Online Social Networking: Usage in Adolescents

Science.gov (United States)

Raju, Nevil Johnson; Valsaraj, Blessy Prabha; Noronha, Judith

2015-01-01

Online social networking (OSN) has played a significant role on the relationship among college students. It is becoming a popular medium for socializing online and tools to facilitate friendship. Young adults and adolescents are the most prolific users of OSN sites. The frequent use of OSN sites results in addiction toward these sites and…

A Comparison of Online Social Networks and Real-Life Social Networks: A Study of Sina Microblogging

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dayong Zhang

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Online social networks appear to enrich our social life, which raises the question whether they remove cognitive constraints on human communication and improve human social capabilities. In this paper, we analyze the users' following and followed relationships based on the data of Sina Microblogging and reveal several structural properties of Sina Microblogging. Compared with real-life social networks, our results confirm some similar features. However, Sina Microblogging also shows its own specialties, such as hierarchical structure and degree disassortativity, which all mark a deviation from real-life social networks. The low cost of the online network forms a broader perspective, and the one-way link relationships make it easy to spread information, but the online social network does not make too much difference in the creation of strong interpersonal relationships. Finally, we describe the mechanisms for the formation of these characteristics and discuss the implications of these structural properties for the real-life social networks.

Spreading in online social networks: the role of social reinforcement.

Science.gov (United States)

Zheng, Muhua; Lü, Linyuan; Zhao, Ming

2013-07-01

Some epidemic spreading models are usually applied to analyze the propagation of opinions or news. However, the dynamics of epidemic spreading and information or behavior spreading are essentially different in many aspects. Centola's experiments [Science 329, 1194 (2010)] on behavior spreading in online social networks showed that the spreading is faster and broader in regular networks than in random networks. This result contradicts with the former understanding that random networks are preferable for spreading than regular networks. To describe the spreading in online social networks, a unknown-known-approved-exhausted four-status model was proposed, which emphasizes the effect of social reinforcement and assumes that the redundant signals can improve the probability of approval (i.e., the spreading rate). Performing the model on regular and random networks, it is found that our model can well explain the results of Centola's experiments on behavior spreading and some former studies on information spreading in different parameter space. The effects of average degree and network size on behavior spreading process are further analyzed. The results again show the importance of social reinforcement and are accordant with Centola's anticipation that increasing the network size or decreasing the average degree will enlarge the difference of the density of final approved nodes between regular and random networks. Our work complements the former studies on spreading dynamics, especially the spreading in online social networks where the information usually requires individuals' confirmations before being transmitted to others.

Exploring Self-Disclosure in Online Social Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Velasco-Martin, Javier

2013-01-01

This project explores how experienced adult users of social media disclose personal information over online social networks (OSN). This work introduces a four-dimensional model to serve as a foundational framework for the study of online self-disclosure (OSD); these four dimensions are personal, social, technological and contextual, and support…

Online Social Networking: A Primer for Radiology

OpenAIRE

Prasanna, Prasanth M.; Seagull, F. Jacob; Nagy, Paul

2011-01-01

Online social networking is an immature, but rapidly evolving industry of web-based technologies that allow individuals to develop online relationships. News stories populate the headlines about various websites which can facilitate patient and doctor interaction. There remain questions about protecting patient confidentiality and defining etiquette in order to preserve the doctor/patient relationship and protect physicians. How much social networking-based communication or other forms of E-c...

A last updating evolution model for online social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Bu, Zhan; Xia, Zhengyou; Wang, Jiandong; Zhang, Chengcui

2013-05-01

As information technology has advanced, people are turning to electronic media more frequently for communication, and social relationships are increasingly found on online channels. However, there is very limited knowledge about the actual evolution of the online social networks. In this paper, we propose and study a novel evolution network model with the new concept of “last updating time”, which exists in many real-life online social networks. The last updating evolution network model can maintain the robustness of scale-free networks and can improve the network reliance against intentional attacks. What is more, we also found that it has the “small-world effect”, which is the inherent property of most social networks. Simulation experiment based on this model show that the results and the real-life data are consistent, which means that our model is valid.

Benford's Law Applies to Online Social Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Golbeck, Jennifer

2015-01-01

Benford's Law states that, in naturally occurring systems, the frequency of numbers' first digits is not evenly distributed. Numbers beginning with a 1 occur roughly 30% of the time, and are six times more common than numbers beginning with a 9. We show that Benford's Law applies to social and behavioral features of users in online social networks. Using social data from five major social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, and LiveJournal), we show that the distribution of first significant digits of friend and follower counts for users in these systems follow Benford's Law. The same is true for the number of posts users make. We extend this to egocentric networks, showing that friend counts among the people in an individual's social network also follows the expected distribution. We discuss how this can be used to detect suspicious or fraudulent activity online and to validate datasets.

Benford's Law Applies to Online Social Networks.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jennifer Golbeck

Full Text Available Benford's Law states that, in naturally occurring systems, the frequency of numbers' first digits is not evenly distributed. Numbers beginning with a 1 occur roughly 30% of the time, and are six times more common than numbers beginning with a 9. We show that Benford's Law applies to social and behavioral features of users in online social networks. Using social data from five major social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, and LiveJournal, we show that the distribution of first significant digits of friend and follower counts for users in these systems follow Benford's Law. The same is true for the number of posts users make. We extend this to egocentric networks, showing that friend counts among the people in an individual's social network also follows the expected distribution. We discuss how this can be used to detect suspicious or fraudulent activity online and to validate datasets.

The effects of online social networks on tacit knowledge transmission

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Hong-Miao; Zhang, Sheng-Tai; Jin, Zhen

2016-01-01

Due to the popular use of online social networks in today's world, how to propagate employees' tacit knowledge via online social networks has attracted managers' attention, which is critical to enhance the competitiveness of firms. In this paper, we propose a tacit knowledge transmission model on networks with even mixing based on the propagation property of tacit knowledge and the application of online social networks. We consider two routes of transmission, which are contact through online social networks and face-to-face physical contact, and derive the threshold that governs whether or not a kind of tacit knowledge can be shared in an organization with few initial employees who have acquired it. The impact of the degree distribution of the users' contact network on the transmission is investigated analytically. Some numerical simulations are presented to support the theoretical results. We perform the sensitivity analysis of the threshold in terms of the propagation parameters and confirm that online social networks contribute significantly to enhancing the transmission of tacit knowledge among employees.

Modeling online social networks based on preferential linking

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hu Hai-Bo; Chen Jun; Guo Jin-Li

2012-01-01

We study the phenomena of preferential linking in a large-scale evolving online social network and find that the linear preference holds for preferential creation, preferential acceptance, and preferential attachment. Based on the linear preference, we propose an analyzable model, which illustrates the mechanism of network growth and reproduces the process of network evolution. Our simulations demonstrate that the degree distribution of the network produced by the model is in good agreement with that of the real network. This work provides a possible bridge between the micro-mechanisms of network growth and the macrostructures of online social networks

Mining Trust Relationships from Online Social Networks

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Yu Zhang; Tong Yu

2012-01-01

With the growing popularity of online social network,trust plays a more and more important role in connecting people to each other.We rely on our personal trust to accept recommendations,to make purchase decisions and to select transaction partners in the online community.Therefore,how to obtain trust relationships through mining online social networks becomes an important research topic.There are several shortcomings of existing trust mining methods.First,trust is category-dependent.However,most of the methods overlook the category attribute of trust relationships,which leads to low accuracy in trust calculation.Second,since the data in online social networks cannot be understood and processed by machines directly,traditional mining methods require much human effort and are not easily applied to other applications.To solve the above problems,we propose a semantic-based trust reasoning mechanism to mine trust relationships from online social networks automatically.We emphasize the category attribute of pairwise relationships and utilize Semantic Web technologies to build a domain ontology for data communication and knowledge sharing.We exploit role-based and behavior-based reasoning functions to infer implicit trust relationships and category-specific trust relationships.We make use of path expressions to extend reasoning rules so that the mining process can be done directly without much human effort.We perform experiments on real-life data extracted from Epinions.The experimental results verify the effectiveness and wide application use of our proposed method.

