Persistence and change in social media

Persistence and Change in Social Media

Hogan, B. and Quan-Haase, A. Bulletin of Science Technology Society September 14, 2010 vol. 30 no. 5 309-315.

Summary

This article compiles a series of papers to identify elements of social media practice that are persistent across platforms, users, and cultures.

Several points of stability are identified, including:

• Strong, intimate social relationships online tend to be also strong, intimate social relationships offline (Dutton, Helsper, & Gerber, 2009; Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007; Hampton, Sessions, Her, & Rainie, 2009).
• People who tend to communicate more online also tend to do so offline (Quan-Haase, 2008; Wellman, Quan-Haase, Witte, & Hampton, 2001).
• The distribution of contacts will always be skewed with few friends being close and the majority being weak (Lewis, Kaufman, Gonzalez, Wimmer, & Christakis, 2008; Roberts, Dunbar, Pollet, & Kuppens, 2009).
• There will be a gap between what users say they do and what they actually do as the investigation of privacy concerns on social network sites has shown (Gross & Acquisti, 2005; Young & Quan-Haase, 2009).

The term "social media practice" is proposed as a means to overcome the transient nature of the phenomena encountered on social media.

External Sources

Persistence and Change in Social Media by Hogan, B. and Quan-Haase, A. Bulletin of Science Technology Society September 14, 2010 vol. 30 no. 5 309-315.