Unsociability as Boundary Regulation on Social Network Sites

This study approaches online social networking from the opposite direction, focusing on unsociability, in an attempt to find out how friendships are negotiated and terminated online. The research data was obtained via an online survey (N=107) targeted to SNS users. The findings show that Facebook is closely connected to offline social life, and the fading of offline relationship was the most common reason for cutting ties on Facebook. Usually, the people who were unfriended represented weak ties. Even though unfriending can be considered as the hardest form of unsociability, it was more commonly used than restricting content from certain people. On Twitter and other SNSs, the relationships were less personal. Therefore, ‘unfollow’, ‘block’ and other unsocial features were used to filter and regulate the content subscribed to. Particularly on Facebook, attention should be paid to developing affordances that would enable the system to better match the dynamic and complex nature of social relationships

Trends and Implications: The Use of Facebook in the Professional World

The recent trend of connectivity through the Internet has served as a spark for the social media era, resulting in a number of social websites such as Xanga (social blogging site),MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and many others. Facebook specifically has become an everyday norm in the lives of most young adults. With the societal shift towards a digitally orientated lifestyle, there is an increased interaction between friends, family, and non-acquaintances via social networking sites like Facebook. As a result, the manner in which users portray themselves online becomes influential for new friends viewing their pages. Similarly, professional companies are now utilizing Facebook for marketing, promotions, and even recruiting. This becomes an issue, then, for young adults looking to launch their careers and are unaware of the way in which companies utilize Facebook. The purpose of this study was to identify how companies use Facebook and whether or not there is a “knowledge gap” between young adults and professionals. Upon learning if and how companies use Facebook, young adults can be informed on how to present themselves online so as to balance their social and professional online image. The results of the study identified a shifting trend towards companies using Facebook in the near future; as social networking merges together with professional networking, it becomes increasingly important to adopt a long-termed mindset. Cautionary tactics are recommended, such as adjusting privacy settings and removing inappropriate images

Personal Social Networking: Affects on Companies Hiring Decisions

The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the effects personal social networking sites had on candidate’s opportunities for obtaining employment and how and to what extent hiring managers used this information in the hiring process. Hiring managers across four industries: Retail, Banking, Healthcare and Hospitality were surveyed to learn how they are using social media sites to “screen” potential mid-level (and above) managers for their organizations. Additionally, the researchers wanted to determine what social media content was most influential in developing negative perception of the candidate. The results of the study showed contrasting results to prior studies which typically included samples of professional recruiters. The study found moderate social media usage to screen candidates, and little success finding candidates through such medias, however four basic areas were of significance to hiring managers and if found on social media could significantly jeopardize candidate’s potential in obtaining the job. These areas included: poor communication skills, substance abuse content, bad mouthing former company/boss/colleagues, posting provocative / inappropriate photos. As with many inventions, one typically leads to many others creating an even greater effect on a society. Over the last 20 years the Internet has been such an invention which revolutionized how we obtain, share, and exchange information. The Internet has affected many facets of our daily routine from how we shop, obtain our news, and communicate to name a few. The ability to share information with a larger audience can have both potentially positive and negative results. Social media can offer many examples of that. While many would agree that being able to share pictures, thoughts and important life events with family members or friends may be enjoyable and have a positive impact on social interaction, overall privacy of an individual may suffer as a result, leading to potentially negative consequences

More Network Conscious than Ever? Challenges, strategies and analytic labor of users in the Facebook Environment

Cataloged from PDF version of article.As is widely observed, social network sites (SNS) constitute a new environment of interaction where users encounter various challenges that they usually do not encounter in other environments. This study aims to provide an in-depth understanding of how users deal with the challenges in this unique environment, paying particular attention to the ways in which they examine and reflect on their social ties and networks. On the basis of 36 semistructured interviews with Facebook users, the article presents the hypothesis that participants of SNS develop a tendency to become highly observant and inquisitive about their networks and are frequently involved in an activity that the authors call analytic labor. © 2013 International Communication Association

A LITERATURE ANALYSIS ABOUT SOCIAL INFORMATION CONTRIBUTION AND CONSUMPTION ON SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

Social networking sites (SNSs) have emerged as a center for daily social interactions. Every day, millions of users contribute information about themselves, and consume information about others on SNSs. In recent years, we have witnessed a growing number of studies on the issue of social information contribution and consumption behaviors on SNSs. This paper aims to provide a systematic literature review on this topic across different disciplines to understand the current research state and shed light on controversial findings of SNS usage regarding users’ well-being. We identified 126 relevant articles published between 2008 and 2014, and provide an overview of their antecedents and associated outcomes. Our analysis reveals that a majority of existing work focused primarily on social information contribution, its antecedents and favorable outcomes. Only few studies have dealt with contribution behavior and the dark sides of SNS use. Nevertheless, we could identify different characteristics of social information determining the favorability of contribution behavior. Further, we categorized the scarce papers of consumption behavior regarding the social information characteristics and identified different underlying processes: social comparison, monitoring and browsing. These findings contribute to the Information Systems (IS) discipline by consolidating previous knowledge about SNS usage patterns and individual well-being

Strategic Self-Presentation on Social Networking Sites

Contemporarily social networking sites utilize an idealized self-presentation to reach out to diverse and individual users. The information communicated across users has drifted to incorporate unanticipated gains of reforms focusing on empowering users to have total control of their account and profile information. Constructing a self-presentation in online social networking requires the collection of content, layout and design to reflect personality and goals. This study tends to present the relative impact of various self-presentation styles on improving the quality of services afforded by social networking sites. Findings based on the dominant self-presentation such as self-promotion, ingratiation, exemplification, supplication, and intimidation were expressed in terms of impression and behavior as well as their impeding risk. Findings on self-presentation on social networking sites confines to the pinning effect of socializing with other online users via online social networking sites such as Facebook. Keywords: Self-presentation, Facebook, Social networking, Networking community, Account information

An exploratory investigation on the effects of online social networking sites on college students

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects online social networking sites have on college students, mainly the effects on their communication. A study at Rowan University was conducted using a random selection of undergraduate students. The Rowan Subject pool was used to recruit students. Although each student was in different majors, all of the students were in an introduction to psychology course. To examine the effects online social networking sites have on college students, there were two separate groups of students designed to interact with one another in two different ways. A group was instructed to communicate face-to-face on a topic and the group were audio and visually recorded. The other group was instructed to communicate through a Facebook page created by the researcher. A status was posted on the main page and the subjects were instructed to communication via Facebook. To examine communication, the number of words was counted. I hypothesized due to the increased use of online social networking sites; the group communicating through Facebook would have a higher word count than the group communicating face-to-face