This week I wanted to select two social networks that represented both types of social capital, "bridging" and "bonding" described in the Williams (2006) article. Although bridging and bonding are not exclusive, I wanted to explore sites that seemed, at first glance, to be predominantly one type or the other. To make sure that I chose two sites with different social capital, I applied the Internet Social Capital Scales, or ISCS to several (actually many) sites before I was able to choose two that interested me and seemed to fit either one of the two types of social capital.
From my previous experiences with social networking sites, I’ve noticed that I tend to enjoy the “bonding” type of sites, where I interact with individuals I already know or friends of friends. According to Williams (2006), the individuals with bonding social capital have little diversity in their backgrounds but have stronger personal connections. The continued reciprocity found in bonding social capital provides strong emotional and substantive support and enables mobilization. My full immersion into the Facebook culture is an example of a “bonding” network with social capital being the emotional support that the friends provide for one another. Therefore, I expected to form an emotional attachment to the bonding social network community I joined and to be less interested in the bridging site. The new site I joined that appeared to foster bonding social capital was LinkedIn. Here is my profile on the LinkedIn site:
OK, the “working on understanding and improving educational technology…” statement was a suck up, but what the hey!!!!
According to Putnam, as described in Williams (2006), "bridging" social capital is inclusive. It occurs when individuals from different backgrounds make connections between social networks. These individuals often have only tentative relationships, but what they lack in depth they make up for in breadth. As a result, bridging may broaden social horizons or world views, or open up opportunities for information or new resources. On the down side, it provides little in the way of emotional support. The site that I joined that seemed to me to be a bridging social network site is a community formed around issues that interest me and a call to social activism, Care 2. Here is my profile page on the Care2 site:
Check out the age – do I really look 21??????
Putnam (in Williams, 2006) suggested that the social capital derived from bridging, which are typically weak-tie networks is "better for linkage to external assets and for information diffusion". This was certainly true in my experience in the Care 2 site. This site is high on information exchange and it links individuals by multiple opportunities to join causes. It provides some positive feedback reinforcement in the form of green stars or butterflies for contributions on the site that someone found valuable. Joining causes or contributing money can add either of these markers of appreciation.
Contrary to my expectation, I did not enjoy participating on the LinkedIn site at all. As you can see from the profile, I got stuck because I don’t have any network connections, which seem to be a prerequisite for meaningful exchanges on this site. On the Care2 site, I was able to participate in several discussions and I enjoyed reading people’s blogs on topics that interested me and also I enjoyed adding a comment when I had something to say.
One difficulty that I had on the Care2 site was locating any of my previous comments to get a screenshot of them. Although I could manufacture a comment to provide a screenshot, I really wanted to select an interesting discussion we had on junk mail. I wasn’t able to find this blog or our discussion comments again, after quite an extensive search. One helpful addition to this site would be a summary of the discussions that I participated in, kind of like the discussion history that I have with different individuals on Facebook.
Massa (2007) discusses the idea of trust to indicate different types of social relationships between two user, such as friendship, appreciation and interest. He says that these trust relationships are used by social network systems in order to infer some measure of importance about the different users and their visibility on the system. I certainly noticed this on the Care2 site. When I logged on to this site just a few minutes ago, I read an article written by Deepak Chopra. By my familiarity with his name, prior experience of reading books by him and my previous agreements with his point of view, I immediately trusted the information in his blog.
And, interestingly, isn’t it cool that Deepak wants me to add him as my friend on Care2? That was written sarcastically, by the way. It was surprising to me that I actually cued into this, as it doesn’t fit my definition of friend. I didn’t click add by the way…
While trust on a social network system is important individually, the idea of trusting information during an emergency situation is critical. This concept was explored by Erylimaz, Cochran & Kasemvilas (2009). Important to all situations, is their idea that trust is subjective because every individual makes his or her own decision to trust. In the subject of their paper, emergency response systems, trust is essential because professionals and volunteers rely on the information to make life-saving decisions.
While trust is not so critical on the social networking sites that I visit, I realize that I have a much higher trust of individuals that I already know offline – as in the Deepak Chopra example above. I did not accept any invitations to become friends with anyone who suggested it on either Care2 or LinkedIn because I had no previous off-line experience with these people. In the cases of the few people who sent friend requests on Care2, how do I know they are who they say they are?
