December 17th, 2007
Facebook a wealth of data for researchers
by Joshua Porter | 
13 Comments | shortlink: http://bokardo.com/p/722
An interesting article in the New York Times: On Facebook, Scholars Link Up With Data. It describes several research projects being done on the social network site.
Here are some interesting findings:
“Researchers learned that while people perceive someone who has a high number of friends as popular, attractive and self-confident, people who accumulate “too many†friends (about 800 or more) are seen as insecure.”
This is fascinating. People put real social weight on the number of Facebook friends you have, almost as if Facebook friends are a actual signifier of something. So even though we know that in many cases these aren’t “real” friends, we still perceive those people with more as somehow more popular, attractive, etc. This, to me, is just another signifier at how important social network sites have become. We are using them to gauge social capital.
’students who reported low satisfaction with life and low self-esteem, and who used Facebook intensively, accumulated a form of social capital linked to what sociologists call “weak ties.†A weak tie is a fellow classmate or someone you meet at a party, not a friend or family member. Weak ties are significant, scholars say, because they are likely to provide people with new perspectives and opportunities that they might not get from close friends and family.’
Weak ties is an interesting theory because it explains why acquaintances (not necessarily friends) are so valuable to know. They give us opportunities that lie just outside our normal daily routine. Since we talk to friends often, we know most things they know, and so after a time our combined knowledge becomes similar. But acquaintances are always introducing us to new things, as they live in quite different worlds than we do. If Facebook is really good at making weak ties, then its worth might be more than simply cultivating the friendships we already have.
“Hispanic students were significantly less likely to use Facebook, and much more likely to use MySpace. White, Asian and Asian-American students, the study found, were much more likely to use Facebook and significantly less likely to use MySpace.”
This is an interesting finding that echoes earlier observations by Danah Boyd.
and the money quote:
“You’re not really dating until you put it on Facebook”
This suggests that Facebook is a public forum and what is displayed there has real consequential meaning. I’ve found in talking with folks that this level of embeddedness is often surprising…it’s hard to believe that people take what is found on the site so seriously.
But if you think about Facebook as a place, a semi-public place where people go, then it becomes easier to see how things said there have real influence. It used to be that you weren’t going out until both of you said so, and it probably still is. This is just a new way of saying so.
In general, I’m really excited that researchers are going to Facebook (and hopefully other social network sites) and doing research. As the article notes, there is a tremendous amount of data there to be discovered. But there is also a danger here, that research looks at these sites as representing the larger part of each person’s life.
I know from my own experience that I belong to many, many sites and on each site I have a different profile and different (although overlapping) set of friends. Each profile is a unique view into my life, and as such is a valid view, but is only a small part of my entire identity. I know that its easy to look at a Facebook profile and assume that this is what the person is all about, but on the whole I think we’re so good at projecting a certain face to the public that we don’t even realize how much we leave out.
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1. Neil 9:37am, Mon 17th, 2007
Joshua, I agree with using profiles on alternative services as unique views on a person. Social network services function much better (for me at least) if they are considered as a channel in to business / social / family lives. Facebook works well for my social side – but I loathe to use it for business.
Quite simply, Facebook’s 749px width isn’t enough screen real estate to provide an all encompassing view of someones life.
2. Josh 10:31am, Mon 17th, 2007
Neil, I would love it if you expanded on the reasons why you loath to use Facebook for business…
3. Peter 11:22am, Mon 17th, 2007
Interesting, although not entirely surprising. Our online lives and the “real world” is blending. The difference is getting smaller.
As for Facebook for business: way too public. The fact that others can tag me in (potentially embarrassing) photographs, which in turn can be viewed by clients or colleagues make LinkedIn a much more compelling network for business than Facebook.
4. Peter Davis 12:31pm, Mon 17th, 2007
On the other hand, several of my friends have a very low number of Facebook friends, like 5-15. I find that I don’t think of them as losers, but rather on the opposite end of the spectrum — as the most self secure.
It’s those weirdos with 25-75 friends who are losers — neither self secure nor popular
5. Neil 1:59am, Tue 18th, 2007
I go to Facebook knowing I’ll see activities that revolve entirely around my social life and having fun. I’m not looking to leverage the people in these activities to make money.
Many people from our industry seem happy to use Facebook for business. However, being 23 years old, my Facebook profile is filled with data from my social life, and most of this data is irrelevant to my professional side. I don’t like inflicting my professional side on my closest friends – I’d rather just joke around with them, so that’s how I use my Facebook profile.
6. Rainer 7:25am, Tue 18th, 2007
A funny mail comes to my mind here:
I once bought a piece of wood (kind of a dish) on ebay. I payed immediately and got my product delivered after a week.
A week later I got a mail from the manufacturer saying: “We haven’t received your feedback score yet. Put it on ebay or we will not give you your feedback score”.
I sent back a mail saying something like: “What value do you give to this ebay scoring? You annoy me with that mail instead of showing me your products and services, trying to make me buy more of your products?”
A stupid explanation came back with kind of reasoning like it would be important to have a lot of positive feedbacks.
That’s strange, isn’t it?
7. Jason Sadler 9:01am, Tue 18th, 2007
Josh,
Can you put a “friend counter” up with this post to let us know how many friend requests you get?
8. Cat Laine 9:25am, Tue 18th, 2007
@Peter Davis 5-15 seems woefully small. For me that’s the group of regular friends who I’m in regular email contact with. I don’t need a social networking platform to keep in contact with them.
25-75 friends are folks who I like a lot, but don’t have time to call all the time. Old roommates, friends of college or grad school, old colleagues.
75+, You’re probably getting into some business contacts, friends of friends, folks who you want to get to know better.
9. Aaron B 3:27am, Thu 20th, 2007
Facebook is how I found out my wife was pregnant. With another man’s baby.
But more seriously, I like your characterization of Facebook as a “semi-public place where people go.” Take the wall for example, why do people prefer it to a private message? What you talk about on Facebook is fun because it’s eavesdroppable.
Anecdotally, I do know someone whose relationship was made official on Facebook.
10. One Mo 2:08pm, Mon 31st, 2007
One young woman I know (18 years old) broke up with her boyfriend six months ago and discovered recently that he had “blocked her” on Facebook while at the same time posting as many of her friends and family as he could on his own Facebook page as “friends” of his.
The young woman in fact had no further interest in the ex-boyfriend, but said she was “annoyed to be treated like a stalker,” and was somewhat concerned that other friends of hers would think poorly of her based on his behaviour.
I’m intrigued by the use of Facebook as a venue for chest-beating, saving face, or relationship terrorism/nurturing, and suspect that it will be used increasingly for such diverse emotional and psychological purposes.
Do you know of any interesting articles on this topic, Joshua?
11. Sandy Fox 9:18am, Thu 27th, 2008
Very interesting point about the number of friends someone has on Facebook. I wonder if their is a point where people once again want to “jump on the band-wagon”. For example if you had 5,000 friends would people be more likely to join again.
I have noticed a similar effect on eBay. When my feedback gets about 10,000 your seen as “big business”.
12. Lauren 12:53pm, Wed 1st, 2008
Another interesting point – I recently saw a study that pointed out that whenever a younger person is in the media (“tot mom” Ms. Anthony, the guy who was beheaded on a bus – sorry, its the only examples of ‘normal’ people i can think of) , they get bombarded to be ‘friends’ on facebook and myspace.
I suppose they want to be able to say ‘im friends with him on facebook’ , to get that small degree of fame. Sort of sad really. But then again, how many people have said “My mom’s cousin’s friend’s dad ran into [movie star] one time…”