An Online Social Networking Experiment

Online social networking is a pervasive but empirically understudied phenomenon. Strong public opinions on its consequences exist but are backed up by little empirical evidence and almost no causally conclusive, experimental research. The current study tested the psychological effects of posting status updates on Facebook using an experimental design. For 1 week, participants in the experimental condition were asked to post more than they usually do, whereas participants in the control condition received no instructions. Participants added a lab “Research Profile” as a Facebook friend allowing for the objective documentation of protocol compliance, participants’ status updates, and friends’ responses. Results revealed (1) that the experimentally induced increase in status updating activity reduced loneliness, (2) that the decrease in loneliness was due to participants feeling more connected to their friends on a daily basis, and (3) that the effect of posting on loneliness was independent of direct social feedback (i.e., responses) by friends

Facebook friends, subjective well-being, social support, and personality

Peer reviewe

Designing Experimental Studies

In the last years, experiments became more and more widely applied - be it in academic research or A/B testing in companies. Due to their high internal validity, experiments are an important part of the methods ecosystem and researchers will benefit from integrating them into their methodological tool kit. This paper aims to summarize the most important content of the ICIS 2019 Professional Development Workshop. The workshop targets researchers with no or very basic training in experimental methods. It introduces the essentials of understanding and planning state-of-the-art experimental research and covers common pitfalls and challenges. Acknowledgment This work has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) under grant no. 16DII116 (“Deutsches Internet-Institut”)

Self-Focused and Other-Focused Health Concerns as Predictors of the Uptake of Corona Contact Tracing Apps: Empirical Study

Background Corona contact tracing apps are a novel and promising measure to reduce the spread of COVID-19. They can help to balance the need to maintain normal life and economic activities as much as possible while still avoiding exponentially growing case numbers. However, a majority of citizens need to be willing to install such an app for it to be effective. Hence, knowledge about drivers for app uptake is crucial. Objective This study aimed to add to our understanding of underlying psychological factors motivating app uptake. More specifically, we investigated the role of concern for one’s own health and concern to unknowingly infect others. Methods A two-wave survey with 346 German-speaking participants from Switzerland and Germany was conducted. We measured the uptake of two decentralized contact tracing apps officially launched by governments (Corona-Warn-App, Germany; SwissCovid, Switzerland), as well as concerns regarding COVID-19 and control variables. Results Controlling for demographic variables and general attitudes toward the government and the pandemic, logistic regression analysis showed a significant effect of self-focused concerns (odds ratio [OR] 1.64, P=.002). Meanwhile, concern of unknowingly infecting others did not contribute significantly to the prediction of app uptake over and above concern for one’s own health (OR 1.01, P=.92). Longitudinal analyses replicated this pattern and showed no support for the possibility that app uptake provokes changes in levels of concern. Testing for a curvilinear relationship, there was no evidence that “too much” concern leads to defensive reactions and reduces app uptake. Conclusions As one of the first studies to assess the installation of already launched corona tracing apps, this study extends our knowledge of the motivational landscape of app uptake. Based on this, practical implications for communication strategies and app design are discussed

Keeping Up with the Joneses: Instagram Use and its Influence on Conspicuous Consumption

So far research in the area of social networking sites (SNS) has drawn surprisingly little attention to users’ conspicuous consumption (CC), even though the constant rise of younger people’s debts seems to go hand in hand with the rise of SNS. To fill this research gap, we conducted two studies based on social comparison and normative influence theory. In a preliminary study, we show that Instagram use is positively related to users’ CC. In the main study, using a sample of 283 German Instagram users, we find possible explanations for this association. While norms on Instagram seem not to account for the link between Instagram use and CC, our results suggest a mediating effect of envy. We contribute to the literature by providing insights on SNS use and CC while offering first explanations for its potentially harmful economic outcomes. Acknowledgment This work has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) under grant no. 16DII116 (“Deutsches Internet-Institut”)

Loneliness and social media: A qualitative investigation of young people's motivations for use and perceptions of social networking sites