Discrete Opinion Dynamics on Online Social Networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hu Yan-Li; Bai Liang; Zhang Wei-Ming

2013-01-01

This paper focuses on the dynamics of binary opinions {+1, −1} on online social networks consisting of heterogeneous actors. In our model, actors update their opinions under the interplay of social influence and self- affirmation, which leads to rich dynamical behaviors on online social networks. We find that the opinion leading to the consensus features an advantage of the initially weighted fraction based on actors' strength over the other, instead of the population. For the role of specific actors, the consensus converges towards the opinion that a small fraction of high-strength actors hold, and individual diversity of self-affirmation slows down the ordering process of consensus. These indicate that high-strength actors play an essential role in opinion formation with strong social influence as well as high persistence. Further investigations show that the initial fraction of high-strength actors to dominate the evolution depends on the heterogeneity of the strength distribution, and less high-strength actors are needed in the case of a smaller exponent of power-law distribution of actors' strength. Our study provides deep insights into the role of social influence and self-affirmation on opinion formation on online social networks. (general)

Discrete Opinion Dynamics on Online Social Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Yan-Li; Bai, Liang; Zhang, Wei-Ming

2013-01-01

This paper focuses on the dynamics of binary opinions {+1, -1} on online social networks consisting of heterogeneous actors. In our model, actors update their opinions under the interplay of social influence and self- affirmation, which leads to rich dynamical behaviors on online social networks. We find that the opinion leading to the consensus features an advantage of the initially weighted fraction based on actors' strength over the other, instead of the population. For the role of specific actors, the consensus converges towards the opinion that a small fraction of high-strength actors hold, and individual diversity of self-affirmation slows down the ordering process of consensus. These indicate that high-strength actors play an essential role in opinion formation with strong social influence as well as high persistence. Further investigations show that the initial fraction of high-strength actors to dominate the evolution depends on the heterogeneity of the strength distribution, and less high-strength actors are needed in the case of a smaller exponent of power-law distribution of actors' strength. Our study provides deep insights into the role of social influence and self-affirmation on opinion formation on online social networks.

Understanding the process of social network evolution: Online-offline integrated analysis of social tie formation.

Science.gov (United States)

Kwak, Doyeon; Kim, Wonjoon

2017-01-01

It is important to consider the interweaving nature of online and offline social networks when we examine social network evolution. However, it is difficult to find any research that examines the process of social tie formation from an integrated perspective. In our study, we quantitatively measure offline interactions and examine the corresponding evolution of online social network in order to understand the significance of interrelationship between online and offline social factors in generating social ties. We analyze the radio signal strength indicator sensor data from a series of social events to understand offline interactions among the participants and measure the structural attributes of their existing online Facebook social networks. By monitoring the changes in their online social networks before and after offline interactions in a series of social events, we verify that the ability to develop an offline interaction into an online friendship is tied to the number of social connections that participants previously had, while the presence of shared mutual friends between a pair of participants disrupts potential new connections within the pre-designed offline social events. Thus, while our integrative approach enables us to confirm the theory of preferential attachment in the process of network formation, the common neighbor theory is not supported. Our dual-dimensional network analysis allows us to observe the actual process of social network evolution rather than to make predictions based on the assumption of self-organizing networks.

Understanding the process of social network evolution: Online-offline integrated analysis of social tie formation.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Doyeon Kwak

Full Text Available It is important to consider the interweaving nature of online and offline social networks when we examine social network evolution. However, it is difficult to find any research that examines the process of social tie formation from an integrated perspective. In our study, we quantitatively measure offline interactions and examine the corresponding evolution of online social network in order to understand the significance of interrelationship between online and offline social factors in generating social ties. We analyze the radio signal strength indicator sensor data from a series of social events to understand offline interactions among the participants and measure the structural attributes of their existing online Facebook social networks. By monitoring the changes in their online social networks before and after offline interactions in a series of social events, we verify that the ability to develop an offline interaction into an online friendship is tied to the number of social connections that participants previously had, while the presence of shared mutual friends between a pair of participants disrupts potential new connections within the pre-designed offline social events. Thus, while our integrative approach enables us to confirm the theory of preferential attachment in the process of network formation, the common neighbor theory is not supported. Our dual-dimensional network analysis allows us to observe the actual process of social network evolution rather than to make predictions based on the assumption of self-organizing networks.

Foraging Online Social Networks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Koot, G.; Huis in ’t Veld, M.A.A.; Hendricksen, J.; Vries, A. de; Broek, E.L. van den

2014-01-01

A concise and practical introduction is given on Online Social Networks (OSN) and their application in law enforcement, including a brief survey of related work. Subsequently, a tool is introduced that can be used to search OSN in order to generate user profiles. Both its architecture and processing

Measurement of Online Social Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Gjoka, Mina

2010-01-01

In recent years, the popularity of online social networks (OSN) has risen to unprecedented levels, with the most popular ones having hundreds of millions of users. This success has generated interest within the networking community and has given rise to a number of measurement and characterization studies, which provide a first step towards their…

Online social network data as sociometric markers.

Science.gov (United States)

Binder, Jens F; Buglass, Sarah L; Betts, Lucy R; Underwood, Jean D M

2017-10-01

Data from online social networks carry enormous potential for psychological research, yet their use and the ethical implications thereof are currently hotly debated. The present work aims to outline in detail the unique information richness of this data type and, in doing so, to support researchers when deciding on ethically appropriate ways of collecting, storing, publishing, and sharing data from online sources. Focusing on the very nature of social networks, their structural characteristics, and depth of information, we provide a detailed and accessible account of the challenges associated with data management and data storage. In particular, the general nonanonymity of network data sets is discussed, and an approach is developed to quantify the level of uniqueness that a particular online network bestows upon the individual maintaining it. Using graph enumeration techniques, we show that comparatively sparse information on a network is suitable as a sociometric marker that allows for the identification of an individual from the global population of online users. The impossibility of anonymizing specific types of network data carries implications for ethical guidelines and research practice. At the same time, network uniqueness opens up opportunities for novel research in psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Content Propagation in Online Social Networks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Blenn, N.

2014-01-01

This thesis presents methods and techniques to analyze content propagation within online social networks (OSNs) using a graph theoretical approach. Important factors and different techniques to analyze and describe content propagation, starting from the smallest entity in a network, representing a

Community Structure in Online Collegiate Social Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Traud, Amanda; Kelsic, Eric; Mucha, Peter; Porter, Mason

2009-03-01

Online social networking sites have become increasingly popular with college students. The networks we studied are defined through ``friendships'' indicated by Facebook users from UNC, Oklahoma, Caltech, Georgetown, and Princeton. We apply the tools of network science to study the Facebook networks from these five different universities at a single point in time. We investigate each single-institution network's community structure, which we obtain through partitioning the graph using an eigenvector method. We use both graphical and quantitative tools, including pair-counting methods, which we interpret through statistical analysis and permutation tests to measure the correlations between the network communities and a set of characteristics given by each user (residence, class year, major, and high school). We also analyze the single gender subsets of these networks, and the impact of missing demographical data. Our study allows us to compare the online social networks for the five schools as well as infer differences in offline social interactions. At the schools studied, we were able to define which characteristics of the Facebook users correlate best with friendships.

