understanding behaviours and attitudes towards social networking

1. Research Topic 1

2. Introduction 1

3. Conceptual Framework 2a. Engaging with Social Networking Sitesb. Attitudes and behaviour towards social networking sitesc. How people use social networking sites

4. Research Strategy 4

5. Methodology 7

6. Conclusion 8

7. References 9

Research Topic

Understanding behaviours and attitudes towards Social Networking

Introduction

The fast development of social networking that has been detected over the last 2-3 years is

indicative of its entry into straight life and it’s mixed with our daily lives. In addition to this,

there has also been significant media coverage of the development of social networking, its

rapid positive results and worries around the approach.

For the purpose of this research report I have intentionally put light on the social and

communications facets of social networking sites. The SNS also have some drawbacks

associated, such as confusion over privacy settings, probable contact with people one doesn’t

know and the unintentional penalties of publicly posting delicate individual material. The

purpose of this report is therefore to provide evidence-based insights into the social

networking phenomenon which can be used to inform current understanding of usage and

societal impacts in the UK, and to help identify some of the current and potential future

issues around people’s use of social networking sites.

Like other communications tools, social networking sites have certain rules, conventions and

practices which users have to navigate to make them understood and avoid difficulties. These

range from the etiquette of commenting on other peoples profiles to understanding who one

should and shouldn’t add as a ‘friend’.

Conceptual Framework

Engaging with Social Networking Sites

Individual Assignment: Management Research: Social Network

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The Social networking sites also preferred to as SNS in the document offer people new and

diverse ways to communicate via the internet, from PC or mobile phone. According to Dwyer

et al (2007), a social network service focuses on building online communities of people who

share interests and/or their activities. Today, there are more than 650 social network sites in

the world (Stern, 2006), but no one knows exactly the number. Examples include MySpace,

Facebook and Bebo. Creator of SNS authorized people to normally create their own online

page, construct and show to online contacts called ‘friend’. According to Boyd (2004),

reasons for connecting with friends in social network can be varied and doesn’t unavoidably

mean friendship in the daily dialect sense. Users can communicate to other user with the help

of their profile they have created. Social networking sites are built for users to interact for

different purposes like business, general chatting, meeting with friends and colleagues, etc.

SNS offer a gloriously direct tool for what Goffman(1972) calls “impression management”:

the profile page. Just as your choice of clothing and hairstyle signals how you think of

yourself (and want others to think of you), so does your choice of profile photo. Many users

choose to display the most flattering photographs of themselves that they can.

It is also helpful in politics, dating, with the interest of getting numerous advantages with the

people they meet. Anecdotal evidence suggests that social interaction with political content of

interest is important for young adults (e.g., Steller, 2008).A study by Conners (2005) reported

that Democratic Senate candidates were more likely than Republicans to use Meetup, blogs

and other interactive online tools in 2004.(ssrn.com) Recently, the use of network sites has

increased overtime with the improvement in technology and the use of mobile phone to surf

the web and statistics have shown that 90% of people on the internet at one point in time or

the other are visiting SNS (Boyd and Ellison, 2007).

Attitudes and behaviours towards social networking sites

Users of Social networkers fall into different groups


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Social networkers are different in approaches to SNS and in their behaviour while using

them. The site users come under five distinct groups. These are as follows:

Leading Socialisers – (a minority) people who are using sites intentionally to

encounter new folks, flirt and to be entertained.

Attention Seekers – (some) are those people who need attention and comments from

others online, normally by posting photos and edit their profiles.

Followers – (many) are those people who joined SNS to follow what their peers are

doing.

Faithful – (many) people who normally use SNS to renew old friendships, sometimes

from school or university.

Functional – (a minority) those person who wants to be single while using SNS for a

specific purpose.

Focussed – (Mostly business users - Recently added user group) Some users of the

sites will create the profile to research the market’s response in a specific geography

for the predictions of their business in their geography. Also, as this is an easier way

to reach a wider and global consumer base, many corporate houses globally are using

these social sites to advertise or endorse their products and promotions.

Non-users comes under into different groups

Non-users come under three groups; these are the group those who don’t use the SNS:

Concerned about safety – those people who are concerned about safety online, in

specific creation personal details accessible online. According to Smith (2007), seven

per cent of American sample said they had been contacted ‘by a stranger who made

them feel scared or uncomfortable’.