On both of the sites that I explored this week, there is a system in place in which users evaluate the trustworthiness of the participants on the social network system. On Care2, users respond to the blog or provide the green stars or butterflies discussed above. On LinkedIn, the individual is expected to bring other individuals into the network and to ask known individuals for references. On both sites, there is a profile page where personal data is entered (to the extent that the individual wants to disclose information) which also shows a summary of the user’s activity on the system.
In addition to assessing bonding and bridging social capital, I considered my experiences on LinkedIn and Care2 using Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe’s (2007) concept of maintained social capital, which assesses the ability to stay connected with members of a previously inhabited community. With less than one weeks’ experience on either of these two sites, I only have a vague idea about my ability to stay connected with members of these communities. From my experiences this week, I don’t plan to continue to access LinkedIn beyond the requirements for this project. This site may be more appealing to businesspeople with products to sell but it did not provide an interesting experience for me. I may continue to access Care2 as the issues discussed are important to me, however, I will probably lurk more that I contribute.
Gleave, Welser, Lento and Smith’s (2009) discussion of social roles was very interesting to me. On sites such as AnswerBag, the social roles of Question People and Answer People are very clear based on the design of the site. I was able to identify some individual’s role on Care2 as Answer People as well. Before I read this article, I wasn’t aware of the role of administrators and arbitrators on sites like Wikipedia, although it makes sense that there would be people with long term commitments to this site who would invest their time and energy into maintaining the integrity of the information. I was interested in Gleave et al.’s identification of Substantive Experts Technical Editors. I wondered, do these people get paid for this or is this a hobby for them?
On Care2 and LinkedIn, I could identify individuals who took on the role of Discussion Catalyst (a role that I tried without success to step into on AnswerBag) and Discussion People. My role on Care2 could be best described as a Discussion Person as I participated in reciprocal exchanges of thoughts and information with other users but I didn’t yet begin any discussion by posting a blog. I may do this at some point and see how it goes. Honestly, my participation on LinkedIn was more of a lurker since I really didn’t enjoy this site too much.
An interesting idea proposed by Gleave et al. was the balance of roles within a site to maintain a healthy and vibrant site. At the simplest level, the Answer Person needs a Question Person and vice versa. Just as in our off-line life, we need a balance of all types of role groups, this seems true of online communities as well.
Possibilities for Final Project:
1) In my position with the Department of Education, I supervise our district’s autism team. As I’ve been exploring social networking systems, I’ve been wondering how social networking sites affecting teens with Aspergers’ Syndrome. This is one area that I’m thinking about researching for my final project. The question would be, “Do social networking sites help or hurt socialization for teenagers with high functioning autism, such as Aspergers’ Syndrome?” To answer this question, I could first Google key words in this question, then read research available on it. A quick Google completed just a few minutes ago yielded about 758,000 possible sites that could assist in gathering current literature on this topic. There must be quite a few scholarly articles to provide the literature review for this topic. Another method might be to initiate a social network site, such as Ning, for students in our district and conduct follow up interviews with students who were willing to participate after they joined this on line community for a month or so.
2) As a new user to social networking sites, and as a woman of “a certain age” as they say in the South, I’m interested in exploring motivation for joining social network systems in individuals over 50. Those of us in this age range were not born with “digital brains” and I think many of us do not access social networking sites. Possibly we may have some common characteristics which motivate us to join social network systems. The unit that most interested me in this class so far was last session’s information on motivation. A Google search of key words on this topic, provided about 8,000 possibilities, so this may also be a viable topic. One article that I just read titled Foggeys Flock to Facebook (URL http://www.mad.co.uk/Main/Home/Articlex/e62e1524cf9d43acb900cac973c3e3e8/Social-networking-and-the-50-plus.html seemed to have some potential. I could also simply ask people who are my age on sites like Facebook why they joined. The research question, if I use this topic would be “What motivates individuals over 50 years old to participate in social network systems?”