Online Social Networks and the New Organizational Spaces

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cintia Rodrigues de Oliveira Medeiros

2013-04-01

Full Text Available We analyzed the ‘virtuality’ of the social space and the boundaries of organizations from the emergence and dissemination of online social networking. The purpose is to identify how the use of social networks by 10 Brazilian companies enables the redefinition and expansion of organizational space. For the analysis of the data, we used the theory of social space of Lefebvre (2004, which defines three moments of space social production: the imagined space, the lived space and the perceived space. The methodological qualitative approach is done by document analysis from the websites of the companies. We show that the organizational space has new contours with the adoption of online social networks and we analyzed four spatial metaphors: the square, the museum, the temple and the market.

Online networks, social interaction and segregation: An evolutionary approach

OpenAIRE

Antoci, Angelo; Sabatini, Fabio

2018-01-01

There is growing evidence that face-to-face interaction is declining in many countries, exacerbating the phenomenon of social isolation. On the other hand, social interaction through online networking sites is steeply rising. To analyze these societal dynamics, we have built an evolutionary game model in which agents can choose between three strategies of social participation: 1) interaction via both online social networks and face-to-face encounters; 2) interaction by exclusive means of face...

Offline Social Relationships and Online Cancer Communication: Effects of Social and Family Support on Online Social Network Building.

Science.gov (United States)

Namkoong, Kang; Shah, Dhavan V; Gustafson, David H

2017-11-01

This study investigates how social support and family relationship perceptions influence breast cancer patients' online communication networks in a computer-mediated social support (CMSS) group. To examine social interactions in the CMSS group, we identified two types of online social networks: open and targeted communication networks. The open communication network reflects group communication behaviors (i.e., one-to-many or "broadcast" communication) in which the intended audience is not specified; in contrast, the targeted communication network reflects interpersonal discourses (i.e., one-to-one or directed communication) in which the audience for the message is specified. The communication networks were constructed by tracking CMSS group usage data of 237 breast cancer patients who participated in one of two National Cancer Institute-funded randomized clinical trials. Eligible subjects were within 2 months of a diagnosis of primary breast cancer or recurrence at the time of recruitment. Findings reveal that breast cancer patients who perceived less availability of offline social support had a larger social network size in the open communication network. In contrast, those who perceived less family cohesion had a larger targeted communication network in the CMSS group, meaning they were inclined to use the CMSS group for developing interpersonal relationships.

Characterizing interactions in online social networks during exceptional events

Science.gov (United States)

Omodei, Elisa; De Domenico, Manlio; Arenas, Alex

2015-08-01

Nowadays, millions of people interact on a daily basis on online social media like Facebook and Twitter, where they share and discuss information about a wide variety of topics. In this paper, we focus on a specific online social network, Twitter, and we analyze multiple datasets each one consisting of individuals' online activity before, during and after an exceptional event in terms of volume of the communications registered. We consider important events that occurred in different arenas that range from policy to culture or science. For each dataset, the users' online activities are modeled by a multilayer network in which each layer conveys a different kind of interaction, specifically: retweeting, mentioning and replying. This representation allows us to unveil that these distinct types of interaction produce networks with different statistical properties, in particular concerning the degree distribution and the clustering structure. These results suggests that models of online activity cannot discard the information carried by this multilayer representation of the system, and should account for the different processes generated by the different kinds of interactions. Secondly, our analysis unveils the presence of statistical regularities among the different events, suggesting that the non-trivial topological patterns that we observe may represent universal features of the social dynamics on online social networks during exceptional events.

Online social networks for patient involvement and recruitment in clinical research.

Science.gov (United States)

Ryan, Gemma Sinead

2013-01-01

To review current literature and discuss the potential of online social networking to engage patients and the public and recruit and retain participants in clinical research. Online social networking is becoming a large influence on people's daily lives. Clinical research faces several challenges, with an increasing need to engage with patients and the public and for studies to recruit and retain increasing numbers of participants, particularly in under-served, under-represented and hard to reach groups and communities. Searches were conducted using EMBASE, BNI, ERIC, CINAHL, PSYCHinfo online databases and Google Scholar to identify any grey or unpublished literature that may be available. Review methods This is a methodology paper. Online social networking is a successful, cost-effective and efficient method by which to target and recruit a wide range of communities, adolescents, young people and underserved populations into quantitative and qualitative research. Retention of participants in longitudinal studies could be improved using social networks such as Facebook. Evidence indicates that a mixed approach to recruitment using social networking and traditional methods is most effective. Further research is required to strengthen the evidence available, especially in dissemination of research through online social networks. Researchers should consider using online social networking as a method of engaging the public, and also for the recruitment and follow up of participants.

An information spreading model based on online social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Tao; He, Juanjuan; Wang, Xiaoxia

2018-01-01

Online social platforms are very popular in recent years. In addition to spreading information, users could review or collect information on online social platforms. According to the information spreading rules of online social network, a new information spreading model, namely IRCSS model, is proposed in this paper. It includes sharing mechanism, reviewing mechanism, collecting mechanism and stifling mechanism. Mean-field equations are derived to describe the dynamics of the IRCSS model. Moreover, the steady states of reviewers, collectors and stiflers and the effects of parameters on the peak values of reviewers, collectors and sharers are analyzed. Finally, numerical simulations are performed on different networks. Results show that collecting mechanism and reviewing mechanism, as well as the connectivity of the network, make information travel wider and faster, and compared to WS network and ER network, the speed of reviewing, sharing and collecting information is fastest on BA network.

Online social networking: a primer for radiology.

Science.gov (United States)

Prasanna, Prasanth M; Seagull, F Jacob; Nagy, Paul

2011-10-01

Online social networking is an immature, but rapidly evolving industry of web-based technologies that allow individuals to develop online relationships. News stories populate the headlines about various websites which can facilitate patient and doctor interaction. There remain questions about protecting patient confidentiality and defining etiquette in order to preserve the doctor/patient relationship and protect physicians. How much social networking-based communication or other forms of E-communication is effective? What are the potential benefits and pitfalls of this form of communication? Physicians are exploring how social networking might provide a forum for interacting with their patients, and advance collaborative patient care. Several organizations and institutions have set forth policies to address these questions and more. Though still in its infancy, this form of media has the power to revolutionize the way physicians interact with their patients and fellow health care workers. In the end, physicians must ask what value is added by engaging patients or other health care providers in a social networking format. Social networks may flourish in health care as a means of distributing information to patients or serve mainly as support groups among patients. Physicians must tread a narrow path to bring value to interactions in these networks while limiting their exposure to unwanted liability.

Pharmacists on Facebook: online social networking and the profession.

Science.gov (United States)

Mattingly, T Joseph; Cain, Jeff; Fink, Joseph L

2010-01-01

To provide a brief history of Facebook and online social networking and discuss how it has contributed and can contribute in the future to a paradigm change in social communications. When student pharmacists complete school and enter practice, they encounter enhanced expectations to act appropriately and professionally. Facebook expands the dilemma of separating private and public life--a challenge for individuals in all professions. From the standpoint of a professional association, Facebook provides a tremendous opportunity to reach out to members in an unprecedented way. Pharmacy organizations are beginning to use these new tools to increase communication and dissemination of information. The popularity of Facebook has brought the issue of online social networking to the forefront of professional and organizational discussions. The issues of privacy, identity protection, and e-professionalism are likely to reappear as pharmacists and student pharmacists continue to communicate via online networks. The potential exists for organizations to harness this organizational and communication power for their own interests. Further study is needed regarding the interaction between online social networking applications and the profession of pharmacy.

Emergence, evolution and scaling of online social networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Le-Zhi; Huang, Zi-Gang; Rong, Zhi-Hai; Wang, Xiao-Fan; Lai, Ying-Cheng

2014-01-01

Online social networks have become increasingly ubiquitous and understanding their structural, dynamical, and scaling properties not only is of fundamental interest but also has a broad range of applications. Such networks can be extremely dynamic, generated almost instantaneously by, for example, breaking-news items. We investigate a common class of online social networks, the user-user retweeting networks, by analyzing the empirical data collected from Sina Weibo (a massive twitter-like microblogging social network in China) with respect to the topic of the 2011 Japan earthquake. We uncover a number of algebraic scaling relations governing the growth and structure of the network and develop a probabilistic model that captures the basic dynamical features of the system. The model is capable of reproducing all the empirical results. Our analysis not only reveals the basic mechanisms underlying the dynamics of the retweeting networks, but also provides general insights into the control of information spreading on such networks.

