Student Favorite: Facebook and Motives for its Use - ebsco

Student Favorite: Facebook and Motives for its Use Pavica Sheldon A survey with 172 students was conducted at Louisiana State University to see what students’ motives are for using the Facebook, how individual differences relate to motives for Facebook use, and to what extent motives and individual differences can predict attitudinal and behavioral outcomes of Facebook use. In light of the uses and gratification theory, the study found that people go to Facebook to fulfill needs traditionally fulfilled by other media but for their interpersonal communication needs first (relationship maintenance). Women were more likely to go to Facebook to maintain existing relationships, pass time and be entertained. On the other hand, men were more likely to go to Facebook to develop new relationships or meet new people.

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The idea of a community accessible only via my computer screen sounded cold to me at first, but I learned quickly that people can feel passionately about e-mail and computer conferences. I’ ve become one of them. I care about these people I met through my computer… (Rheingold, 1993, p. 1)

he range of communication media available to young people is rich, wide, and likely to continue to increase in the future. As the number and variety of media have increased across U.S. households (Louie, 2003), many questions about individuals’ media choice and use remain unanswered (Flanagin and Metzger, 2001). In 2006 about 88 percent of Americans age 12 through 29 went online. Digital Natives is the name of the group that has grown up with Internet technology. The Pew Internet Project (2006) found that the Internet’s major benefit is in helping people tap into social networks. One of these networks is Facebook, an Internet site created by Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard undergraduate student, in February 2004. Facebook’s primary purpose, according its homepage, is to “share information with people you know, see what’s going on with your friends, and look up people around you.” (Facebook.com, 2007) As college students spend more time online than any generation before, it is important to know what gratifications they seek and obtain from the new media. As LaRose and Eastin (2004) suggested, the definition of Internet usage is too broad. So research in this area should distinguish Internet application (e.g., e-mail vs. online chat), functions or settings. Similarly, Papacharissi and Rubin Pavica Sheldon, a doctoral student at Louisiana State University’s Manship School of Mass Communication, won third place with this manuscript at the Southwest Symposium of the Southwest Education Council for Journalism and Mass Communication in October 2007. Student Favorite: Facebook and Motives for its Use

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(2001) suggested that, with the widespread use of CMC, we need a better understanding of personal and social attributes that predict why people use computermediated communication (CMC) and the outcomes of CMC-related behavior. CMC “blurs” traditional boundaries between interpersonal and mass communication, thus offering new opportunities for the way individuals relate to one another (Parks and Floyd, 1996). Although some educational institutions have raised their voices against Facebook, claiming that students may be addicted to the site and spend too much time there, there is little research on who uses the site, what brings people to Facebook, and what the outcome of their social networking is. What are user motives (gratifications sought) for using Facebook, how do individual differences (age, gender, education) relate to motives for Facebook use, and to what extent can motives and individual differences predict attitudinal and behavioral outcomes of Facebook use? These are the questions this study is designed to answer. Uses and Gratifications Theory. Newhagen and Rafaeli (1996) suggested that uses and gratification (U&G) theory might well be suited to study the Internet. The theory explains how different people use the same media messages for different purposes to satisfy their psychological and social needs and achieve their goals (Katz, 1959). According to uses and gratifications theory, audiences differ in the gratifications they seek from the mass media. What needs and gratifications people are looking for can be grouped into the following categories: diversion (escape from problems; emotional release), personal relationship (social utility of information in conversation; substitute of the media for companionship), personal identity (value reinforcement, self-understanding), and surveillance (McQuail, Blumler, and Brown, 1972). Later, researchers added a few more categories. Generally, U&G theory focuses on motives for media use, factors that influence motives, and outcomes from media-related behavior. Many studies conducted after 1972 showed that different motives are linked to different media preferences, leading to different patterns of media exposure and use to different outcomes (Haridakis and Rubin, 2003). Ruggiero (2000) writes that new media like the Internet possess at least three attributes not commonly associated with traditional media: interactivity, demassification, and asynchroneity. Dicken-Garcia (1998) said that the Internet places stronger emphasis on interpersonal conversations than has been true of earlier media. Users say electronically what they might never say in person, sometimes taking on new personalities, ages, and genders. It more resembles word of mouth than the sort of communication one usually sees in newspapers and television (Dicken-Garcia, 1998). That is, many researchers see the Internet as a continuum between mass and interpersonal communication (Ruggiero, 2000). Uses and gratification theory has been criticized for focusing too narrowly on the individual (Elliot, 1974) and not explaining why people use a certain medium, or how a certain gratification is provided by using the medium. Many central concepts such as audience needs, gratifications, and motives remain unclear (Swanson, 1977). Scholars respond to those criticisms and are now measuring the distinction between gratifications sought and gratifications obtained. Some uses and gratifications studies have explored the relationship between gratifications 40