References:
Ellison, N.B., C. Steinfield and C. Lampe (2007). The Benefits of Facebook "Friends:" Social Capital and College Students' Use of Online Social Network Sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4). http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/ellison.html
Eryilmaz, Evren, Mitch Cochran and Sumonta Kasemvilas (2009). Establishing Trust Management in an Open Source Collaborative Information Repository: An Emergency Response Information System Case Study. Proceedings of the 42nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Waikoloa, HI, 5-8 January 2009.
Gleave, Eric, Howard T. Welser, Thomas M. Lento and Marc A. Smith (2009). A Conceptual and Operational Definition of ‘Social Role’ in Online Community. Proceedings of the 42nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Waikoloa, HI, 5-8 January 2009.
Massa, Paolo (2006). A Survey of Trust Use and Modeling in Current Real Systems. Trust in E-services: Technologies, Practices and Challenges. Idea Group.
http://www.gnuband.org/files/papers/survey_of_trust_use_and_modeling_in_current_real_systems_paolo_massa.pdf
Williams, D. (2006). On and Off the 'Net: Scales for Social Capital in an Online Era. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(2), article 11. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue2/williams.html
Do you think the types of sites where you join to share experiences (like ExperienceProject.com) or other group forming/blog posting sites facilitate bonding as well as bridging? Typically you join these sites to meet people that are supportive of similar interests. More often then not, people connect with strangers. Is bonding more relevant than bridging for these types of sites because of the personal expression? Don't these sites naturally build the trust necessary for bonding?
ReplyDeleteLove your topics for the final project! I am also considering exploring the topic of the social networking aspect for the special needs community. However, I think the other topic for researching the social network use of the over 50 community is also very interesting. Once facet may be to explore the connection between the online presence of their children and whether that has a factor of parents wanting to join. Also, you may want to consider retirement and whether additional free time plays a factor in motivating use.
The bonding/ bridging question is very interesting to me. I wonder sometimes if the line isn't a bit blurred when it comes to online bonding & bridging. The ways that those are measured offline doesn't always work exactly the same online. For example, I think you can have a bonding tie with someone online even though the measurements of that relationship offline would put it in the bridging category. Then again I have never studied this field so I might be barking up the wrong tree.
ReplyDeleteYour topics for the final project sound great. I especially like your exploration of social network use for the over 50 crowd. Another aspect to consider for that question is what type of computer and internet usage is occurring for the over 50 age group. Are they using the computer but just to type documents? Do they get online but avoid sms groups? I can't wait to see how it all unfolds.
You did a very good job in relating your experiences on Care2 and LinkedIn to the broader issues of social role, trust and social capital. Interesting that you had more meaningful interactions by “bridging” on Care2.
ReplyDeleteYour final project proposals are both very interesting. On the first topic, with your position in the DOE, you have a real advantage in having access to raw data, as you mention the possibility of setting up a social networking site in your districts and conducting follow-up interviews with the participants. Sounds like your project could bring up some valuable insights into issues of motivation and social (emotional) support (sessions 3 and 4).
On the second topic, this might be a little off the subject, but I wonder how much stuff has been written on gendered patterns in the use and non-use (and perception) of social network systems among men and women of that particular age group.
It's probably my particular computer/browser configuration (a little too security paranoid on my part perhaps), but I was for some reason unfortunately unable to view any of your screen shots. However, from your very descriptive text, I don't think I was missing anything from your discussion.
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting that you found LinkedIn to be of a bonding type site. I was under the impression (but haven't actually used it myself, so I may be completely off-base) that it was more of a bridging-type site where one can make business contacts. I do see how it can also facilitate bonding though, since presumably one will already have "real-world" relationships with a few other users on the site.
I liked your approach of applying the sessions topics to your site selection, but since one of the requirements was that you not have used the site before and the shortness of duration probably made finding an appropriate bonding-type site a bit infeasible. Bridging sites, since the interaction is "lighter" are probably going to be easier to "jump into" and get involved in. Your experiences seem to reinforce this: linked-in wasn't very fun and you found Care2 much more enjoyable (at least that's the way I see things as happening).