Emergence, evolution and scaling of online social networks.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Le-Zhi Wang

Full Text Available Online social networks have become increasingly ubiquitous and understanding their structural, dynamical, and scaling properties not only is of fundamental interest but also has a broad range of applications. Such networks can be extremely dynamic, generated almost instantaneously by, for example, breaking-news items. We investigate a common class of online social networks, the user-user retweeting networks, by analyzing the empirical data collected from Sina Weibo (a massive twitter-like microblogging social network in China with respect to the topic of the 2011 Japan earthquake. We uncover a number of algebraic scaling relations governing the growth and structure of the network and develop a probabilistic model that captures the basic dynamical features of the system. The model is capable of reproducing all the empirical results. Our analysis not only reveals the basic mechanisms underlying the dynamics of the retweeting networks, but also provides general insights into the control of information spreading on such networks.

Studies on the population dynamics of a rumor-spreading model in online social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Dong, Suyalatu; Fan, Feng-Hua; Huang, Yong-Chang

2018-02-01

This paper sets up a rumor spreading model in online social networks based on the European fox rabies SIR model. The model considers the impact of changing number of online social network users, combines the transmission dynamics to set up a population dynamics of rumor spreading model in online social networks. Simulation is carried out on online social network, and results show that the new rumor spreading model is in accordance with the real propagation characteristics in online social networks.

Effect of online social networking on employee productivity

OpenAIRE

A. Ferreira; T. du Plessis

2009-01-01

The popularity of social networking sites is relatively recent and the effect of online social networking (OSN) on employee productivity has not received much scholarly attention. The reason most likely lies in the social nature of social networking sites and OSN, which is assumed to have a negative effect on employee productivity and not bear organisational benefit. This reseach investigated recent Internet developments as seen in the social Web and specifically investigated the effect of OS...

Data Quality in Online Health Social Networks for Chronic Diseases

Science.gov (United States)

Venkatesan, Srikanth

2017-01-01

Can medical advice from other participants in online health social networks impact patient safety? What can we do alleviate this problem? How does the accuracy of information on such networks affect the patients?. There has been a significant increase , in recent years, in the use of online health social network sites as more patients seek to…

Security and trust in online social networks

CERN Document Server

Carminati, Barbara; Viviani, Marco; Viviani, Marco; Carminati, Barbara

2013-01-01

The enormous success and diffusion that online social networks (OSNs) are encountering nowadays is vastly apparent. Users' social interactions now occur using online social media as communication channels; personal information and activities are easily exchanged both for recreational and business purposes in order to obtain social or economic advantages. In this scenario, OSNs are considered critical applications with respect to the security of users and their resources, for their characteristics alone: the large amount of personal information they manage, big economic upturn connected to thei

Methods of Profile Cloning Detection in Online Social Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zabielski Michał

2016-01-01

Full Text Available With the arrival of online social networks, the importance of privacy on the Internet has increased dramatically. Thus, it is important to develop mechanisms that will prevent our hidden personal data from unauthorized access and use. In this paper an attempt was made to present a concept of profile cloning detection in Online Social Networks (OSN using Graph and Networks Theory. By analysing structural similarity of network and value of attributes of user personal profile, we will be able to search for attackers which steal our identity.

Academics and Social Networking Sites: Benefits, Problems and Tensions in Professional Engagement with Online Networking

OpenAIRE

Jordan, Katy; Weller, Martin

2018-01-01

The web has had a profound effect on the ways people interact, with online social networks arguably playing an important role in changing or augmenting how we connect with others. However, uptake of online social networking by the academic community varies, and needs to be understood. This paper presents an independent, novel analysis of a large-scale dataset published by Nature Publishing Group detailing the results of a survey about academics use of online social networking services. An ope...

Effective seeding strategy in evolutionary prisoner's dilemma games on online social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Bo; Shi, Huibin; Wang, Jianwei; Huang, Yun

2015-04-01

This paper explores effective seeding strategies in prisoner's dilemma game (PDG) on online social networks, i.e. the optimal strategy to obtain global cooperation with minimum cost. Three distinct seeding strategies are compared by performing computer simulations on real online social network datasets. Our finding suggests that degree centrality seeding outperforms other strategies regardless of the initial payoff setting or network size. Celebrities of online social networks play key roles in preserving cooperation.

Competition between global and local online social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Kleineberg, Kaj-Kolja; Boguñá, Marián

2016-04-01

The overwhelming success of online social networks, the key actors in the Web 2.0 cosmos, has reshaped human interactions globally. To help understand the fundamental mechanisms which determine the fate of online social networks at the system level, we describe the digital world as a complex ecosystem of interacting networks. In this paper, we study the impact of heterogeneity in network fitnesses on the competition between an international network, such as Facebook, and local services. The higher fitness of international networks is induced by their ability to attract users from all over the world, which can then establish social interactions without the limitations of local networks. In other words, inter-country social ties lead to increased fitness of the international network. To study the competition between an international network and local ones, we construct a 1:1000 scale model of the digital world, consisting of the 80 countries with the most Internet users. Under certain conditions, this leads to the extinction of local networks; whereas under different conditions, local networks can persist and even dominate completely. In particular, our model suggests that, with the parameters that best reproduce the empirical overtake of Facebook, this overtake could have not taken place with a significant probability.

Competition between global and local online social networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Kleineberg, Kaj-Kolja; Boguñá, Marián

2016-04-27

The overwhelming success of online social networks, the key actors in the Web 2.0 cosmos, has reshaped human interactions globally. To help understand the fundamental mechanisms which determine the fate of online social networks at the system level, we describe the digital world as a complex ecosystem of interacting networks. In this paper, we study the impact of heterogeneity in network fitnesses on the competition between an international network, such as Facebook, and local services. The higher fitness of international networks is induced by their ability to attract users from all over the world, which can then establish social interactions without the limitations of local networks. In other words, inter-country social ties lead to increased fitness of the international network. To study the competition between an international network and local ones, we construct a 1:1000 scale model of the digital world, consisting of the 80 countries with the most Internet users. Under certain conditions, this leads to the extinction of local networks; whereas under different conditions, local networks can persist and even dominate completely. In particular, our model suggests that, with the parameters that best reproduce the empirical overtake of Facebook, this overtake could have not taken place with a significant probability.

Sentiment Polarization and Balance among Users in Online Social Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hillmann, Robert; Trier, Matthias

2012-01-01

Communication within online social network applications enables users to express and share sentiments electronically. Existing studies examined the existence or distribution of sentiments in online communication at a general level or in small-observed groups. Our paper extends this research...... by analyzing sentiment exchange within social networks from an ego-network perspective. We draw from research on social influence and social attachment to develop theories of node polarization, balance effects and sentiment mirroring within communication dyads. Our empirical analysis covers a multitude...... of social networks in which the sentiment valence of all messages was determined. Subsequently we studied ego-networks of focal actors (ego) and their immediate contacts. Results support our theories and indicate that actors develop polarized sentiments towards individual peers but keep sentiment in balance...

EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG SOCIAL BENEFITS, ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORK DEPENDENCY, SATISFACTION, AND YOUTH’S HABIT FORMATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tran Van Dat

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Online social network is one of the biggest Internet phenomenon, which has attracted the interest of many marketers and psychologists who wanted to understand social network users’ behavior. Recognizing the lack of theoretical and empirical attention that has been given to this field, especially in Vietnam market, this study was conducted to examine the relationships among social benefits, online social network dependency, satisfaction, and youth’s habit formation in the context of Facebook. The findings of the study of 200 Facebook users indicated that the interrelationship among four factors of social benefits, online social network dependency, satisfaction, and habit formation affect each other. Indeed, dependency on online social network among the youth whose age ranged from 16 to 24 years old is significantly affected by social benefits factor and leads to the formation of habit. In addition, satisfaction plays a role in determining habitual Facebook use. This paper discusses theoretical and practical implication in marketing and psychology field.

Link prediction in multiplex online social networks

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Jalili, Mahdi; Orouskhani, Yasin; Asgari, Milad; Alipourfard, Nazanin; Perc, Matjaž

2017-02-01

Online social networks play a major role in modern societies, and they have shaped the way social relationships evolve. Link prediction in social networks has many potential applications such as recommending new items to users, friendship suggestion and discovering spurious connections. Many real social networks evolve the connections in multiple layers (e.g. multiple social networking platforms). In this article, we study the link prediction problem in multiplex networks. As an example, we consider a multiplex network of Twitter (as a microblogging service) and Foursquare (as a location-based social network). We consider social networks of the same users in these two platforms and develop a meta-path-based algorithm for predicting the links. The connectivity information of the two layers is used to predict the links in Foursquare network. Three classical classifiers (naive Bayes, support vector machines (SVM) and K-nearest neighbour) are used for the classification task. Although the networks are not highly correlated in the layers, our experiments show that including the cross-layer information significantly improves the prediction performance. The SVM classifier results in the best performance with an average accuracy of 89%.

Collective iteration behavior for online social networks

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Liu, Jian-Guo; Li, Ren-De; Guo, Qiang; Zhang, Yi-Cheng

2018-06-01

Understanding the patterns of collective behavior in online social network (OSNs) is critical to expanding the knowledge of human behavior and tie relationship. In this paper, we investigate a specific pattern called social signature in Facebook and Wiki users' online communication behaviors, capturing the distribution of frequency of interactions between different alters over time in the ego network. The empirical results show that there are robust social signatures of interactions no matter how friends change over time, which indicates that a stable commutation pattern exists in online communication. By comparing a random null model, we find the that commutation pattern is heterogeneous between ego and alters. Furthermore, in order to regenerate the pattern of the social signature, we present a preferential interaction model, which assumes that new users intend to look for the old users with strong ties while old users have tendency to interact with new friends. The experimental results show that the presented model can reproduce the heterogeneity of social signature by adjusting 2 parameters, the number of communicating targets m and the max number of interactions n, for Facebook users, m = n = 5, for Wiki users, m = 2 and n = 8. This work helps in deeply understanding the regularity of social signature.

Competitive diffusion in online social networks with heterogeneous users

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Li, Pei; He, Su; Wang, Hui; Zhang, Xin

2014-06-01

Online social networks have attracted increasing attention since they provide various approaches for hundreds of millions of people to stay connected with their friends. However, most research on diffusion dynamics in epidemiology cannot be applied directly to characterize online social networks, where users are heterogeneous and may act differently according to their standpoints. In this paper, we propose models to characterize the competitive diffusion in online social networks with heterogeneous users. We classify messages into two types (i.e., positive and negative) and users into three types (i.e., positive, negative and neutral). We estimate the positive (negative) influence for a user generating a given type message, which is the number of times that positive (negative) messages are processed (i.e., read) incurred by this action. We then consider the diffusion threshold, above which the corresponding influence will approach infinity, and the effect threshold, above which the unexpected influence of generating a message will exceed the expected one. We verify all these results by simulations, which show the analysis results are perfectly consistent with the simulation results. These results are of importance in understanding the diffusion dynamics in online social networks, and also critical for advertisers in viral marketing where there are fans, haters and neutrals.

Evolution of a large online social network

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hu Haibo; Wang Xiaofan

2009-01-01

Although recently there are extensive research on the collaborative networks and online communities, there is very limited knowledge about the actual evolution of the online social networks (OSN). In the Letter, we study the structural evolution of a large online virtual community. We find that the scale growth of the OSN shows non-trivial S shape which may provide a proper exemplification for Bass diffusion model. We reveal that the evolutions of many network properties, such as density, clustering, heterogeneity and modularity, show non-monotone feature, and shrink phenomenon occurs for the path length and diameter of the network. Furthermore, the OSN underwent a transition from degree assortativity characteristic of collaborative networks to degree disassortativity characteristic of many OSNs. Our study has revealed the evolutionary pattern of interpersonal interactions in a specific population and provided a valuable platform for theoretical modeling and further analysis

SEIR Model of Rumor Spreading in Online Social Network with Varying Total Population Size

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dong Suyalatu; Deng Yan-Bin; Huang Yong-Chang

2017-01-01

Based on the infectious disease model with disease latency, this paper proposes a new model for the rumor spreading process in online social network. In this paper what we establish an SEIR rumor spreading model to describe the online social network with varying total number of users and user deactivation rate. We calculate the exact equilibrium points and reproduction number for this model. Furthermore, we perform the rumor spreading process in the online social network with increasing population size based on the original real world Facebook network. The simulation results indicate that the SEIR model of rumor spreading in online social network with changing total number of users can accurately reveal the inherent characteristics of rumor spreading process in online social network . (paper)

Composition and structure of a large online social network in The Netherlands.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rense Corten

Full Text Available Limitations in data collection have long been an obstacle in research on friendship networks. Most earlier studies use either a sample of ego-networks, or complete network data on a relatively small group (e.g., a single organization. The rise of online social networking services such as Friendster and Facebook, however, provides researchers with opportunities to study friendship networks on a much larger scale. This study uses complete network data from Hyves, a popular online social networking service in The Netherlands, comprising over eight million members and over 400 million online friendship relations. In the first study of its kind for The Netherlands, I examine the structure of this network in terms of the degree distribution, characteristic path length, clustering, and degree assortativity. Results indicate that this network shares features of other large complex networks, but also deviates in other respects. In addition, a comparison with other online social networks shows that these networks show remarkable similarities.

Composition and structure of a large online social network in The Netherlands.

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Corten, Rense

2012-01-01

Limitations in data collection have long been an obstacle in research on friendship networks. Most earlier studies use either a sample of ego-networks, or complete network data on a relatively small group (e.g., a single organization). The rise of online social networking services such as Friendster and Facebook, however, provides researchers with opportunities to study friendship networks on a much larger scale. This study uses complete network data from Hyves, a popular online social networking service in The Netherlands, comprising over eight million members and over 400 million online friendship relations. In the first study of its kind for The Netherlands, I examine the structure of this network in terms of the degree distribution, characteristic path length, clustering, and degree assortativity. Results indicate that this network shares features of other large complex networks, but also deviates in other respects. In addition, a comparison with other online social networks shows that these networks show remarkable similarities.

Entrepreneur online social networks: structure, diversity and impact on start-up survival

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Song, Y.; Vinig, T.

2012-01-01

In this paper, we discuss the results of a pilot study in which we use a novel approach to collect entrepreneur online social network data from LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. We studied the size and structure of entrepreneur social networks by analysing the online network industry and location

SEIR Model of Rumor Spreading in Online Social Network with Varying Total Population Size

Science.gov (United States)

Dong, Suyalatu; Deng, Yan-Bin; Huang, Yong-Chang

2017-10-01

Based on the infectious disease model with disease latency, this paper proposes a new model for the rumor spreading process in online social network. In this paper what we establish an SEIR rumor spreading model to describe the online social network with varying total number of users and user deactivation rate. We calculate the exact equilibrium points and reproduction number for this model. Furthermore, we perform the rumor spreading process in the online social network with increasing population size based on the original real world Facebook network. The simulation results indicate that the SEIR model of rumor spreading in online social network with changing total number of users can accurately reveal the inherent characteristics of rumor spreading process in online social network. Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 11275017 and 11173028

Tweacher: New proposal for Online Social Networks Impact in Secondary Education

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sebastián ROMERO

2013-05-01

Full Text Available This paper presents and analyzes the potential uses and motivations of online social networks in education, with special emphasis on secondary education. First, we show several previous researches supporting the use of social networking as an educational tool and discuss Edmodo, an educative online social network. The work carried out during two academic years with senior students of primary and secondary schools is also analyzed. After that we present Tweacher an educative social network application and evaluate its use in the classroom to prove its useful use between teachers and students. This research has allowed us to see the reality of social network use among young people and identify the challenges of its application to education environment.