Southwestern Mass Communication Journal Spring 2008

sought and gratifications obtained (GS and GO) and media choice, extending the research from description of gratifications to tests of the explanatory power of these gratifications (Dobos, 1992). These studies found that GO are stronger predictors of media exposure than GS. Cyber communities. Coley (2006) differentiates among three types of cyber communities. First, there are social networks such as Facebook and MySpace where young people create their profiles with private information and then revealing that information to their “cyber friends.” The main purpose of social networks is to make new friendships or to maintain those that already existed. The second type of cyber community is a chat system, which includes instant messaging (IM). The third type is blogs, personal websites with frequently updated observations, news, commentaries, and recommended links (Coley, 2006). Online social networks and Facebook. Online social networks encompass online dating sites, as well as popular social networking websites such as MySpace, Xanga, Live Journal, and Facebook. The difference between chat rooms and social networking sites is that the majority of communication in online social networks takes place asynchronously and within the network of “friends” that the user has established. Facebook.com is a social networking website which, according to nonacademic sources, allows people who use it several advantages. It allows users to stay in touch with old friends and those at other schools, to make new “friends,” to join “groups” that fit their interests, advertise their parties, check how many personal messages/wall posts they received from their friends, and see other people’s pictures and new features that Facebook continually adds. Many search for new people who have recently joined Facebook and whom they might know or want to meet. Another reason is that students are already online, and checking Facebook is a routine online behavior. Coley (2006) asserts that most students use Facebook for fun, to organize parties, and to find dates. They like the opportunity to find others with similar interests, students with whom they are in class, and in using Facebook, they feel a sense of community and connectedness. In 2006, Coley (2006) wrote that about 80 percent of colleges have Facebook, and 85 percent of students at those colleges have accounts. Sixty percent of them log on daily, around six times a day. According to Coley, Facebook is the ninth most-visited website, behind a similar online network called MySpace.com. Facebook features include a profile, status, friends, photos, shares, events, notes, groups, messages, an account setting, and a privacy setting. Facebook also offers a possibility to find a person from your yahoo or hotmail address list that has a Facebook account. A minimal Facebook profile only tells a user’s name, date of joining, school, status, and e-mail address. Withall (2005) best summarized the importance Facebook has for students: “Facebook.com has become our social Bible for definitive information on our classmates, crushes and high school peers we have not spoken to in who-knowshow long.” Motives for Facebook use. To look at the motive for Facebook use, one has to understand the history of research on traditional and new media. During the last 15 years, researchers have developed different motivational scales for Internet use. Most of the items they use came from the analyses of qualitative data, such Student Favorite: Facebook and Motives for its Use