The democratisation of Internet access has incrementally changed every domain of activity and has created new business and economic models. From answering work emails to learning a new language, shopping, booking medical appointments or managing one’s finances, almost everything is attainable at the click of a button. The added implications of the rapid rise of social networking websites (SNSs), such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat, have further contributed to changing the way we communicate and build new friendships. Indeed most of our social relationships are now being ‘increasingly developed and maintained online’ (Nowland, Necka & Cacioppo, 2017: 1). Ostensibly, despite improved Internet access and enhanced social connectedness, modern societies are struggling to combat loneliness. It is reported to affect people of all ages, especially young adults (16-24 and 25-34 years old) who are avid Internet and social media users (see Office for National Statistics, 2018)

Facebook Status-Updates: Psychologische Korrelate und Konsequenzen

About one seventh of the world’s population spends time on Facebook and several millions of status updates are posted and read every day (Fowler, 2012; O’Neill, 2010). Facebook status updates constitute a novel and intriguing form of communication which differs with respect to important aspects like length, audience, and affordances for social feedback not only from face-to-face interaction but also from other more established forms of online communication. In light of the immense popularity of status updates, these differences prompt questions about the psychological correlates and consequences of status updating. While Facebook has sparked the interest of many psychologists (Wilson, Graham, & Gosling, 2012), studies focusing on specific features instead of measuring general Facebook use are scarce even though aggregating across different activities likely obscures important effects (Smock, Ellison, Lampe, & Wohn, 2011). However, in addition to the dearth of empirical evidence on status updates, shortcomings of the previous literature called for more research. Firstly, a lack of experimental research in the assessment of consequences of status updating rendered findings of previous research causally ambiguous (Shadish, Cook, & Campbell, 2002). And secondly, despite the unique opportunities Facebook offers for observational data collection (Wilson et al., 2012), the majority of studies relied exclusively on self-reports which is problematic, for instance, because effects might be inflated due to shared method variance (Back & Egloff, 2009; Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003). The present dissertation aimed to address the dearth of empirical evidence on Facebook status updates as well as shortcomings of the literature, and is composed of three separate studies which assess independent research questions about important aspects of status updating. Study 1 assessed the effects of posting status updates on posters’ social well-being pioneering the implementation of a field-experiment by directly manipulating status updating behavior in participants’ natural social ecology. Based on the reasoning that status updates—due to defining characteristics like their shortness and their broad audience—afford users to easily keep their friends up-to-date, it was proposed that posting status updates makes users feel closer and more connected to their friends and hence, reduces feelings of loneliness (Köbler, Riedl, Vetter, Leimeister, & Krcmar, 2010). For one week, participants in the experimental condition were asked to post more than they usually do, whereas participants in the control condition received no instructions. Participants added a “Research Profile” as a Facebook friend allowing for the objective documentation of protocol compliance, participants’ status updates, and direct social feedback by friends. Results showed (1) that the experimentally-induced increase in status updating activity reduced loneliness, (2) that the decrease in loneliness was due to participants feeling more connected to, and in touch with their friends on a daily basis, and (3) that the effect of status updating on loneliness was independent of direct social feedback by friends. Study 2 addressed the concerns raised by researchers (e.g., Bergman, Fearrington, Davenport, & Bergman, 2011; Carpenter, 2012) as well as some journalists (e.g., Jayson, 2009; Rosen, 2007) that narcissists use status updating excessively, and hence that narcissistic posts dominate the experience on Facebook. Firstly, the study assessed whether this belief is shared by Facebook users and secondly, it examined the actual relationship between narcissism and status updating activity in a US American and a German sample. Capitalizing on the advantages of a multimethod approach, the frequency of status updates was directly observed on participants’ profile pages, and in the German sample, self- reports of narcissism were complemented with informant reports by friends and family of the participants. Results confirmed that users of social networking sites believe that narcissism strongly predicts status updating activity. However, in contrast to this, both in the German and the US American sample, analyses