Sharing beyond Slacktivism: the effect of socially observable prosocial media sharing on subsequent offline helping behavior

New forms of youth social and political participation have been termed ‘Slacktivism’ – low-cost online forms of social engagement that decrease subsequent offline participation. Previous experimental work has provided support for a ‘Slacktivism effect,’ but it is unclear if this theoretical model applies to youth media sharing on social networking sites. This study uses a novel sharing simulation paradigm to test the effect of publicly vs. anonymously sharing a social cause video on subsequent willingness to engage in offline helping behavior. Results show that publicly (as compared to anonymously) sharing a selected video on one’s own Facebook wall led to a greater willingness to volunteer for an issue-related cause. Participants’ existing use of social media for engagement in social issues/causes moderated the effect, such that only participants low in use of social media for social engagement were susceptible to the sharing manipulation. Implications for reconceptualizing media sharing as a unique form of online participation beyond ‘Slacktivism’ are discussed.     

The Role of Online Social Networking on Emotional Functioning in a Sample of Iranian Adolescents and Young Adults

The role of online social messaging applications on perceived stress, anxiety, and depression in relation to the moderating influence of age and gender in an Iranian sample was investigated in this study. A demographic questionnaire, the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and the Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II) were utilized in the present research. The resulting data indicated that social networking nonusers had significantly lower levels of anxiety and depression than users of Viber, WhatsApp, Line, Telegram, Tango, Instagram, Facebook, and other social networking applications. Users of WhatsApp, Viber, and other social networking applications had significantly lower levels of anxiety in comparison to users of the Line, Telegram, Tango, Instagram, and Facebook social networking applications. Young adults and females had a significantly higher anxiety level than adolescents and males in this sample.     

Negotiating the “Global” within the Global Playscapes of Mount Everest*

Within the anthropology of tourism, “tourist” and “local” are often used to conceptualize social relations constitutive of international tourism, where “First World” mobile subjects visit stationary “Third World” “Others.” Globalization, as both discourse and condition, is changing the contours and conceptualizations of tourist spaces. In this paper, I show how “the global” is negotiated by different subjects, and how recreational mountain climbers from Nepal negotiate their identities as “locals” as well as global, mobile, travel subjects within “the global playscapes” of Himalayan mountaineering. I suggest that the question of who can be a tourist within a globalizing world should be closely examined.     

How do adults with intellectual disabilities use Facebook?

Social networking sites have potential to support social relationships and self-determination of people with intellectual disabilities. However, to date, this issue has received little research attention. To help address this need, we conducted an online research survey to reach adults with intellectual disabilities who use Facebook and to include their voices about their online experiences, challenges, and preferences. We used mixed methods for data collection and analysis. Results from 58 respondents indicated that they use Facebook much as non-disabled users do to connect with family members and real-world friends. At the same time, the respondents reported challenges such as privacy setting and literacy demands. We discuss these findings and how to make social networking sites more accessible for users with intellectual disabilities.     

Chinese youth performing identities and navigating belonging online

This paper examines the experiences of belonging of young Chinese internet users through an analysis of their online identity practices. Drawing on a qualitative research project about online citizenship practices of 31 young Chinese citizens from mainland China, I explore their experiences of belonging on two online platforms (Weibo and WeChat) and the identities formed and sustained through these experiences. The results show that young people experience different senses of belonging in different social media spaces. Their strategies in navigating these experiences are informed by (a) their perceptions of online spaces as private or public, and (b) using online identity performance as a supplement to or escape from identities in physical life. I argue that young Chinese internet users experience different senses of belonging by flexibly appropriating the affordances of social media platforms for communication and networking; these senses of belonging play a key role in forming and sustaining their identities, and are crucial for their wellbeing.     

Online Social Interactions Predict Academic and Emotional Adjustment in the Transition to University

We investigated the developmental implications of online social interactions among 590 youth transitioning to university. We observed friends’ posts on participants’ Facebook pages, and considered attributes of friends’ posts used to indicate positive and negative relationship quality in face‐to‐face interactions. After statistical control of beginning‐of‐year functioning and participants’ Facebook content, Facebook friends’ deviant content posts (swearing; illegal/sexualized activities) predicted participants’ lower grade point average, Facebook friends’ posts indicating connection to participants predicted participants’ lower psychopathology, and Facebook friends’ verbal aggression posts predicted participants’ lower institutional attachment, by the end of the year. Negative effects of friends’ posts were strongest for participants who were disliked by peers face to face. The online context may uniquely influence youth adjustment in conjunction with face‐to‐face relationships.     