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as answers to open-ended questions, essays and diaries (Vettehen and Van Snippenburg, 2002). According to Morris and Ogan (1996), the Internet can fulfill interpersonal and mediated needs. Except for interpersonal needs, Flaherty, Pearce, and Rubin (1998) found that people use computers to satisfy needs traditionally fulfilled by media (i.e., social interaction, to pass time, habit, information, and entertainment), and other needs (i.e., meeting people), which are fulfilled by new media. Flanagin and Metzger (2001) included in mass media needs mediated interpersonal needs such as feeling less lonely, relationship maintenance, problem solving and persuasion. For Parker and Plank (2000), a relaxation and escape factor predicted Internet usage. Papacharissi and Rubin (2000) found a social interaction factor as the only one that predicted going online. Other researchers found that the expectation of finding enjoyable activities online predicted the amount of consumption (LaRose, Mastro, and Eastin, 2001). Charney and Greenberg (2001) described eight gratification factors for the Internet (to keep informed, diversion and entertainment, peer identity, good feelings, communication, sights and sounds, career, and coolness). However, the assumptions of this study assert that certain Internet features, such as Facebook, may not be designed to fulfill all of those needs. According to the uses and gratifications model, a person’s social and psychological factors influence motives for communicating - their gratifications sought and gratifications obtained. Research on media using patterns suggests that demographic variables influence motives and behaviors. Thus, females were found to be more involved in online interpersonal relationships than men (Parks and Floyd, 1996). Behavioral and attitudinal outcomes of Facebook use. Parks and Floyd (1996) found more developed personal relationships for those who posted more often and who had been posting online for a longer time. Uses and gratification researchers have suggested conceptualizing and measuring gratifications in terms of both gratifications sought and gratifications obtained from media use (Palmgreen and Rayburn, 1985). Gratifications sought are defined as the audience’s reasons are for using Facebook. Gratifications obtained are defined as being those benefits audiences believe they receive from the uses of Facebook or from their frequency of using Facebook. In this study, we measure “Facebook use” as the frequency of Facebook use and the duration of Facebook use (Rubin, 1983). We also measure the frequency of updating one’s Facebook profile. The measure of “relationship development” is operationalized as the number of friends people have on Facebook, and the percentage of friends they have never met in person. This study measured users’ satisfaction with Facebook gratifications. It also examined how much users would miss the site if it suddenly disappeared. Research Questions The first research question addresses student motives (gratifications) for using Facebook. Based on the differences in demographics, the second research question examines how students’ individual differences (age, gender, and education) relate to their motives (gratifications sought) for Facebook use. The third research question considers to what extent gratifications of Facebook use and demographics predict attitudinal and behavioral outcomes on Facebook use. Attitudes and 42


TABLE 1 Respondents’ Education Level Education

Frequency (n)

Percent

173

100

5 92 56 17 3

Freshman Sophomore Junior Senior Graduate Total

2.8 51.7 31.5 9.6 4.4

behaviors are measured as the frequency of Facebook use, duration of use, the number of Facebook friends, the number of people never met in person, satisfaction with Facebook, missing the Facebook. Method Sample and procedure. To address these questions, a survey of 172 students was conducted at a large southern research university. The survey sample consisted of students enrolled in two large communication classes. Ninety-three percent (n=172) of students had a Facebook account and seven percent (n=12) did not have the account. This number is larger than Coley (2006) found. Of those who had an account, 43 percent (n = 74) were male and 57 percent (n = 98) were female. The average age of respondents was 20 (M = 19.92, SD = 1.23). Most respondents were sophomores (52 percent) and business majors (see Table 1 and 2). Measurement. The survey asked participants to complete the questionnaire regarding their Facebook usage. Participation was voluntary, but students received credit if they completed the survey. Overall, they spent approximately five to seven minutes on the survey. Students who never had a Facebook account were excluded for the analysis. Demographics. Respondents indicated whether they were male or female and were coded dichotomously. Respondents were also asked their age. They were asked their educational level (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, and other) and their field of study. TABLE 2 Participants’ Field of Study Majors Finance/Business Communication Studies Kinesiology Psychology Mass Communication General Studies Interior Design Human Ecology Other Student Favorite: Facebook and Motives for its Use

