Relationship Characteristics on Social Network Sites

by Ksenia Koroleva

6th of December, 2013

THE MEDIATING AND MODERATING ROLE OF

RELATIONSHIP CHARACTERISTICS IN

DETERMINING INFORMATION VALUE ON

SOCIAL NETWORK SITES

2

• Facebook is the largest database of

social information. Each day:

2.7 billion likes

300 million photos

• Stream communication allows users to

get a lot of information in a short time

• Filtering algorithms ensure that users

get the right information

• Rationality: is the information we want

the information that we need?

MOTIVATION

CAUSES AND COSEQUENCES OF INFORMATION OVERLOAD:

A QUALITATIVE STUDY

advanced

active

Information Characteristics

Network Characteristics

AMOUNT

- detail [17]

- frequency [27]

NETWORK

- size [16]

- structure [6]

VALUE

- novelty [47]

- interest [24]

UNDERSTAND-

ABILITY [7]

DISTANCE [15]

RELATIONSHIP

- strength [45]

- attraction [11]

- intensity [7]

COGNITIVE [47]

AFFECTIVE [30]

CONATIVE [15]

INFORMATION OVERLOAD

PERCEPTION

STRATEGIES AND ACTIONS

HIDE [15]people/

information

passive

DRIVING CONDITIONS

cognitive HEURISTICS

[36]

DEACTIVATE account [5]

OMISSION [7]

control of SELF-

BEHAVIOR [9]

DELETE [11]people/

information

ex-anteNETWORK

CONTROL [5]

FAILED ACTION [11]

INTERVENING CONDITIONS

Impact on Newsfeed ACTIVITY [17]

Impact on Newsfeed ATTITUDE [21]

REVERSAL [4]

Influence on SOCIAL CAPITAL

[10]

Change in INFORMATION

LOAD [12]

Change in INFORMATION

QUALITY [4]

Technology [9]

CAUSAL CONDITIONS

Skills/Knowledge [6]

Time Pressure [20]

Social Pressure [11]

Social Capital [7]

Information Longing [20]

Contact Facilitation [9]

Keeping in touch [15]CONSEQUENCES

DIS-/SATISFACTION [13]

Koroleva, K., Krasnova, H. and Gu ̈nther, O. 2010. ‘Stop Spamming Me!’ – Exploring Information Overload on Facebook, in Proceedings of the

Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS 2010), AIS Electronic Library, Paper 447. 3

SOCIAL CONTEXT CUES IN SNS

Referrals/Tags

Comments

‘Likes’

Time and Place

Post Type

Verbal indicator

Relational cue

4

Profile

Information

Friends & Network

Overlap

Recent activity and

interests

DETERMINANTS OF INFORMATION VALUE

Information Value

Relationship Characteristics

Similarity

Tie Strength

Information Characteristics

Social Information

Ratings

Comments

Media Type

Photos

Links

Text

5

Which information do users value on SNS?

How do relationship and information characteristics interact with each other?

SOCIAL INFORMATION

• Non-verbal cues

• Positive emotions

• Socially acceptable behavior

• Higher effort to process

• Negative emotions

• No shared context

Salancik and Pfeffer 1978

Schmitz and Fulk 1991

Schöndienst and Dang-Xuan 2012

Ratings/’Likes’ Comments

Def.: Social Information – statements and interpretations of others in the social environment

6

TIE STRENGTH

• Limited non-verbal cues

• Alternative channels

• Low cost of maintenance

• Diversity of information

• Easy transfer of information

• Tacit information

• Relevant information

• Frequent communication

Granovetter 1982

Hansen 1999, 2002

Carpenter 2003

Def.: Tie Strength – frequency and depth of interaction (Mardsen and Campbell 1984)

7

HOMOPHILY/SIMILARITY

Def.: Homophily – tendency for friendships to form between those who are alike in some

designated respect (Lazarsfeld and Merton 1954)

- Value Homophily vs. Status Homophily

8

• More trustworthy

• Less effort in processing

• Increases with tie strength

• Affective relationships

Heterophilous ties:

• Diverse

• Complementary

• Instrumental relationships

McPherson et al. 2001

Lazarsfeld and Merton 1954

Rivera et al. 2010

• Facebook application

Objective data collected automatically (multimedia type, comments, likes)

Subjective data through a survey (information value, tie strength, similarity)

• Sample

• 141 users (52% female & 48% male, age mean: 27)

• Each person evaluates up to 6 posts (5.88 on average), randomly selected from the Newsfeed

• In total, 851 observations

9

STUDY DESIGN

INFORMATION VALUE

10

Feelings, emotions evoked by the information

6 pt ordinal scale: Like very much – dislike very much

Affective Value

Evaluation of the information per se, its value

6 pt ordinal scale: Very useful – very useless

Cognitive Value

• Correlated (0,62)

