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Result of Questionnaire 1

I sent out a message with questions to 126 people on Facebook and I received 20 answers back from 11 woman and 9 men in the age of 18 -39 within the time of 3 weeks. Out of the 20 participants, 15 of the participants in these questionnaires were in their 30´s. Most of the participants use social media about 1-3 hours a day. They used Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn or forums as the essential social media and they separate the social media from one another and the amount of  content they shared in the different ones. LinkedIn and Twitter is mostly used within the participants professional area while other sites like e.g. Facebook is to connect, socialize and pleasure.

The main goal of this questionnaire was to get an understanding of which social media is mostly used by the participants and how much time they use it daily, as well as how it affects their life to the positive/negative and how private they consider themselves to be on the Internet.

A really interesting observation over the answers was especially the question of how the social media has been affecting the participant’s life and if they could give a concrete example of both the advantages and disadvantages they have experienced. 80% of the participants agreed in that the biggest advantage was to be able to keep in touch with old friends or long-distance friends as well as the comfort to be updated about what is happening in their friends lives. Another advantage with social media today is the possibility to find long lost friends. A backside might be that people you don’t want to have a contact with can find you easily. Another advantage some of the participants mention is the possibilities to find contacts for work, and find out information when needed.

I was surprised to not get more answers when it came to the disadvantages or the negative side of the social media world. One participants wrote that her ex have found a way to follow her through Facebook with help of her friends Facebook, and then he use everything she has been saying against her. Another one said that it is important to keep a track on what you write and that it is important to find the balance, if you don’t, it might hit back on you sooner or later. One participant mentioned how an update creates conflicts between partners because the partner might feel that he or she finds out essential information as a second part, after everybody else.

The response I received about how private they consider themselves online was a mixture of opened and private.  Most of the participants considered themselves pretty opened but careful about what information they shared and for whom. It was only about 5% that said not private at all, whole the rest of the participants showed a conscious awareness of what content they share to protect their integrity.

When I reflect over the responses I received I can see that their answers is what I expected. Social media is mostly used for connectivity and keep in contact, as well as keeping update with what is happening in our social network. I also feel that the awareness for the backsides with social media is slim and that the positive advantages are pushing them aside. With the responses over how private they are, I feel that they seem aware of what they share and to whom. The conclusion I get from that is that everybody is sharing information to that extent of how they want to be seen by others. In some cases there are people that can share about the negative things happening in their life, but most people keep that for themselves, because they don’t want to share to private information to the whole online population. This also shows an indication that even though people don’t reflect on the backsides, there is a silent indication that social media is not safe enough yet, and still not researched enough for us to trust it a 100%.

A Reading & Writing day

Today has been a day when I been reading a lot, started some writing and been thinking about where and how I will do my next experiment.

A friend called me and told me that her 8 year old son came home from school today with a facebook account. Seriously, 8 years old! Shouldnt the school have some kind of overview of the students and what kind of surfing on the net they do as 8 years old? This kind of upset me.

Update: Not using social media – experiment

My first 5 participants are at their 5th day withoul social networking. Tomorrow it is time for another 2 to start. It is really interesting to see if they will manage. Can not wait for the result. One participant actually told me when I met her that she kind of feel released and suddenly have lots of time spending on other things. The last 2 participants seems to have dropped out. But I still have 7 all together. Another participant told me that she feels it is a habit to log into e.g. facebook, not because she needs to, but to break her normal daily routine, that is the hardest part.

One of the participants will suicide on the net a few days after he finished this mission. That will be an experience to witness his 600 friends be erased and all his posts and photos. It also takes lots of courage to do it, because as we all know, Social media is about connecting, sharing and feel a bound with your friends and families, just as it is a time consuming addiction.

Result from test on friday

On Internet today, we share information about ourselves without reflecting over whom we share it with. We update a thought or opinion from our private sphere, safe from judgmental others, which dares us to share even more explicit information.

With this study I wanted to see how people should react by having a wall in the real world that symbolized a wall from any social networks on Internet. To what extent should they share their opinions or thoughts in public? How did they feel about posting something and then leave. Should they wonder if someone else should comment their post? Should the wall attract any attention from by passers?

I started to set up a wall in the center of Lund, where I knew many people pass on daily basis. The bus central was a perfect spot where people might have the time of writing or reading when waiting for their bus.

Then I asked bypassing people if they used social networking, and if they would like to post something on this public wall. While they were posting something I had some questions prepared for them. I asked them why they placed their post in a specific spot, but no one seemed to have an answer for that, so I put my focus on other questions like, how they behave on the Internet, and what the difference is to post something in an opened place compared to the Internet.

I considered the bad weather conditions when I prepared this study. I knew that people might be cold and not that willing to collaborate and to some extent I was right, even though I did get some interesting input. One observation was that it was the younger group of people that took their time of writing something, while it was the older groups that took their time of reading. The biggest crowd of people moving on this area was the younger people around the age of 17 – 24, on their way to or from school or older people that did not use any social media. I used 5 hours to this study, until my toes could not handle the cold anymore.

I had set up 2 walls out of 4 on a pole, and when people were reading, I saw that they continued around the pole to see if something was posted on the other two sides as well.  This is a pattern that is similar on the Internet. People are a curious kind, and will continue to read once they found something by interest.