Does Facebook increase political participation? Evidence from a field experiment

During the last decade, much of political behaviour research has come to be concerned with the impact of the Internet, and more recently social networking sites such as Facebook, on political and civic participation. Although existing research generally finds a modestly positive relationship between social media use and offline and online participation, the majority of contributions rely on cross-sectional data, so the causal impact of social media use remains unclear. The present study examines how Facebook use influences reported political participation using an experiment. We recruited young Greek participants without a Facebook account and randomly assigned a subset to create and maintain a Facebook account for a year. In this paper we examine the effect of having a Facebook account on diverse modes of online and offline participation after six months. We find that maintaining a Facebook account had clearly negative consequences on reports of offline and online forms of political and civic participation.     

Building relationships on social networking sites from a social work approach

ABSTRACT

Our current age of connectedness has facilitated a boom in interactive dynamics within social networking sites. It is, therefore, possible for the field of Social Work to draw on these advantages in order to connect with the unconnected by strengthening online mutual support networks among users.

The aim of this article is to examine whether ‘connectedness’ in social networking sites improves online social capital and resilience of social service users.

Through our analysis of social networks carried out on an experimental model, we observed the patterns of connectedness on Facebook of 50 social service end-users from Málaga, Spain. The detection of online communities through the modularity algorithm has allowed us to ascertain whether individuals’ offline realities mirror their online realities. At the same time, we examined the influence certain interactions (likes, comments, etc.) have on leadership through online ethnography. Finally, online social capital, understood as the combination of connectedness and online interaction, has been correlated with users’ resilience. The results reveal that both connectedness and interaction feed themselves and have correlations with resilience.     

What students’ Facebook posts teach us about the identity challenge in field placements abroad

ABSTRACT

Facebook is a common tool that enables students to publicly express their emotions, thoughts, experiences, and knowledge. On the assumption that the personal narratives of students can provide deep insights into their learning processes during practical training programs, the article presents content analyses of Facebook posts written by Israeli students who participated in an international social work field placement program in India. Content analysis of the students’ posts reveals that they grappled with their personal and professional identities as part of the learning process that occurred while they were formulating their professional identity as social workers. The analysis elicited three main themes: (1) awareness of the national identity; (2) exploration of other identities (personal, professional, and global); and (3) an attempt to contain multidimensional identity. The students discussed the main challenges they faced in the process of formulating an identity that will enable them to engage in international social work, and they described the fluctuations that occurred in those identities. The results show how public Facebook posts can be used as a tool to shed light on the contribution of social work education in international field placements, and provide insights into the learning processes that students experience in field placements abroad.     

Language,multiple authenticities and social media: The online language practices of university students in Mongolia

This paper seeks to contribute to the current discussion of the sociolinguistics of globalization by revealing youth linguistic diversity from the perspective of the online mixed language practices of university students in contemporary post‐socialist Mongolia. Drawing on sets of Facebook data, the paper firstly argues that the online mixed youth language practices should be understood as ‘translingual’ not only due to their varied recombination of linguistic and cultural resources, genres, modes, styles and repertories, but also due to their direct subtextual connections with wider socio‐cultural, historical and ideological meanings. Secondly, online users metalinguistically claim authenticity in terms of their own translingual practices as opposed to other colliding language ideologies such as linguistic dystopia. How they relocalize the notion of authenticity, however, differs profoundly depending on their own often‐diverse criteria, identities, beliefs and ideas. This shows that, with mixing and recombining at its very core, the translingual practices of modern young speakers provide us with a significant insight into the co‐existence of multiple authenticities and origins of authenticity in an increasingly interconnected world.     

Do rich teens get richer? Facebook use and the link between offline and online social capital among Palestinian youth in Israel

Studies have shown that using social networking sites contributes to social capital. This study investigated the association between specific features of Facebook and online social capital. Two contrasting hypothesis were tested. The first posits that the rich get richer, meaning that the creation of social capital online reflects the stock of offline resources already available. In contrast, the compensation hypothesis argues that disadvantaged ethnic minorities are more likely to use social media to compensate for their lack of social capital offline. We tested these two theories among a representative sample of Palestinian teenagers (N?=?567). While we found no gender differences in the use of Facebook’s features, our results highlight the positive correlation between the use of active and passive communication features and perceived social capital online. Moreover, the results support the rich-get-richer model; in that, even among this socially disadvantaged group, the youngsters who already had a store of social capital offline benefitted more from using Facebook.     