Percent 25.2 5.8 4 3.4 3.4 2.8 2.8 2.8 48.8 43

Motives. A pool of gratification items was assembled from prior Internet gratifications studies (Flaherty, Pearce, and Rubin, 1998; Papacharissi and Rubin, 2000; Flanagin and Metzger, 2001). However, items were edited for duplication and redefined so that they fit Facebook users’ needs. In the questionnaire, respondents were asked how much they use Facebook for the certain reasons. A 5-point Likert Scale was used in rating 38 gratifications items, namely “5” (exactly) and “1” (not at all). Factor analyses extracted factors related to gratifications of the Internet. The factor analysis used a principal component solution and varimax rotation to find variable groupings, and specified the retention of factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0. This resulted in final six factors accounted for 60 percent of the variance. Facebook use and attitudes. To measure the frequency of Facebook use, respondents were asked how many hours they spend on Facebook on an average day and how often they log into their account. As a measure of duration of use, respondents indicated when they opened their Facebook account. We then calculated the number of years and months they had used Facebook. Respondents were also asked to determine how many Facebook friends they have. Facebook satisfaction was measured with a single-item: “Overall, how satisfied are you with the job the Facebook does in providing you with the things you are seeking?” Response options ranged from extremely satisfied (5) to not at all satisfied (1). Similarly, respondents were asked “If Facebook suddenly disappeared how much would you miss it?” Response options ranged from miss a lot (5) to not miss at all (1). Results The goal of the study was to find out to what extent motives and individual differences can predict attitudinal and behavioral outcomes of Facebook. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, factor analysis, multiple regression and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). For all analyses, the alpha level was set at .05. According to the analysis, the average time of a Facebook account was 18 months. Students in this sample reported that, on an average, they spent 47 minutes a day on Facebook. Fifty-four percent of the respondents logged into the account several times per day. Twenty- seven percent logged in once per day. Overall, 81 percent of students logged into Facebook on a daily basis. This is 21 percent more than Coley (2006) found. The majority of students (50 percent) changed their profile every few months. Nineteen percent changed their profile every day, and 19 percent 1 to 3 times per week. The majority of students had between 200 and 350 Facebook friends. Facebook motives. The first research question asked what motivates student to use Facebook. The final factor analysis yielded six interpretable factors. Table 3 presents the results of factor analysis. Factor 1 was labeled relationship maintenance (eigenvalue = 10.73). It contained six items (e.g. “To send a message to a friend,” “To post a message on my friend’s wall”) and accounted for 31 percent of the total variance after rotation. This factor suggests that Facebook was used to maintain relationships with existing acquaintances. It was labeled relationship maintenance because it focused on 44


TABLE 3 Motives for Facebook Use: Primary Factor Loadings Loading Eigenvalue Variance α Factor 1: Relationship Maintenance To send a message to a friend To post a message on my friend’s wall To communicate with my friends To stay in touch with friends Get in touch with people I know Get through to someone who is hard to reach Factor 2: Passing Time To pass time when bored It is one of the routine things I do when online To occupy my time To check my wall after I receive an e-mail from Facebook Factor 3: Virtual community Develop a romantic relationship Find more interesting people than in real life Find companionship Meet new friends To feel less lonely Factor 4: Entertainment To see other people’s pictures It is entertaining To read other people’s proﬁle To enjoy it To see which of the people I know that joined the Facebook Factor 5: Coolness It makes me cool among my peers Have fun It is cool Factor 6: Companionship To feel less lonely No one to talk or be with So I won’t be alone

.74 .70 .83

10.73

31

.90

3.94

11.2

.83

1.84

5.2

.80

1.62

4.6

.84

1.48

4.2

.76

1.41

4 .76

.78 .72 .58 .67 .61 .74 .74 .77 .70 .86 .65 .52 .59 .56 .67 .61 .62 .76 .66 .60 .51 .75 .83

Total variance explained = 60 percent maintaining relationships with existing acquaintances (Song, LaRose, Eastin, and Lin, 2004). Factor 2, passing time (eigenvalue = 3.94) contained four items (e.g. “To occupy my time,” “To pass time when bored”) and accounted for 11.2 percent of the Student Favorite: Facebook and Motives for its Use

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TABLE 4 Internet Motives Scale “I use the Facebook for the following reasons” Factor 1: Relationship Maintenance To send a message to a friend To post a message on my friend’s wall To communicate with my friends To stay in touch with friends Get in touch with people I know Get through to someone who is hard to reach Factor 2: Passing Time To pass time when bored It is one of the routine things I do when online To occupy my time To check my wall after I receive an e-mail from Facebook Factor 3: Virtual community Develop a romantic relationship Find more interesting people than in real life Find companionship Meet new friends To feel less lonely Factor 4: Entertainment To see other people’s pictures It is entertaining To read other people’s proﬁle To enjoy it To see which of the people I know that joined the Facebook Factor 5: Coolness It makes me cool among my peers Have fun It is cool Factor 6: Companionship To feel less lonely No one to talk or be with So I won’t be alone