Regarding your project proposals, both are good topics that are or personal relevance to you. It sounds like you'll be able to find a lot of relevant analytical and empirical data for both. Though it does sound like the the first one may be easier empirically (and it sounds like it would be easier to control the parameters of the study). The problem I see may be how many facebook/other SNS users in that demographic might respond, or if they can be counted on to respond truthfully (being relatively anonymous, they may be more inclined to just make up answers or maybe even their entire profile is made up, age and gender included, but that's just me being cynical, I guess).
Like you, I feel more comfortable "bonding" than "bridging." However, I believe that bridging social capital is extremely useful for professional networking as mentioned in the Williams article, going back to the different reasons why people join online communities. I love your proposed final project topic on the experiences in social networking for those over 50. As a woman of a certain age, I know that most of my friends on Facebook and Twitter are much younger than I am. However, it seems more and more "older" people are quite active in online communities (hey if members of the Congress can tweet, anyone can). If you chose your second proposal and would like a partner, please let me know. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of librarians using LinkedIn, actually. I wouldn't dismiss it so casually as a business-only social network. It is more for kind of a hybrid bridging-bonding model where one can introduce contacts to each other with the ideal result being a job or an academic paper or a business deal. Of course, people can also find you randomly if you have shared professional interests.
ReplyDeleteYour post also brings up how the definition of "friend" tends to change on the internet. On many sites - including Care 2, it seems - it really should be termed "contacts" but it is not. The man who added you didn't add you because he wanted to be your friend..he just thought you looked like an interesting contact for whatever reason (professional, probably). It is a good point that you don't know if it's actually him, but these sorts of things can be verified. I wouldn't be too paranoid :)
In terms of Substantive Experts Technical Editors....it's usually a hobby :) People like doing that sort of thing, I think, because it's something to do that may align with their interests and doesn't cost any more money than an internet connection.
I think all of your topic proposals are fascinating, especially the second one. My mom has just turned 50 and knows about Facebook, as my sisters and I are all on it, but doesn't want to join since she doesn't think her life is exciting enough to join ("Does everyone really want to see my status update about doing the laundry?"). There's also a generation privacy issue where younger people do not want to network with their older family members. So, lots of different angles to approach this issue in...
I find "bandwagon" to be a cumbersome term, but I'm totally jumping on board. I, too, prefer bonding sites to bridging (although again, I, too, found the bridging site more enjoyable during this session.) I wonder about the bridging vs. bonding preference in other people. I'm a "a few, very close friends" person, not a "many people not known as well" person, so it makes me wonder if other people's real life social habits translate as closely as my own.
ReplyDeleteBoth of your topics sound really interesting. (I'm back on the bandwagon, just so you know.) Because of the slightly removed aspect of the internet, it would be interesting to see if people with high-functioning autism respond differently than your average teen. I know I don't know much about autism, but I imagine there'd be a wealth of people excited to see SNSs help their teens (assuming, of course, that it does help. at the same time, knowing it could be damaging social behavior in the real world would also be helpful.) [OT-ish side note: I was waiting in my neurologist's office (forever), and on a shelf in the corner was some neurology trade magazine, and Greg Gunberg was on the cover 'cause he...i think he started an autism charity. I want to say his kid is autistic, but I can't really remember--i didn't get to read the article because that's when the doctor showed up. Anyway, it seems like there are some real steps being taken lately that have helped people understand autism better, and it would be exciting to be a part of that.]
If we ignore the fact that everything neurological automatically gets my attention, I would probably prefer to study the second option. I'm intensely curious as to why people use the internet in general, and for social contact specifically, so I think it would be interesting to more closely examine a particular generation's motivation. Is it a choice to go digital, or a necessity? It's funny (-strange, not -ha ha) to hear you say your online friends are mostly younger than you--most of mine are older. It has caused me to wonder why they got into SNSs in the first place; I started a blog while in college and "everyone was doing it." It would be interesting, too, to see if people over 50 prefer bridging or bonding sites. Actually, I wonder that about people with high functioning autism, too. And does the type of site make a difference? Maybe bridging sites help develop the ability in real life to be more comfortable with more people. (this is where my lack of knowledge comes in, I don't really know what kind of socialization problems people with Asperger's have. maybe bonding sites would help them develop deeper bonds in real life, if that's the bigger issue). It sounds like you've got a really got place to start with both options--good luck!