of the actual relationship yielded null-findings. Because non- significant findings are difficult to interpret but might nevertheless provide useful information, the equivalence testing approach was applied (Hoenig & Heisey, 2001), which allowed for the conclusion that the effect of narcissism on actual status updating activity is not substantial. Based on two hypotheses prominent in research on online communication, the social enhancement and the social compensation hypothesis (Kraut et al., 2001; Valkenburg & Peter, 2007), Study 3 assessed the role of extraversion and social anxiety in predicting social responses to status updates in a US American and a German sample. Moreover, because valence is a fundamental dimension to describe status updates (Utz, 2015) the study also explored the interplay between personality, valence of status updates, and direct social responses. To capitalize on the assets of combining several methods, personality was assessed with self-report questionnaires, and valence of status updates was evaluated by independent raters. Social responses to status updates were captured in two ways, firstly, direct social feedback (i.e., likes and commenters) was observed on participants’ profile pages, and secondly, in the German sample, informant reports on the interpersonal appraisal of participants’ status updates by their Facebook friends were collected. In both samples, for direct social feedback neither extraversion nor social anxiety emerged as significant predictors. However, analyses of the informant reports showed that status updates of individuals higher in social anxiety were appreciated more by their friends. Furthermore, results pointed to the importance of valence in this context; revealing associations between valence and direct social feedback, valence and extraversion, and a moderation effect of personality on the association between valence and likes in the US sample. Taken together, the present dissertation provides much needed empirical evidence on status updates, and addresses important shortcomings in the literature by capitalizing on the unique opportunities for data collection Facebook offers. Technological change often creates fears and prompts many questions about potential merits and perils (Boase & Wellman, 2006). Even though results of individual studies need to be interpreted with caution (Maxwell, Lau, & Howard, 2015), the findings of the present dissertation might help to allay concerns with respect to status updating and even point to potential benefits. Directions for future research as well as specific opportunities and challenges for research on Online Social Networking Sites will be discussed.Über ein Siebtel aller Menschen nutzt regelmäßig Facebook und jeden Tag werden mehrere Millionen Status-Updates veröffentlicht und gelesen (Fowler 2012; O’Neill, 2010). Facebook-Status-Updates stellen eine neuartige und faszinierende Form der Kommunikation dar. Sie unterscheidet sich in Bezug auf wichtige Aspekte wie Textlänge, Empfänger und Arten des sozialen Feedbacks nicht nur von der Face-to-Face-Kommunikation, sondern auch von anderen etablierten Formen der Online-Kommunikation. In Anbetracht dieser Unterschiede und der immensen Popularität von Status-Updates stellen sich wichtige Fragen nach den psychologischen Auswirkungen von Status-Updates und ihrer Beziehung zu relevanten psychologischen Konstrukten wie beispielsweise Persönlichkeit. Facebook ist in den vergangenen Jahren zunehmend in den Fokus psychologischer Forschung gerückt (Wilson, Graham & Gosling, 2012). Jedoch sind bislang Studien rar, die zwischen verschiedenen Aktivitäten auf Facebook differenzieren, obwohl eine grobe Erfassung von "Facebook-Nutzung allgemein" das Risiko birgt, dass Effekte einzelner Aktivitäten verdeckt werden (Smock, Ellison, Lampe & Wohn, 2011). Weitere Forschung mit einem Fokus auf Facebook- Status-Updates ist deswegen dringend erforderlich, zumal die in geringem Umfang vorhandene Literatur zu diesem Thema einige Schwächen aufweist. Zum einen fehlt es an experimentellen Studien zu den Auswirkungen von Status- Updates, um Ergebnisse kausal interpretieren zu können (Shadish, Cook & Campbell, 2002). Zum anderen, verwenden die meisten bisherigen Studien ausschließlich Selbstberichtsdaten, obwohl Facebook gute Möglichkeiten zur Erhebung von Beobachtungsdaten bietet (Wilson et al., 2012). Dies ist unter anderem deswegen problematisch, da gemeinsame Methodenvarianz zwischen verschiedenen Selbstberichtsmaßen eine Überschätzung der Effekte zur Folge haben kann (Back & Egloff, 2009; Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee & Podsakoff, 2003). Ziel der vorliegenden Dissertation ist es – unter Berücksichtigung der Schwächen der bisherigen Literatur – empirische Evidenz zum Thema Status- Updates beizutragen. Sie besteht aus drei separaten Studien, die jeweils verschiedene wichtige Forschungsfragen in Bezug auf Status-Updates untersuchen. In Studie 1 wurde untersucht, welche Auswirkungen das Schreiben von Status-Updates auf das soziale Wohlbefinden der Verfasser hat. Hierfür wurde ein Feldexperiment direkt auf Facebook durchgeführt, bei dem das Status- Updating-Verhalten der Nutzer manipuliert wurde. Basierend auf der Überlegung, dass Status-Updates – wegen ihrer Kürze und