The Relationship Between Online Social Networking and Depression: A Systematic Review of Quantitative Studies.

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Baker, David A; Algorta, Guillermo Perez

2016-11-01

Online social networking sites (SNSs) such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace are used by billions of people every day to communicate and interact with others. There has been increasing interest in the potential impact of online social networking on wellbeing, with a broadening body of new research into factors associated with both positive and negative mental health outcomes such as depression. This systematic review of empirical studies (n = 30) adds to existing research in this field by examining current quantitative studies focused on the relationship between online social networking and symptoms of depression. The academic databases PsycINFO, Web of Science, CINAHL, MEDLINE, and EMBASE were searched systematically using terms related to online social networking and depression. Reporting quality was critically appraised and the findings discussed with reference to their wider implications. The findings suggest that the relationship between online social networking and symptoms of depression may be complex and associated with multiple psychological, social, behavioral, and individual factors. Furthermore, the impact of online social networking on wellbeing may be both positive and negative, highlighting the need for future research to determine the impact of candidate mediators and moderators underlying these heterogeneous outcomes across evolving networks.

Quantifying Users' Interconnectedness in Online Social Networks - An Indispensible Step for Economic Valuation

Science.gov (United States)

Gneiser, Martin; Heidemann, Julia; Klier, Mathias; Landherr, Andrea; Probst, Florian

Online social networks have been gaining increasing economic importance in light of the rising number of their users. Numerous recent acquisitions priced at enormous amounts have illustrated this development and revealed the need for adequate business valuation models. The value of an online social network is largely determined by the value of its users, the relationships between these users, and the resulting network effects. Therefore, the interconnectedness of a user within the network has to be considered explicitly to get a reasonable estimate for the economic value. Established standard business valuation models, however, do not sufficiently take these aspects into account. Thus, we propose a measure based on the PageRank-algorithm to quantify users’ interconnectedness in an online social network. This is a first but indispensible step towards an adequate economic valuation of online social networks.

A Study of Malware Propagation via Online Social Networking

Science.gov (United States)

Faghani, Mohammad Reza; Nguyen, Uyen Trang

The popularity of online social networks (OSNs) have attracted malware creators who would use OSNs as a platform to propagate automated worms from one user's computer to another's. On the other hand, the topic of malware propagation in OSNs has only been investigated recently. In this chapter, we discuss recent advances on the topic of malware propagation by way of online social networking. In particular, we present three malware propagation techniques in OSNs, namely cross site scripting (XSS), Trojan and clickjacking types, and their characteristics via analytical models and simulations.

Academics and Social Networking Sites: Benefits, Problems and Tensions in Professional Engagement with Online Networking

Science.gov (United States)

Jordan, Katy; Weller, Martin

2018-01-01

The web has had a profound effect on the ways people interact, with online social networks arguably playing an important role in changing or augmenting how we connect with others. However, uptake of online social networking by the academic community varies, and needs to be understood. This paper presents an independent, novel analysis of a…

Scaling-Up Youth-Led Social Justice Efforts through an Online School-Based Social Network.

Science.gov (United States)

Kornbluh, Mariah; Neal, Jennifer Watling; Ozer, Emily J

2016-06-01

The exploration of social networking sites (SNS) in promoting social change efforts offers great potential within the field of community psychology. Online communities on SNS provide opportunities for bridging across groups, thus fostering the exchange of novel ideas and practices. Currently, there have only been limited efforts to examine SNS within the context of youth-led efforts. To explore the potential of SNS to facilitate the diffusion of social justice efforts between distinct youth groups, we linked three school-based youth-led participatory action research projects involving 54 high school students through a SNS. This study offers an innovative methodological approach and framework, utilizing social network analysis and strategic sampling of key student informants to investigate what individual behaviors and online network features predict student adoption of social change efforts. Findings highlight prospective facilitators and barriers to diffusion processes within a youth-led online network, as well as key constructs that may inform future research. We conclude by providing suggestions for scholars and practitioners interested in examining how SNS can be used to enhance the diffusion of social justice strategies, youth-led engagement efforts, and large-scale civic organizing. © Society for Community Research and Action 2016.

Cognitive Benefits of Online Social Networking for Healthy Older Adults.

Science.gov (United States)

Myhre, Janelle W; Mehl, Matthias R; Glisky, Elizabeth L

2017-09-01

Research suggests that older adults who remain socially active and cognitively engaged have better cognitive function than those who are isolated and disengaged. This study examined the efficacy of learning and using an online social networking website, Facebook.com, as an intervention to maintain or enhance cognitive function in older adults. Forty-one older adults were assigned to learn and use Facebook (n = 14) or an online diary website (active control, n = 13) for 8 weeks or placed on a waitlist (n = 14). Outcome measures included neuropsychological tests of executive functions, memory, and processing speed and self-report questionnaires about social engagement. The Facebook group showed a significant increase in a composite measure of updating, an executive function factor associated with complex working memory tasks, compared to no significant change in the control groups. Other measures of cognitive function and social support showed no differential improvement in the Facebook group. Learning and using an online social networking site may provide specific benefits for complex working memory in a group of healthy older adults. This may reflect the particular cognitive demands associated with online social networking and/or the benefits of social engagement more generally. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

The Relationship Between Use of Social Network Sites, Online Social Support, and Well-Being

Science.gov (United States)

2017-01-01

Abstract. Existing work on the effects of social network sites (SNS) on well-being has often stressed that SNS can help people gain social support from their online networks, which positively affects their well-being. However, the majority of studies in this area have been cross-sectional in nature and/or relied on student samples. Using data from six waves of a longitudinal study with a representative sample of Dutch Internet users, we first examined whether users and nonusers of SNS differ in online social support and well-being (as indicated by life satisfaction and stress). In a second step, we investigated in more detail how SNS use – more specifically, asking for advice and the number of strong ties on these SNS – are related to online social support, stress, and satisfaction with life. Overall, our results provide no evidence for SNS use and online social support affecting either stress or life satisfaction. SNS users reported more online social support than nonusers did, but also higher levels of stress; the two groups did not differ in overall life satisfaction. With regard to the underlying processes, we found positive cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships between asking for advice on SNS and online social support, indicating that SNS can be an effective tool for receiving social support. However, online social support was not related to higher life satisfaction or reduced stress 6 months later; instead, it seems that SNS users with lower life satisfaction and/or higher stress seek more social support online by asking for advice on SNS. PMID:29147141

Analyzing the Dynamics of Communication in Online Social Networks

Science.gov (United States)

de Choudhury, Munmun; Sundaram, Hari; John, Ajita; Seligmann, Doree Duncan

This chapter deals with the analysis of interpersonal communication dynamics in online social networks and social media. Communication is central to the evolution of social systems. Today, the different online social sites feature variegated interactional affordances, ranging from blogging, micro-blogging, sharing media elements (i.e., image, video) as well as a rich set of social actions such as tagging, voting, commenting and so on. Consequently, these communication tools have begun to redefine the ways in which we exchange information or concepts, and how the media channels impact our online interactional behavior. Our central hypothesis is that such communication dynamics between individuals manifest themselves via two key aspects: the information or concept that is the content of communication, and the channel i.e., the media via which communication takes place. We present computational models and discuss large-scale quantitative observational studies for both these organizing ideas. First, we develop a computational framework to determine the "interestingness" property of conversations cented around rich media. Second, we present user models of diffusion of social actions and study the impact of homophily on the diffusion process. The outcome of this research is twofold. First, extensive empirical studies on datasets from YouTube have indicated that on rich media sites, the conversations that are deemed "interesting" appear to have consequential impact on the properties of the social network they are associated with: in terms of degree of participation of the individuals in future conversations, thematic diffusion as well as emergent cohesiveness in activity among the concerned participants in the network. Second, observational and computational studies on large social media datasets such as Twitter have indicated that diffusion of social actions in a network can be indicative of future information cascades. Besides, given a topic, these cascades are often a

Do online social media cut through the constraints that limit the size of offline social networks?