Another interesting observation was when I decided to take my lunch. I prepared the wall with pens and white papers stuck all over, before I headed for a coffee shop near by where I had a good view of the wall. I could see people gather around the pole and read and even write. When I returned half an hour later there were several posts and comments made on the wall. The conclusion I took from that and from the earlier conversations was that people write when they feel they are in a private sphere. Lots of the participants said they did not feel comfortable to share something on the wall because they were in a public place where others could see them. But as soon as I left for my lunch, the same amount of posts I had received when I was standing there for a few hours was posted when I was absent for not more than half an hour.

One question I asked was how opened they are with themselves on the Internet in the social networking communities they are members of, e.g. facebook compared to a public space. Most of the people answered that they are private on the Internet, and that they do not add people they do not know, when they receive friend requests. When I asked them if they could precise people they know, the answer from most of the participants were that; as long as they had met that person once, or if it was a friend of a friend those people were included in the group of people they know. One younger man said that he could sometimes add someone if he think he recognize the name. Later when he get accepted from that person, he goes through the photo albums and if it seems like the wrong person, he still keeps that person on his friend list.

One girl did not feel secure of writing any post, even though she adds everyone on facebook and do not think of her privacy settings at all. But she felt awkward of posting anything in public and had to be drunk to do so. A statement from many of the interviewed people was that facebook was safer; because you had more control of who it is that can read it. One man said it felt more “dangerous” to post something in public than the net. A few people wanted to return the day after to see the responses they might have gotten on their posts, and got disappointed when I told them, I would take them with me afterwards. One man took a photo at his post, and asked me to take a photo at him with the post so he could put it in his facebook. One man stopped and was reading the posts, but when I asked him if he wanted to contribute, he declined with the words that his religion forbids explicit content on the net. “Then you will sin and one day you will have to pay for it.” I asked him how he feels when others might upload photos of him, because it might happen. He said that it feels incredibly insulting and it happened once, and the principal at his school had to step in to get those photos of the Internet. A man in his forties also stopped to read the posts and told me that I was looking at a living proof of an outsider. He thought it was interesting to read the other posts, but he has only used social networking by 2 occasions.

Only a few people that wrote on the wall signed with their own name. When being interviewed they said that they could sign with their names, but should never write down information like email or address. Still they did not sign with their names.

I feel this was an interesting start but I believe that if the weather was better and I had done some things differently, I should have received more useful input. From 19 documented people making posts, 17 of them were under the age of 20. I believe I need to be more provocative in my next test and I am already planning for it.

My impression from the people was that they liked the idea of posting on a wall in public, but felt uncomfortable when they were “supervised” by others or by me. My impression was that they thought they were private on the Internet without reflecting over what private is for them. Some people commented on others and some put some “provocative” posts that could have created interesting reactions from others if the posts should have been up longer than the 5 hours. I wonder if the test should have been different if I put the notes and provided pens, and left it there for a whole day without me being around. I am actually thinking of doing another test like that, when I put the wall up early in the morning and returns around 5pm and collect the result.

Suzanna with favicons

Create your name with social media services favicons . Pretty cool site.

I have become a member of LinkedIn, FriendFeed & Twitter the last few days. Today I joined the social network FriendFeed. I have not used Twitter or Friendfeed earlier so this is something different for me. But I have to understand how they work because I read about them all the time, and I will write lots about it.

On my friendlist there were only 1 person that have FriendFeed so I joined The social media Club as a group to find more people. Found lots of interesting feeds in there about my subject. Real time feed is new to me.

In Friendfeed  I have to comment/post something 5 times a day! If not, will they throw me out? I will try this for a few days, then I will just leave it for one dayand see what happens. But seriously.. 5 a day? If I am not allready addicted, I might be soon…

Then I found this link to how Internet see You. You type in your name and it collects data around it and forms you?

So this is me. The red area is ONLINE. Yeah, and that is partly true.

I joined Social Media Club Skåne

and I will definetely join their lunch the 26th of february and discuss Social media. One member made this song, gave the link to his 350 friends and 1207 people have been viewing it now in Youtube and 10% of the viewers have been downloading the song.

10 Symptoms of Social Media Addiction

10 Symptoms of Social Media Addiction

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In my search for participants

I have been buzy finding participants for my study over the facebook addiction and it have not been easy. One man said; “I am single, how can I be without social media? I need it.” Another said: “Never!”. A girl said: “Noway I can be without Ebony! Not even for a day!”And so on and so on.. Noone is prepared to do it. And I have no money to offer .

I posted a request of participants in my Facebook for my 375 friends. I got 1 response!!!! One person contacting me! Now I have 5 people. I wish for 10, but people today cant live without it. Still working on it. I have 2 people thinking about it. One man from Stockholm and one man from Norrköping. Hopefully they will see it as a fun thing and try.

It is actually harder than I thought to get people to participate. Well, I am very happy for one of the participants I have now, well of course I am happy for all 5, but this girl is using lots and lots of social media. She is blogging daily, she is using facebook all the time, she is sharing lots of photos. She is using other sites as well and she participate voluntarely. She is what I call a starter, the others are followers. She starts up discussions and people participate with their opinions. This will definetely give a really interesting result!!!

A brilliant slideshow

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later

View more presentations from Marta Kagan.