der Vielzahl von Empfängern – den Nutzern ermöglichen, ihre Freunde ohne großen Aufwand auf dem Laufenden zu halten, wurde die Hypothese aufgestellt, dass das Schreiben von Status-Updates ein Gefühl von Nähe befördert und dadurch letztlich Einsamkeit reduziert (Köbler, Riedl, Vetter, Leimeister & Krcmar, 2010). Eine Woche lang wurden die Studienteilnehmer in der Experimentalbedingung dazu aufgefordert, mehr Status- Updates als üblicherweise zu schreiben, während die Teilnehmer in der Kontrollbedingung keine Anweisungen erhielten. Alle Teilnehmer fügten ein sogenanntes “Forschungsprofil” auf Facebook als Freund hinzu, wodurch es möglich war, direkt zu kontrollieren, ob die Studienteilnehmer den Instruktionen folgten, sowie soziales Feedback (Kommentare und Likes) von Freunden zu erfassen. Die Ergebnisse zeigten, (1) dass die experimentell- induzierte Zunahme an Status-Updating-Aktivität das Gefühl von Einsamkeit reduzierte, (2) dass diese Verringerung des Einsamkeitsgefühls darauf zurückzuführen war, dass die Versuchspersonen sich ihren Freunden näher fühlten und (3) dass die Wirkung der erhöhten Status-Updating-Aktivität auf das Gefühl von Einsamkeit unabhängig war von direktem sozialem Feedback von Freunden auf Status-Updates. Studie 2 griff die von einigen Forschern (z.B. Bergman, Fearrington, Davenport & Bergman 2011; Carpenter, 2012) sowie Journalisten (z.B. Jayson, 2009; Rosen, 2007) geäußerte Sorge auf, dass Narzissten Status-Updates exzessiv nutzen und somit narzisstische Beiträge auf Facebook dominieren würden. Die Studie testete erstens, ob diese Bedenken von Facebook-Nutzern geteilt werden und untersuchte zweitens die tatsächliche Beziehung zwischen Narzissmus und Status-Updating-Aktivität in einer US- amerikanischen und einer deutschen Stichprobe. Aufgrund der Vorteile eines multimethodalen Ansatzes wurde die Status-Updating-Aktivität der Teilnehmer direkt auf deren Facebook-Profilseiten beobachtet. In der deutschen Stichprobe wurden zusätzlich zu selbstberichtetem Narzissmus auch noch Fremdberichte von Freunden und Familienmitgliedern der Teilnehmer erhoben. Die Ergebnisse bestätigten, dass auch Facebook-Nutzer annehmen, dass Narzissten deutlich mehr Status-Updates schreiben. Jedoch erbrachten die Analysen der tatsächlichen Beziehung zwischen Narzissmus und Status-Updating-Aktivität in beiden Stichproben Null-Ergebnisse. Da die Interpretation nicht-signifikanter Ergebnisse schwierig ist, wurde auf den “Equivalence Testing”-Ansatz zurückgegriffen (Hoenig & Heisey, 2001). Dieser ließ die Schlussfolgerung zu, dass Narzissmus nur in unbedeutendem Ausmaß mit Status-Updating-Aktivität zusammenhängt. Basierend auf zwei prominenten Hypothesen aus der Forschung zu Online-Kommunikation, der “Social Enhancement-” und der “Social Compensation”-Hypothese (Kraut et al., 2001; Valkenburg & Peter, 2007), untersuchte Studie 3 die Rolle von Extraversion und sozialer Ängstlichkeit bei der Vorhersage von sozialen Reaktionen auf Status-Updates in einer US- amerikanischen und einer deutschen Stichprobe. Da Valenz eine grundlegende Dimension zur Beschreibung von Status-Updates (Utz, 2015) ist, wurde zudem das Zusammenspiel zwischen Persönlichkeit, Valenz von Status-Updates, und direktem sozialem Feedback erforscht. Um von den Vorzügen der Kombination verschiedener Untersuchungsmethoden zu profitieren, wurde Persönlichkeit mit Selbstberichtsfragebögen erhoben und die Valenz der Status-Updates von unabhängigen Ratern eingeschätzt. Soziale Reaktionen auf Status-Updates wurden auf zwei Arten erfasst: Zum einen wurde direktes soziales Feedback (Anzahl Likes und Kommentatoren) auf den Facebook-Profilseiten der Teilnehmer ausgezählt und zum anderen wurde in der deutschen Stichprobe über Fremdberichte erfasst, wie Freunde und Familienmitglieder die Status-Updates der Teilnehmer beurteilen und darauf reagieren. In beiden Stichproben sagte weder Extraversion noch Soziale Ängstlichkeit direktes soziales Feedback signifikant vorher. Allerdings zeigte sich bei den Analysen der Fremdberichte, dass die Status-Updates sozial ängstlicherer Personen von Freunden und Familienmitgliedern mehr geschätzt wurden. Ferner wiesen die Ergebnisse auf die Bedeutung von Valenz in diesem Forschungskontext hin, da Valenz sowohl mit direktem sozialem Feedback als auch mit Extraversion signifikant zusammenhing und – in der amerikanischen Stichprobe – die Assoziation zwischen Valenz und direktem sozialem Feedback von Persönlichkeit moderiert wurde. Die vorliegende Dissertation trägt dazu bei, bestehende Forschungslücken zum Thema Facebook- Status-Updates zu schließen und greift dabei auf die besonderen Möglichkeiten zurück, die sich Forschern auf Facebook zur Datenerhebung bieten. Technische Neuerungen schüren häufig Ängste und werfen Fragen nach ihren potentiellen Risiken und Chancen auf (Boase & Wellman, 2006). Auch wenn die Resultate einzelner Studien zunächst nur unter Vorbehalt interpretiert werden sollten (Maxwell, Lau & Howard, 2015), so tragen die Ergebnisse der vorliegenden Arbeit doch dazu bei, Bedenken im Hinblick auf Facebook-Status-Updates zu verringern sowie auf deren möglichen Nutzen hinzuweisen. Richtungen für zukünftige Studien sowie spezifische Chancen und Herausforderungen für Forschung zu Sozialen Online-Netzwerken werden diskutiert