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Dunbar, R I M

2016-01-01

The social brain hypothesis has suggested that natural social network sizes may have a characteristic size in humans. This is determined in part by cognitive constraints and in part by the time costs of servicing relationships. Online social networking offers the potential to break through the glass ceiling imposed by at least the second of these, potentially enabling us to maintain much larger social networks. This is tested using two separate UK surveys, each randomly stratified by age, gender and regional population size. The data show that the size and range of online egocentric social networks, indexed as the number of Facebook friends, is similar to that of offline face-to-face networks. For one sample, respondents also specified the number of individuals in the inner layers of their network (formally identified as support clique and sympathy group), and these were also similar in size to those observed in offline networks. This suggests that, as originally proposed by the social brain hypothesis, there is a cognitive constraint on the size of social networks that even the communication advantages of online media are unable to overcome. In practical terms, it may reflect the fact that real (as opposed to casual) relationships require at least occasional face-to-face interaction to maintain them.

Gender differences in collaborative learning over online social networks: Epistemological beliefs and behaviors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rosanna Y.-Y. Chan

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Online social networks are popular venues for computer-supported collaborative work and computer-supported collaborative learning. Professionals within the same discipline, such as software developers, often interact over various social network sites for knowledge updates and collective understandings. The current study aims at gathering empirical evidences concerning gender differences in online social network beliefs and behaviors. A total of 53 engineering postgraduate students were engaged in a blogging community for collaborative learning. Participants’ beliefs about collaboration and nature of knowledge and knowing (i.e. epistemological beliefs are investigated. More specifically, social network analysis metrics including in-degree, out-degree, closeness centrality, and betweenness centrality are obtained from an 8-interval longitudinal SNA. Methodologically speaking, the current work puts forward mixed methods of longitudinal SNA and quantitative beliefs survey to explore online social network participants’ beliefs and behaviors. The study’s findings demonstrate significant gender differences in collaborative learning through online social networks, including (1 female engineering postgraduate students engage significantly more actively in online communications, (2 male engineering postgraduate students are more likely to be the potential controllers of information flows, and (3 gender differences exist in belief gains related to social aspects, but not individual's epistemic aspects. Overall, participants in both genders demonstrated enhanced beliefs in collaboration as well as the nature of knowledge and knowing.

Empirical analysis of online social networks in the age of Web 2.0

Science.gov (United States)

Fu, Feng; Liu, Lianghuan; Wang, Long

2008-01-01

Today the World Wide Web is undergoing a subtle but profound shift to Web 2.0, to become more of a social web. The use of collaborative technologies such as blogs and social networking site (SNS) leads to instant online community in which people communicate rapidly and conveniently with each other. Moreover, there are growing interest and concern regarding the topological structure of these new online social networks. In this paper, we present empirical analysis of statistical properties of two important Chinese online social networks-a blogging network and an SNS open to college students. They are both emerging in the age of Web 2.0. We demonstrate that both networks possess small-world and scale-free features already observed in real-world and artificial networks. In addition, we investigate the distribution of topological distance. Furthermore, we study the correlations between degree (in/out) and degree (in/out), clustering coefficient and degree, popularity (in terms of number of page views) and in-degree (for the blogging network), respectively. We find that the blogging network shows disassortative mixing pattern, whereas the SNS network is an assortative one. Our research may help us to elucidate the self-organizing structural characteristics of these online social networks embedded in technical forms.

Facebook and romantic relationships: intimacy and couple satisfaction associated with online social network use.

Science.gov (United States)

Hand, Matthew M; Thomas, Donna; Buboltz, Walter C; Deemer, Eric D; Buyanjargal, Munkhsanaa

2013-01-01

Online social networks, such as Facebook, have gained immense popularity and potentially affect the way people build and maintain interpersonal relationships. The present study sought to examine time spent on online social networks, as it relates to intimacy and relationship satisfaction experienced in romantic relationships. Results did not find relationships between an individual's usage of online social networks and his/her perception of relationship satisfaction and intimacy. However, the study found a negative relationship between intimacy and the perception of a romantic partner's use of online social networks. This finding may allude to an attributional bias in which individuals are more likely to perceive a partner's usage as negative compared to their own usage. Additionally, it was found that intimacy mediates the relationship between online social network usage and overall relationship satisfaction, which suggests that the level of intimacy experienced in a relationship may serve as a buffer that protects the overall level of satisfaction.

Online Social Networking and Mental Health

Science.gov (United States)

2014-01-01

Abstract During the past decade, online social networking has caused profound changes in the way people communicate and interact. It is unclear, however, whether some of these changes may affect certain normal aspects of human behavior and cause psychiatric disorders. Several studies have indicated that the prolonged use of social networking sites (SNS), such as Facebook, may be related to signs and symptoms of depression. In addition, some authors have indicated that certain SNS activities might be associated with low self-esteem, especially in children and adolescents. Other studies have presented opposite results in terms of positive impact of social networking on self-esteem. The relationship between SNS use and mental problems to this day remains controversial, and research on this issue is faced with numerous challenges. This concise review focuses on the recent findings regarding the suggested connection between SNS and mental health issues such as depressive symptoms, changes in self-esteem, and Internet addiction. PMID:25192305

Online social networking and mental health.

Science.gov (United States)

Pantic, Igor

2014-10-01

During the past decade, online social networking has caused profound changes in the way people communicate and interact. It is unclear, however, whether some of these changes may affect certain normal aspects of human behavior and cause psychiatric disorders. Several studies have indicated that the prolonged use of social networking sites (SNS), such as Facebook, may be related to signs and symptoms of depression. In addition, some authors have indicated that certain SNS activities might be associated with low self-esteem, especially in children and adolescents. Other studies have presented opposite results in terms of positive impact of social networking on self-esteem. The relationship between SNS use and mental problems to this day remains controversial, and research on this issue is faced with numerous challenges. This concise review focuses on the recent findings regarding the suggested connection between SNS and mental health issues such as depressive symptoms, changes in self-esteem, and Internet addiction.

Your Health Buddies Matter: Preferential Selection and Social Influence on Weight Management in an Online Health Social Network.

Science.gov (United States)

Meng, Jingbo

2016-12-01

A growing number of online social networks are designed with the intention to promote health by providing virtual space wherein individuals can seek and share information and support with similar others. Research has shown that real-world social networks have a significant influence on one's health behavior and outcomes. However, there is a dearth of studies on how individuals form social networks in virtual space and whether such online social networks exert any impact on individuals' health outcomes. Built on the Multi-Theoretical Multilevel (MTML) framework and drawing from literature on social influence, this study examined the mechanisms underlying the formation of an online health social network and empirically tested social influence on individual health outcomes through the network. Situated in a weight management social networking site, the study tracked a health buddy network of 709 users and their weight management activities and outcomes for 4 months. Actor-based modeling was used to test the joint dynamics of preferential selection and social influence among health buddies. The results showed that baseline, inbreeding, and health status homophily significantly predicted preferential selection of health buddies in the weight management social networking site, whereas self-interest in seeking experiential health information did not. The study also found peer influence of online health buddy networks on individual weight outcomes, such that an individual's odds of losing weight increased if, on average, the individual's health buddies were losing weight.