• BUT! can be empirically distinguished

% of sample

dislike very much 3.64%

dislike 9.17%

slightly dislike 17.86%

slightly like 36.08%

like 23.97%

like very much 9.28%

100.00%

% of sample

very useless 24.32%

useless 21.74%

slightly useless 17.16%

slightly useful 22.21%

useful 10.46%

very useful 4.11%

100.00%

TIE STRENGTH VS. SIMILARITY

11

tie strength

% of sampleweak strong

similarity

nothing in common 7% 0% 7%

hardly anything in common 20% 2% 22%

something in common 34% 17% 51%

quite a lot in common 4% 11% 16%

very much in common 0% 4% 4%

66% 34% 100%

• Homophily is stronger in closer relationships, correlation (0,5)

• BUT! Can be empirically distinguished

MODERATION WITH TIE STRENGTH

12

Random effects Ordered Probit, N=851

* p<0.1; ** p<0.05; *** p<0.01

Affective Cognitive Affective

Value

Cognitive

Value

Affective

Value

Cognitive

Value

Likes 0.050 (0.010)***

0.050 (0.010)***

0.051

(0.010)***

0.050

(0.010)***

0.069

(0.013)***

0.059

(0.013)***

Comments -0.012 (0.008)

-0.016 (0.008)**

-0.007 (0.008)

-0.011 (0.008)

-0.015 (0.009)*

-0.020 (0.009)**

Photos

(w.r.t.status)

0.314 (0.108)***

0.374 (0.110)***

0.317

(0.109)***

0.368

(0.110)***

0.131

(0.139)

0.222

(0.144)

Links

(w.r.t.status)

-0.033 (0.086)

0.379 (0.088)***

0.022

(0.086)

0.436

(0.089)***

-0.085

(0.107)

0.392

(0.110)***

Tie Strength 0.596

(0.084)***

0.520

(0.084)***

0.335

(0.174)*

0.264

(0.179)

Likes*Tie Strength -0.055

(0.021)***

-0.025

(0.021)

Comments*Tie Strength

0.027 (0.016)*

0.029 (0.016)*

Photos*Tie Strength 0.547

(0.234)**

0.402

(0.236)*

Links*Tie Strength 0.352

(0.190)*

0.132

(0.194)

_cut1 -1.927

(0.126)***

-0.630

(0.105)*** -1.717 (0.130)***

-0.417 (0.111)***

-1.810 (0.140)***

-0.501 (0.123)***

_cut2 -1.185

(0.103)***

0.075

(0.104) -0.966 (0.109)***

0.305 (0.110)***

-1.055 (0.120)***

0.221 (0.123)*

_cut3 -0.482

(0.096)***

0.593

(0.105)*** -0.242 (0.103)**

0.836 (0.113)***

-0.329 (0.115)***

0.753 (0.126)***

_cut4 0.559 (0.096)***

1.439 (0.113)***

0.843 (0.106)***

1.705 (0.122)***

0.759 (0.118)***

1.623 (0.135)***

_cut5 1.550 (0.109)***

2.247 (0.134)***

1.879 (0.121)***

2.538 (0.144)***

1.805 (0.132)***

2.456 (0.154)***

rho 0.160

(0.035)***

0.250

(0.040)***

0.171 (0.035)***

0.248 (0.040)***

0.164 (0.035)***

0.239 (0.040)***

R2 0.04 0.05 0.9 0.10 0.10 0.11

MODERATION 1: LIKES*TIE STRENGTH

13

NB! the values of the dependent variable displayed on the plot are calculated based on the assumption of

a continuous dependent variable (not ordinal)

MODERATION 2: COMMENTS*TIE STRENGTH

14

NB! the values of the dependent variable displayed on the plot are calculated based on the assumption of

a continuous dependent variable (not ordinal)

MODERATION WITH SIMILARITY

15

Random effects Ordered Probit, N=851

* p<0.1; ** p<0.05; *** p<0.01

Affective Cognitive Affective Cognitive Affective Cognitive Likes 0.050

(0.010)***

0.050

(0.010)***

0.045

(0.010)***

0.044

(0.010)***

0.043

(0.010)***

0.043

(0.010)***

Comments -0.012 (0.008)

-0.016 (0.008)**

-0.007 (0.007)

-0.013 (0.008)

-0.007 (0.008)

-0.012 (0.008)

Photos

(w.r.t. status)

0.314

(0.108)***

0.374

(0.110)***

0.307

(0.110)***

0.335

(0.111)***

0.309

(0.110)***

0.316

(0.113)***

Links

(w.r.t. status)

-0.033

(0.086)

0.379

(0.088)***

-0.032

(0.086)

0.397

(0.088)***

-0.024

(0.086)

0.397

(0.088)***

Similarity

(centered)

0.597

(0.047)***

0.502

(0.048)***

0.441

(0.101)***

0.272

(0.107)**

Likes*Similarity 0.003

(0.011)