On Security Guidelines and Policy Compliance: Considering Users’ Need for Autonomy

Recent studies raise the concern that the regular communication of security guidelines and policies and their updates is not always the best option for organizations to protect information system\u27s security. Users show symptoms of being frustrated or overwhelmed by security guidelines and consequently either ignore policies or actively pursue workarounds. Our aim is first, to understand the affective states of employees being confronted with security-related guidelines and the reasons for negative emotions. Second, we develop a communication strategy for security policies that avoids negative affective states and reduces the chance of security policies being ignored or worked around to foster compliance. In this paper, we introduce a framework by connecting the theories of security fatigue, psychological reactance, and the elaboration likelihood model. Our framework moreover considers different strategies to communicate security guidelines or policies. Finally, we draft an experimental setup to empirically evaluate our research model

The Envy Spiral: Unraveling The Black Box Of Social Media Positivity

On Social Networking Sites (SNS) users disclose mostly positive and often self-enhancing information. Scholars refer to this phenomenon as the positivity bias in SNS communication (PBSC). However, while theoretical explanations for this phenomenon have been proposed, an empirical proof of these theorized mechanisms is still missing. The project presented in this Research-in-Progress paper aims at explaining the PBSC with the mechanism specified in the self-enhancement envy spiral. Specifically, we hypothesize that feelings of envy drive people to post positive and self-enhancing content on SNS. To test this hypothesis, we developed an experimental design allowing to examine the causal effect of envy on the positivity of users’ subsequently posted content. In a preliminary study, we tested our manipulation of envy and could show its effectiveness in inducing different levels of envy between our groups. Our project will help to broaden the understanding of the complex dynamics of SNS and the potentially adverse driving forces underlying them