
• Facebook has mastered ‘hot triggers’
• These are both the messages sent out
• And the content on the site
The action I want to take are in the path of my browsing
Suggestion
• Where should you place your ‘Sign-up’ form?
• Websites use may different techniques
– But what should be most effective?
Self-monitoring
• “Allows people to monitor themselves to modify
their attitudes or behaviours to achieve a
predetermined goal or outcome” (p44)
– Ideally real-time data feedback
– Fogg argues that this is related to self-efficacy and
self-understanding
• I.e. People will feel more able to complete a task if they
know how they are doing
• And will know more about themselves
Self-monitoring
Surveillance
• “allows one party to monitor the behaviour of
another to modify behaviour in a specific
way” (p46)
– Must be overt
– Can include reward
– But may simply instil compliance without
internalisation
Surveillance
Conditioning
• “computerized system that uses principles of operant
conditioning to change behaviours” (p49)
– Should immediately follow the performance of target
behaviour
– But not every performance (Reward should be
unpredictable)