What is Facebook?
A study conducted at the University
of Pennsylvania
Creator: Richard S. Lurito, UPenn ‘12
Statistical Advisor: Dr. Shane T. Jensen, Department of Statistics,
The Wharton School
Experimental Consultant: Jared S. Waxman, UPenn ‘12, Candidate
for Master of Arts in Mathematics
Background and Basic Design
• Administered in Fall 2010
• Sample: 84 Penn students, ages 18-22
• Participants were randomly selected to be part of one of
six experimental groups
– 1 of the 6 groups was a control group
• Participants in each distinct group (except the control)
were prohibited from using one particular medium of
communication for one week
– The control group participated without any
restrictions in media use
Background and Basic Design
• The five groups of media under prohibition:
– Cell phone calls (both making and receiving)
– Texting (includes BlackBerry Messenger)
– Facebook (all access, including Facebook chat)
– Email
– Online Messaging (AIM/iChat/gChat)
• Prohibition was enforced through a variety of methods
– Main method: RescueTime.com, a web-based behavioral
analytics tool
• Participants were then administered a comprehensive
survey
• Participants were paid $30 after completion
What is Facebook?
• In light of the widespread interest in
Facebook, are we any closer to knowing what
Facebook really is?
– Is it a communications medium?
– How important is Facebook to users?
– Is it a network of friends?
• We will directly address these questions in
presenting our data
† Indicates a statistically significant finding
‡ indicates a suggestive finding
Our Roadmap
Guiding Question: What isn’t Facebook?
Is Facebook a communications medium?
How important is Facebook to people?
Are communications media interchangeable
(substitutes for one another)?
Is Facebook a network of friends?
Does Facebook connect us with our real
friends?
What is the nature of this social network?
Is Facebook a social information gathering tool?
What do people think about the social
information on Facebook?
What kind of emotional response does the
social information on Facebook elicit?
Areas for Further Inquiry
Facebook: a communications medium?
• Relevant Findings for Participants:
– Texting† was more important than Facebook to
“stay connected with friends”
– The ability to call friends kept our participants
more emotionally† “in touch” than Facebook,
texting or email
– Participants who went without texting and cell
phone calls reported a significantly more difficult
time† communicating with their friends than their
Facebook-prohibited counterparts
From this data, we can infer that texting and cell-phone calling
enabled participants to connect and communicate with each other
better than Facebook
Facebook: a communications medium?
• Our participants assessed post-study that the following
monetary values constituted “fair compensation” for going
without each medium for one week
–
–
–
–
$99 / week for going without email †
$85 / week for going without texting ‡ (*)
$73 / week for going without cell phone calls ‡
$44 / week for going without Facebook
Significance of Disparities in Valuations
Email vs.
Facebook
• Significant
Texting vs.
Facebook
• Nearly significant
Phone vs.
Facebook
• Suggestive
From this data, we can infer that participants would give up
Facebook more willingly than other media
Facebook: a communications medium?
• Additional relevant findings:
– Participants who went without texting reported that
they compensated by calling more ‡; participants who
went without calling compensated by texting more ‡
– Facebook-prohibited participants reported that they
barely used † alternative media to compensate for
their inability to use Facebook
– No experimental group compensated through an
increased use of Facebook†
From this data, we can infer that communications media are imperfect
substitutes for each other
Overall, there was little compensatory use of other media, and minimal
compensatory use of Facebook
Facebook: a communications medium?
• Our participants preferred texting†, email† and cell
phone calls‡ to Facebook when asked “how do you feel
personally about these media?”
• Participants in the texting-prohibited† and emailprohibited† groups were “dismayed” at the prospect of
the week-long prohibition, more so than their Facebookprohibited counterparts
• Participants in the Facebook-prohibited group were no
more “dismayed” in their outlook than the control group†
From this data, we infer that participants generally feel less positively
towards Facebook than towards other media
The prospect of going without Facebook was not as dismaying to our
participants as going without other media
Facebook: a communications medium?
• Based upon our evidence, Facebook may not
be a “medium” in the traditional sense
– Our study and survey showed that:
• Our participants did not treat Facebook as a
vital communication tool
• To our participants, Facebook was less
instrumental than other media in connecting
them with their friends
• When deprived of other media, our
participants did not use Facebook as a
substitute
Facebook: a network of friends?
• Relevant Findings:
– Our participants considered only 16% of their
Facebook “friends” to be their real friends
– Our participants considered only 1-2% of their
Facebook “friends” to be their closest friends
– 88% of our participants preferred calling or
texting their closest friends over all other media
– 68% of our participants preferred communicating
with their acquaintances through Facebook over
all other media
Facebook: a network of friends?
• If Facebook is a “social network”, it probably
does little to connect people with their
closest friends
– Our study and survey showed that:
• Our participants use Facebook to keep up with
acquaintances more so than with their real friends
• Our participants prefer other media to Facebook when
communicating with their real friends
Facebook: a social information
gathering tool?
• Relevant findings:
– Our participants considered Facebook to be very
voyeuristic†
– Our participants considered the behavior of their
peers’ activity on Facebook to reflect a subconscious
desire to be a part of another reality† more so than
they considered their own behavior to reflect such a
desire
– Our participants considered their online profiles to
more accurately reflect who they “actually are” ‡
versus the profiles of others
Our participants may consider the information they gather on
Facebook to be unreliable due to voyeurism, escapism and
misrepresentation
What isn’t Facebook?
Based upon our data, we have suggested what we think Facebook is
probably not
Then what might it be?
A Social Activity?
Entertainment?
Areas for Future Inquiry: A Virtual
Social Interaction?
• Relevant Finding:
– Participants who have low self-esteem did not
enjoy Facebook nearly as much as those who have
high self-esteem (self-assessment) †
– This finding is consistent with Dr. Megan Moreno’s
studies at the University of Wisconsin*
• Inferences from data:
– The information on Facebook elicits emotional
responses
Is Facebook just another social activity that reinforces the positive or
negative nature of a user’s social interactions??
*Tanner, Lindsey. 2011. “Doctors Warn About ‘Facebook Depression’ in teens”. CBS Boston. March 28. http://boston.cbslocal.com/2011/03/28/doctors-warnabout-facebook-depression-in-teens (accessed March 28, 2011)
Areas for Future Inquiry:
Entertainment?
• Is Facebook pure entertainment?
– In this study, we focused mostly on the usage
patterns, psychological preferences and attitudes
of our participants
– In future studies, we will test the hypothesis of
whether or not Facebook is mere entertainment
Conclusion
• Despite the fact that Facebook is probably not:
A communications medium
Connecting friends any better than calling or texting
A network of friends
Furnishing its users with accurate social information
Hundreds of millions of people still use it
Conclusion
Therefore, we can conclude that Facebook
probably offers its users certain advantages
which outweigh its deficiencies
We look forward to investigating the nature of
the advantages Facebook provides
Statistical Note: Hypothesis testing was conducted at 95% confidence. Findings involving the comparison of sample means were
labeled in the following way:
† Indicates a statistically significant finding
‡ indicates a suggestive finding