Technically inexperienced – those people who don’t have knowledge for using

internet and computer.

Intellectual rejecters – people don’t have interest in SNS and think that it’s a waste of

time.

How people use social networking sites

Profile Creation


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People normally create their profiles on the basis of their knowledge. User Profiles are

normally set questioned as per the site, so it is very optional and depends upon the person

what he needs to publish on the site. Normally Users enjoy editing their profiles, watching

video, playing online games, posting photos. Users generally enjoy from the process of

creating a social network, creating a list of friends and using friend’s list to browse profiles.

Users share individual material with a wide range of ‘friends’. Communicating with their

friends is the most famous social networking activity, but most of adults use their profile to

communicate with people they do not know. A few users also mention negative aspects of

social networking, and these included anger at others using sites for self-importance, parties

organised online getting out of hand, and online bullying.

Privacy and safety

Privacy and safety issues on social networking sites did not emerge as ‘top of mind’ for most

users. Information exchange activities operationalized as the activities of interaction among

members of a community that acts as a source of information for other members to deepen

and expand friendship (Gruen et al., 2006.2007). At most of the time Users of the SNS leaves

privacy settings as default ‘open’. Generally those who are new, they give out sensitive

personal information, photographs and other content about themselves. Sites define some

subset of a profile (such as the user’s name and affiliation) visible by default for searching

and identification. Most sites also allow users to relax or strengthen their definition of public

information. Privacy expectations in social networks are based on relationships. Typical

social networks support friends and networks with privileged access. (Felt, Adrienne, and

Evans, David. (2008).

Research Strategy

I will do a qualitative research to examine in depth people’s attitudes to online social

networking, their behaviours while using social networking sites, and the reasons why they

use these sites. This will contain an analysis of the research based on several distinct user

and non-user segments. Also, I will research on the positive aspects of social network in

relation to marketing and research and use of SNS for global business empowerment.

This qualitative research will find the use of and attitudes towards social networking sites

(both for users and non-users) falling into several distinct segments. Although qualitative in

nature, these segments provide an interesting insight into how people currently use and view


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social networking sites. They also help to highlight that site users are not a uniform group in

terms of use, attitudes or behaviour.

It will also explain the importance of the segments for users and non-users on different bases.

User segments will be organised on the basis of how users will behave when using social

networking sites and the non-user segments will be focused why they will stop using the

basis of non-users’ reasons for not using the sites.

Research for “User Segment” will be based on:-

Purpose of Use Gender

Ag

e

Number of

People

Site

s

Grou

p

Alpha

Socialisers

Like Flirting,

meeting

Minority new

people

Male or

Female ? ? ? C1

Attention

Seekers

Posting photos

Some to get

comment from

others

Male or

Female ? ? ? C2

Followers

Keeping up

with friends

Male or

Female ? ? ? C3

Faithfuls

finding old

friends

Male or

Female ? ? ? C4

Functionals

Pursuing

interests and

hobbies

Male or

Female ? ? ? C5

Focussed

Like to

endorse/adverti

se themselves

or their

products

Individuals

or

large/small

business

organizatio

n ? ? ? C6

Research for “Non - User Segment” will be based on:-


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The qualitative research will be specifically included a small portion of non-users to explore

their attitudes to social networking sites and reasons for not using them. There are many

reasons why people do not use social networking sites. Like:-

• Simply having no interest in using social networking sites as an activity;

• Not having the time available to commit to using the sites;

• Not wanting to ‘jump on board’ the social networking craze;

• preferring to rely on face-to-face and other forms of communications;

• witnessing the negative side of using social networking sites among friends and choosing to

‘steer clear’; and

• Concerns around safety and being stalked by other users (on and offline).

The reasons not using social networking sites will be categorised broadly into three groups:

concerned about safety, technically inexperienced, and intellectual rejecters.

These will be used as follows:-

Gender Age

Reason for not

using

Concerned

about safety

Male or

Female ?

about safety risks

to themselves

and/or their

children

Technically

inexperience

d

Male or

Female ?

Lack of

confidence with

the internet and

computers

generally

Intellectual

rejecters

Male or

Female ?

