This article focused on Facebook and the affects that social networking sites have on a person's behavior. It focused on the size of a user's social network, a person's anxiety, self-esteem, and body image. The article discusses how social networking sites used for professional or personal reasons is significantly different from real life social networks of friends or families.
The article concludes that online social networking has no relation with a person's behavior. Online social networks had more influence on the size of one's network rather than one's behavior. One's self-esteem does affect whether or not your social network has more strangers than friends.
I found it interesting that women have larger online social networks because they spend more time communicating with the people they network with. This made me realize how much time I do spend on social networking websites versus spending time with people real time. I also found that this is because women have more friend requests and get “poked” more often than men.
The article concludes that online social networking has no relation with a person's behavior. Online social networks had more influence on the size of one's network rather than one's behavior. One's self-esteem does affect whether or not your social network has more strangers than friends.
I found it interesting that women have larger online social networks because they spend more time communicating with the people they network with. This made me realize how much time I do spend on social networking websites versus spending time with people real time. I also found that this is because women have more friend requests and get “poked” more often than men.
I too, was interested to read that Acar wrote that women, rather than men, seem to have larger online social networks, spend more time communicating with network members, and be less worried about adding new people that they don’t know much about to their online social networks. However, I wasn’t surprised. In our society, it is acceptable for women to communicate their emotions to other people and men to hold in their emotions.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Deborah Tannen, Ph.D., in her book, “You just don’t understand: women and men in conversation” (1990), it appears men and women inherently have different communication styles. Men use conversation for status and dominance, while women use conversation for closeness and intimacy. For women, friendship and intimacy require talking. For men, friendship and intimacy require doing things together rather than spending a lot of time talking. The author continues by saying that in decision making, women seek input from other women and make decisions based on input from others, while men make decisions while trying to establish and maintain status and dominance.
So it’s not surprising that women spend more time offline and online in conversation and that they have larger online social networks. They are conversing online and offline to build friendship and intimacy and using their networks to get input on decisions they want to make. Adding new people who they don’t know builds their pool of advisors. Since there’s limited opportunity for doing things together online, or establishing and maintaining status and dominance, men don’t tend to spend as much time online or have as large a network as women tend to have.
You have summed up the article well and really solidified some of the points. In the early stages of Facebook evaluation, it is telling that OSN with strangers or friends had no affect on ones self-esteem or body image, although more recent research I’m sure will show how the “bullying” affect has impacted those elements.
ReplyDeleteSome of the results were revealing, although I find it interesting that what caught your attention was that women have a larger social network overall. To me, this was actually expected. Your admission that this conclusion motivated you to evaluate your current online behavior has me more interested in evaluating how I communicate socially online too. In conclusion, it is interesting that some of the same interactions in person mimic the online environment, specifically with women getting more "pokes".
--CG