-0.003

(0.011)

Comments*Similarity 0.002 (0.008)

0.010 (0.008)

Photos*Similarity 0.325

(0.122)***

0.391

(0.130)***

Links*Similarity 0.235

(0.105)**

0.257

(0.110)** _cut1 -1.927

(0.126)***

-0.630

(0.105)***

-2.088

(0.130)***

-0.676

(0.104)***

-2.086

(0.129)***

-0.674

(0.104)***

_cut2

-1.185

(0.103)***

0.075

(0.104)

-1.297

(0.105)***

0.069

(0.103)

-1.293

(0.104)***

0.074

(0.102)

_cut3 -0.482

(0.096)***

0.593

(0.105)***

-0.530

(0.096)***

0.622

(0.105)***

-0.525

(0.095)***

0.626

(0.104)***

_cut4

0.559

(0.096)***

1.439

(0.113)***

0.622

(0.096)***

1.534

(0.114)***

0.628

(0.096)***

1.541

(0.114)***

_cut5

1.550

(0.109)***

2.247

(0.134)***

1.735

(0.113)***

2.418

(0.139)***

1.752

(0.113)***

2.431

(0.139)***

rho

0.160

(0.035)***

0.250

(0.040)***

0.141

(0.034)***

0.229

(0.039)***

0.135

(0.034)***

0.218

(0.039)***

R2 0.04 0.05 0.20 0.18 0.22 0.19

MODERATION 1: PHOTOS * SIMILARITY

16

NB! the values of the dependent variable displayed on the plot are calculated based on the assumption of

a continuous dependent variable (not ordinal)

MODERATION 1: LINKS * SIMILARITY

17

NB! the values of the dependent variable displayed on the plot are calculated based on the assumption of

a continuous dependent variable (not ordinal)

MEDIATION

18

Random effects Ordered Probit, N=851

* p<0.1; ** p<0.05; *** p<0.01

Affective Cognitive Affective Cognitive Affective Cognitive

Likes 0.050 (0.010)***

0.050 (0.010)***

0.051 (0.010)***

0.050 (0.010)***

0.045 (0.010)***

0.045 (0.010)***

Comments -0.012 (0.008)

-0.016 (0.008)**

-0.007 (0.008)

-0.011 (0.008)

-0.007 (0.008)

-0.012 (0.008)

Photos

(w.r.t. status)

0.314 (0.108)***

0.374 (0.110)***

0.317 (0.109)***

0.368 (0.110)***

0.308 (0.110)***

0.336 (0.111)***

Links

(w.r.t. status)

-0.033 (0.086)

0.379 (0.088)***

0.022 (0.086)

0.436 (0.089)***

-0.022 (0.087)

0.408 (0.089)***

Tie Strength (1-strong, 0-weak)

0.596 (0.084)***

0.520 (0.084)***

0.110 (0.094)

0.115 (0.096)

Similarity (centered)

0.568 (0.053)***

0.470 (0.055)***

_cut1 -1.927 (0.126)***

-0.630 (0.105)***

-1.717 (0.130)***

-0.417 (0.111)***

-2.042 (0.135)***

-0.627 (0.113)***

_cut2

-1.185

(0.103)***

0.075

(0.104)

-0.966

(0.109)***

0.305

(0.110)***

-1.251

(0.112)***

0.120

(0.111)

_cut3 -0.482 (0.096)***

0.593 (0.105)***

-0.242 (0.103)**

0.836 (0.113)***

-0.483 (0.104)***

0.673 (0.114)***

_cut4

0.559

(0.096)***

1.439

(0.113)***

0.843

(0.106)***

1.705

(0.122)***

0.671

(0.105)***

1.586

(0.123)***

_cut5

1.550 (0.109)***

2.247 (0.134)***

1.879 (0.121)***

2.538 (0.144)***

1.787 (0.122)***

2.472 (0.146)***

rho 0.160

(0.035)***

0.250

(0.040)***

0.171

(0.035)***

0.248

(0.040)***

0.144

(0.035)***

0.229

(0.039)***

R2 0.04 0.05 0.09 0.10 0.20 0.18

MEDIATION

19

Tie Strength

Similarity

Affective Value

Sobel test statistic: 0,528 (0,06)***

Similar effect with Cognitive value

Proportion of the effect that is mediated: 0,92 affective; 0,83 cognitive

0,933 (0,06)***

0,048 (0,09)

0,565 (0,05)**

SUMMARY: 5 COMMANDMENTS

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1. Similarity: I like it because I’m like you!

2. Likes: I like it because everyone likes it

3. Comments create information overload (need more explanation!)

4. A picture is worth a thousand words

5. I don’t necessarily like links, but they can be useful, especially if I’(m) like you!

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THANK YOU!

QUESTIONS? COMMENTS?