Think SNS are

waste of time &

not using them

Apart from the above mentioned study, I will also include a few more facets of social

networking arising out of my interest and curiosity. The study will cover some non-

conventional current/future usage of social networking sites such as:

1. Use of SNS for word of mouth publicity


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2. Use of SNS in political arena for debates and promotions

3. Use of SNS for employment for both job seekers and employers

4. Use of SNS as media for spread of news world wide

Methodology

Level 1

I will use qualitative face-to-face survey and sampling. By meeting people, this will include

in-depth, paired accompanied surfs, triads, quads, and follow-up online social networking

sessions with respondents selected from the triad and quad sessions. Respondents who will

use social networking sites will be questioned to complete a pre-task exercise, the

questionnaire mentioned as above. Here the core objective is to identify, explore and

understand the behaviours, attitudes and barriers to people’s use of social networking sites.

My sample size will be those users and non-users aged 11+. The sample will include

respondents from each living in city, and a mix of, rural and urban, socio-economic groups

and genders.

Level 2

I will do the research to understand the level of current exposure to harmful or inappropriate

content and differences in behaviour between parents and children. This survey will be asked

if they have come across harmful or inappropriate material in the past six months and if they

have, they will be asked the open-ended question ‘What type of content was it?’ Thus these

findings relate to self-reported harmful or inappropriate material. I will arrange Interviews

with parents aged 16-59 and children aged 5-17. The parent and child will be recruited from

the same household. Only one child will be interviewed per household. Quota will be set on

the age of the child (interviews will be split approximately equally between whose age 5-7, 8-

11, 12-15 and 16-17), plus gender of parent and gender of child.


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Conclusion

This study analyses the issues surrounding the adoption of social networking sites. Major

constructs include faithfulness, functionality, commercial use and followers, the impact on

the attitude and trust regarding social networking sites and to determine how attitude would

impact on the intention to use it. The results, would provide us with the relative advantage of

using social networking sites; how hard it is to use; how compatible it is with the lifestyle of

the users; how it would impact the global commercial environment and whether social

networking sites could be tested before consistent use, are issues that influence users’ attitude

towards intention it use. The Attitude of a user would later affect his/her intention to use the

site. It suggests the behaviour and attitude of the user of Social Networking sites.

References


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1. C. Dwyer, S. R. Hiltz, and Passerini, K. “Trust and privacy concern within social networking sites: A comparison of Facebook and MySpace”. In Proceedings of AMCIS 2007, Keystone, Colarado, USA, 2007. Retrieved September 21, 2007 fromhttp://csis.pace.edu/~dwyer/research/DwyerAMCIS2007.pdf

2. D.M. Boyd and N. B. Ellison. ”Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship”. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. 13(1), article 11, 2007.

3. D. Boyd. ”Friendster and publicly articulated social networks”. In Proceedings of ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems New York: ACM Press, 2004

4. Gruen,T.W., Talai O., & Andrew J.C., (2005) How e-communities extend the concept of exchange in marketing: An application of the motivation, opportunity, ability (MOA) theory , Journal of Marketing Theory, Vol 5 (1), 33-49.

5. Goffman,SSRN-Saving Facebook by James Grimmelmann. 2010. SSRN-Saving Facebook by James Grimmelmann. [ONLINE Journal] Available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1262822. [Accessed 01 December 2010].

6. Felt, Adrienne, and Evans, David(2008)[Online Journal] Avaiable at: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/felt/privacybyproxy.pdf [Accessed 01 December 2010]

7. Smith, A (2007) "Teens & Online Stranger Contact" Pew Internet & American Life Project http://www.pewinternet.org/

8. Stern, Allen, (2006), How many social networking sites are there today?, November,25, 2010, www.centernetworks.com/number-of-social-networking-sites.

9. Steller, B. (2008, March 27). Finding political news online: Young viewers pass it along. The New York Times, p. A1.

10. SSRN-Political Use of Social Networks in 2008 by Wayne Steger, Christine Williams, Molly Andolina. 2010. SSRN-Political Use of Social Networks in 2008 by Wayne Steger, Christine Williams, Molly Andolina. [ONLINE Journal] Available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1669535&http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1669535. [Accessed 01 December 2010].


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http://www.centernetworks.com/number-of-social-networking-sites

http://www.pewinternet.org/

http://www.cs.virginia.edu/felt/privacybyproxy.pdf

http://csis.pace.edu/~dwyer/research/DwyerAMCIS2007.pdf

understanding behaviours and attitudes towards social networking

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