“The right to lead”: Navajo language,dis‐citizenship,and Diné presidential politics

This article examines the 2014 Navajo Nation presidential primary election and language debate as a window into the politics of Navajo heritage language and identity. Using Facebook posts written in response to a videotaped hearing testing the fluency of one of the candidates that subsequently went viral, we analyse social citizenship and stigmatized language identities through the lens of critical Diné (Navajo) language consciousness. Focusing on generational differences between speaker groups that undergirded this debate, we analyse (a) the fluency test itself and (b) online and ethnographic responses to the fluency test. Using discourse analysis of Facebook posts of both heritage language and new Navajo speakers, we show how new speakers in particular express investment in their language and Diné cultural continuity and, through their emphasis on the heterogeneity of contemporary Diné communicative practices, offer an alternative template for ways to move forward in Diné language reclamation efforts.     

Social Media and Social Movements

What role does social media play in social movements and political unrest? Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Google have all been cited as important components in social revolutions, including those in Tunisia, Egypt, Iceland, Spain, and the global Occupy movement. This essay explores social science claims about the relationship between social networking and social movements. It examines research done on the relationship between social networking, the promotion of activism, and the offline participation in the streets. Can the technology of social networking help activists to achieve their goals? If so, is it just one of many tools they may use, or is the technology so powerful that the right use will actually tip the scales in favor of the social movement? This scholarship divides into optimistic, pessimistic, and ambivalent approaches, turning on an oft‐repeated question: will the revolution be tweeted?     

Three dimensions of the public sphere on Facebook

The article provides an empirical analysis of the online public sphere in the three dimensions introduced by Dahlgren (2005): structural, representational and interactional. The main subject of analysis is the largest social networking site – Facebook – and Polish users’ activity on the Facebook Pages of political parties and politicians. The researchers analysed data about all users active on those Pages during two 4-month periods in 2013 and 2015. The results of the study show that only a small fraction of Facebook users are active in public political discussions that take place on political Facebook Pages (structural dimension). However, the level of engagement depends on the current political events taking place within the public sphere offline, and users are more active during electoral campaigns. Moreover, Facebook does not provide an alternative public sphere for political actors that are less present in mainstream media. Parties and politicians that are visible in traditional media are also attracting active fans in social media (representational dimension). Nonetheless, non-parliamentary groups have more active fans than would result only from their popularity in mainstream media. Finally, the online public on Facebook is fragmented and clustered into homogenous political groups (interactional dimension), thus supporting the hypothesis on ‘echo chambers’ presented by Sunstein (2001). The divisions are smaller when there are significantly more users involved. However, most of these cross-cutting links are the result of the electoral campaign.     

Predicting users’ privacy boundary management strategies on Facebook

This study examines the process by which Facebook users regulate their interpersonal privacy and information sharing. By tracing the influence of gender, Facebook usage, and privacy-protecting behaviors that are determined by knowledge and attitude, this research identifies a dynamic management process through which Facebook users maintain personal and interpersonal boundaries. Two distinct strategies are used – a privacy-setting control and a self-disclosure control. Based on data collected in a survey of 432 college students conducted in Hong Kong, our results suggest that different uses of Facebook activities (i.e., social interaction, social browsing, and entertainment) can be used to predict different boundary management strategies. Gender and privacy-related psychological factors (i.e., privacy literacy and concern about privacy) also showed significant effects. We concluded that the privacy setting options available on social networking sites such as Facebook were useful in providing users with a base point and a psychological sense of security, but they had little influence on the actual patterns of self-disclosure. To regulate their privacy boundaries, users were more likely to rely on frequently changing their privacy settings and on controlling their levels of self-disclosure.     

The potential of online social networking data for augmenting the study of high-risk personal networks among young men who have sex with men at-risk for HIV

Capturing dynamics in high-risk personal networks is essential for preventing HIV transmission. Online social networking data offer incentive to augment traditional selfreported approaches for network enumeration. To explore what online networks reveal about dynamics among high-risk associates, we examine the relationship between egocentric confidant and sex networks and personal Facebook friendship networks of a cohort of young Black men who have sex with men. Although overlap exists between self-reported and Facebook associates, the stabilities of each were unrelated. Confidants who were also Facebook friends with a respondent were, however, more likely to be retained. Thus, Facebook networks contain stable confidants.     