M

SD

3.62 3.61 3.84 3.92 3.49 3.37

1.19 1.31 1.22 1.22 1.19 1.31

4.10 4.04 3.52 3.85

1.07 1.24 1.33 1.29

1.15 1.22 1.18 1.60

.51 .58 .49 .87

3.67 3.58 3.05 3.61 2.25

1.18 1.21 1.24 1.19 1.15

1.52 2.62 2.22

1.12 1.23 1.22

1.28 1.50 1.26

.57 .92 .64

total variance. The motive is particularly salient to the Internet (Flaherty, Pearce, and Rubin, 1998). Factor 3, virtual community (eigenvalue = 1.83) consisted of five items (e.g. “To feel less lonely,” “To meet new friends”) and explained 5.2 percent of the total variance. This factor, as opposed to maintaining relationships with existing acquaintances, emphasized communication with people met through the Internet. It was named “virtual community” following Song et al. (2004) term. Factor 4, entertainment (eigenvalue = 1.62) consisted of five items (e.g. “To read other people’s profiles,” “It is entertaining”) and explained 4.6 percent of the total variance. However, the factor had a high mean score, suggesting entertainment as a strong gratification sought in Facebook use. 46


TABLE 5 Multiple Regressions: Facebook Motives and Demographics

Relationship maintenance Passing time Virtual community Entertainment Coolness Companionship

Gender (Female=1)

Age

Education

Adjusted R²

.63** .40* -.40* .42** -.02 -.14

-.16* -.18* -.08 -.04 -.08 -.05

-.08 .38* -.06 .01 .01 -.16

.16 .08 .03 .04 .00 .00

p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001 Factor 5, coolness (eigenvalue = 1.48) consisted of three items (e.g. “It is cool,” and “Have fun”) and explained 4.2 percent of the total variance. It was named “Internet motive” by Charney and Greenberg (2001). Factor 6, companionship (eigenvalue = 1.41) consisted of three items (e.g. “To feel less lonely,” “No one to talk or be with”), and explained 4 percent of the total variance. It is connected with loneliness and regarded as one of mediated interpersonal technology needs (Flanagin and Metzger, 2001). Passing time (M = 3.88, SD = 1.23) and relationship maintenance (M = 3.64, SD = 1.24) factors had the highest mean scores. Entertainment (M = 3.23, SD = 1.19) was also a salient factor for using the Facebook. Less important reasons were coolness (M = 2.12, SD = 1.19), companionship (M = 1.35, SD = .78), and virtual community (M = 1.29, SD = 0.6) (Table 4). The internal consistency of each factor was assessed. Cronbach’s alpha ranged from .75 to .90 (Table 3). Motives and antecedents. The second research question examined how students’ individual differences relate to their gratifications sought in Facebook use. Six stepwise multiple regressions were run with different motives identified by the factor analysis and the demographic characteristics of age, gender, and educational level (Table 5.) Gender (β = .63**) and age (β = -.16*) were the significant predictors of respondents’ motivations to go on Facebook to maintain their existing relationships. Females and younger respondents went to Facebook for those reasons more than males and older respondents. The variables explained 16.3 percent of variance (F [3, 160] = 11.60, p < .01). Gender (β = .40*), age (β = -.18*), and education (β = .38*) predicted passing time motives, with more females than males, and more young people going to Facebook to pass time when bored. The variables explained 8 percent of variance (F [3, 160] = 5.6, p < .001). Gender was the only significant predictor of the use of Facebook to develop new relationships (“virtual community”). This time male respondents (β = -.40*) went to Facebook to meet new people, or to develop a romantic relationship more than female respondents (adjusted R² = 0.03; F [2, 161] = 3.32, p