Aggressive and stressed? Youth's aggressive behaviors in light of their internet use,sensation seeking,stress and social feelings

Aggressive behavior and its consequences are a serious mental health problem for youth all over the world. In this study we investigated how problematic internet use, sensation seeking and social/dispositional factors are related to three forms of aggression: physical, verbal, and anger in a sample of Hungarian youth. In total 408 (50% females) aged between 14 and 24 years (M = 20.8 years, SD = 2.6) completed an online survey (between January and June 2014; different online social networking sites and online forums, such as university groups on Facebook and Hungarian writing sites) assessing these constructs. Multiple linear regression analyses (stepwise method) revealed a mixed pattern of predictors of each type of aggression, with boredom, age (as negative predictor), stress, lack of shyness and internet-associated neglect accounting for significant variance in verbal aggression. Obsessive internet use, disinhibition, stress and loneliness each accounted for significant variance in anger. Finally, after controlling for gender, internet-associated neglect, disinhibition and loneliness were associated with physical aggression. These findings suggest that interventions targetting aggression need to focus on different behaviors and attributes, depending on the type of aggression exhibited. Learning effective aggression management techniques should be a part of complex health education programs that would help with prevention of social conflicts, substance use, problem behavior, psychological and mental health problems as well as problematic internet use.     

Engaging stakeholders through social networking: How nonprofit organizations are using Facebook

Since social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, began allowing organizations to create profiles and become active members, organizations have started incorporating these strategies into their public relations programming. For-profit organizations have used these sites to help launch products and strengthen their existing brands; however, little is known about how nonprofit organizations are taking advantage of the social networking popularity. Through a content analysis of 275 nonprofit organization profiles on Facebook, this study examines how these new social networking sites are being used by the organizations to advance their organization's mission and programs. Solely having a profile will not in itself increase awareness or trigger an influx of participation. Instead careful planning and research will greatly benefit nonprofits as they attempt to develop social networking relationships with their stakeholders.     

‘Only Connect’: Unifying the social in social work and social media

‘Only Connect…live in fragments no longer’

(E.M. Forster, Howards End).

This paper utilises ‘Only Connect’, the epigraph from Forster’s novel ‘Howards End’ as the starting point for exploring the challenges and opportunities of integrating social networking with relationship based social work practice. The paper discusses the more deleterious implications of social networking, whilst assuming a deliberately optimistic stance to uncover ways in which the opportunities afforded by online space can be utilised effectively within social work education and practice. Whilst recognising that social networking platforms are transforming constantly, the paper adopts Kaplan’s definition of social media as a ‘group of internet based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0’. Whilst much of the discussion within the paper relates to Twitter and Facebook, two of the most endemic international social networking platforms, it is also applicable to myriad forms of social networking. The paper begins with a discussion of UK professional conduct cases and explores these both within Klein’s concept of splitting and historical attitudes to new technologies. Drawing from emerging research data and other examples, the positive relational practices educed by social media within social work education and practice are emphasised and discussed. The paper concludes by highlighting Forster’s plea for connection and recommending that social work embraces the renewed opportunities provided by online networking.     

The role of social media on positive youth development: An analysis of 4-H Facebook page and 4-H'ers' positive development

With the hope of raising children to become responsible and active citizens with upstanding values, many youth-related organizations have focused their efforts on providing quality opportunities to encourage early participation in civic engagements. Many organizations actively engage in social media to fulfill their goals most effectively. Social media offer the potential to promote those opportunities, communicate with youth, and eventually facilitate positive youth development. Considering the importance of social media among youth, it is critical to understand how to use it as a tool to foster youth development. Therefore, utilizing the positive youth development (PYD) framework, this study examines the role of Facebook communications in developing six traits—competence, confidence, connection, character, compassion, and contribution—and their effects on youth civic engagement by analyzing a 4-H club case. Mixed methods are used to conduct a two-step study. The first step analyzes communication patterns of the national 4-H Facebook page through content analysis of posts from 2009 to early 2015. For the second step, seven in-depth interviews were conducted with recent 4-H alumni, who used the official 4-H Facebook page during their period of membership. The findings emphasized the critical role of social media in fostering positive development of youth and future civic engagement, and practical implications are discussed.