Online social networking and the experience of cyber-bullying.

Science.gov (United States)

O'Dea, Bridianne; Campbell, Andrew

2012-01-01

Online social networking sites (SNS) are popular social tools used amongst adolescents and account for much of their daily internet activity. Recently, these sites have presented opportunities for youth to experience cyber-bullying. Often resulting in psychological distress, cyber-bullying is a common experience for many young people. Continual use of SNS signifies the importance of examining its links to cyber-bullying. This study examined the relationship between online social networking and the experience of cyber-bullying. A total of 400 participants (Mage=14.31 years) completed an online survey which examined the perceived definitions and frequency of cyber-bullying. Users of SNS reported significantly higher frequencies of stranger contact compared to non-users. Spearman's rho correlations determined no significant relationship between daily time on SNS and the frequency of stranger contact. This suggests that ownership of a SNS profile may be a stronger predictor of some cyber-bullying experiences compared to time spent on these sites. Findings encourage continued research on the nature of internet activities used by young adolescents and the possible exposure to online victimization.

Blessed Oblivion? Knowledge and Metacognitive Accuracy in Online Social Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Moll, Ricarda; Pieschl, Stephanie; Bromme, Rainer

2015-01-01

In order to reap the social gratifications of Online Social Networks (OSNs), users often disclose self-related information, making them potentially vulnerable to their online audiences. We give a brief overview of our theoretical ideas and empirical research about additional cognitive and metacognitive factors relevant for the perception of risk…

Incorporating profile information in community detection for online social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Fan, W.; Yeung, K. H.

2014-07-01

Community structure is an important feature in the study of complex networks. It is because nodes of the same community may have similar properties. In this paper we extend two popular community detection methods to partition online social networks. In our extended methods, the profile information of users is used for partitioning. We apply the extended methods in several sample networks of Facebook. Compared with the original methods, the community structures we obtain have higher modularity. Our results indicate that users' profile information is consistent with the community structure of their friendship network to some extent. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to discuss how profile information can be used to improve community detection in online social networks.

Things online social networking can take away: Reminders of social networking sites undermine the desirability of offline socializing and pleasures.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Shiang-Shiang; Chang, Yevvon Yi-Chi; Chiou, Wen-Bin

2017-04-01

People are beginning to develop symbiotic relationships with social networking sites (SNSs), which provide users with abundant opportunities for social interaction. We contend that if people perceive SNSs as sources of social connection, the idea of SNSs may reduce the desire to pursue offline social activities and offline pleasures. Experiment 1 demonstrated that priming with SNSs was associated with a weakened desirability of offline social activities and an increased inclination to work alone. Felt relatedness mediated the link between SNS primes and reduced desire to engage in offline social activities. Experiment 2 showed that exposure to SNS primes reduced the desirability of offline socializing and lowered the desire for offline pleasurable experiences as well. Moreover, heavy users were more susceptible to this detrimental effect. We provide the first experimental evidence that the idea of online social networking may modulate users' engagement in offline social activities and offline pleasures. Hence, online social networking may satisfy the need for relatedness but undercut the likelihood of reaping enjoyment from offline social life. © 2016 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Optimizing online social networks for information propagation.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Duan-Bing Chen

Full Text Available Online users nowadays are facing serious information overload problem. In recent years, recommender systems have been widely studied to help people find relevant information. Adaptive social recommendation is one of these systems in which the connections in the online social networks are optimized for the information propagation so that users can receive interesting news or stories from their leaders. Validation of such adaptive social recommendation methods in the literature assumes uniform distribution of users' activity frequency. In this paper, our empirical analysis shows that the distribution of online users' activity is actually heterogenous. Accordingly, we propose a more realistic multi-agent model in which users' activity frequency are drawn from a power-law distribution. We find that previous social recommendation methods lead to serious delay of information propagation since many users are connected to inactive leaders. To solve this problem, we design a new similarity measure which takes into account users' activity frequencies. With this similarity measure, the average delay is significantly shortened and the recommendation accuracy is largely improved.

Optimizing online social networks for information propagation.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Duan-Bing; Wang, Guan-Nan; Zeng, An; Fu, Yan; Zhang, Yi-Cheng

2014-01-01

Online users nowadays are facing serious information overload problem. In recent years, recommender systems have been widely studied to help people find relevant information. Adaptive social recommendation is one of these systems in which the connections in the online social networks are optimized for the information propagation so that users can receive interesting news or stories from their leaders. Validation of such adaptive social recommendation methods in the literature assumes uniform distribution of users' activity frequency. In this paper, our empirical analysis shows that the distribution of online users' activity is actually heterogenous. Accordingly, we propose a more realistic multi-agent model in which users' activity frequency are drawn from a power-law distribution. We find that previous social recommendation methods lead to serious delay of information propagation since many users are connected to inactive leaders. To solve this problem, we design a new similarity measure which takes into account users' activity frequencies. With this similarity measure, the average delay is significantly shortened and the recommendation accuracy is largely improved.

Analysis of Online Social Networks to Understand Information Sharing Behaviors Through Social Cognitive Theory.

Science.gov (United States)

Yoon, Hong-Jun; Tourassi, Georgia

2014-05-01

Analyzing the contents of online social networks is an effective process for monitoring and understanding peoples' behaviors. Since the nature of conversation and information propagation is similar to traditional conversation and learning, one of the popular socio-cognitive methods, social cognitive theory was applied to online social networks to. Two major news topics about colon cancer were chosen to monitor traffic of Twitter messages. The activity of "leaders" on the issue (i.e., news companies or people will prior Twitter activity on topics related to colon cancer) was monitored. In addition, the activity of "followers", people who never discussed the topics before, but replied to the discussions was also monitored. Topics that produce tangible benefits such as positive outcomes from appropriate preventive actions received dramatically more attention and online social media traffic. Such characteristics can be explained with social cognitive theory and thus present opportunities for effective health campaigns.

Understanding Online Health Groups for Depression: Social Network and Linguistic Perspectives.

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Ronghua; Zhang, Qingpeng

2016-03-10

Mental health problems have become increasingly prevalent in the past decade. With the advance of Web 2.0 technologies, social media present a novel platform for Web users to form online health groups. Members of online health groups discuss health-related issues and mutually help one another by anonymously revealing their mental conditions, sharing personal experiences, exchanging health information, and providing suggestions and support. The conversations in online health groups contain valuable information to facilitate the understanding of their mutual help behaviors and their mental health problems. We aimed to characterize the conversations in a major online health group for major depressive disorder (MDD) patients in a popular Chinese social media platform. In particular, we intended to explain how Web users discuss depression-related issues from the perspective of the social networks and linguistic patterns revealed by the members' conversations. Social network analysis and linguistic analysis were employed to characterize the social structure and linguistic patterns, respectively. Furthermore, we integrated both perspectives to exploit the hidden relations between them. We found an intensive use of self-focus words and negative affect words. In general, group members used a higher proportion of negative affect words than positive affect words. The social network of the MDD group for depression possessed small-world and scale-free properties, with a much higher reciprocity ratio and clustering coefficient value as compared to the networks of other social media platforms and classic network models. We observed a number of interesting relationships, either strong correlations or convergent trends, between the topological properties and linguistic properties of the MDD group members. (1) The MDD group members have the characteristics of self-preoccupation and negative thought content, according to Beck's cognitive theory of depression; (2) the social structure

Social networks and online environments: when science and practice co-evolve

OpenAIRE

Rosen, Devan; Barnett, George A.; Kim, Jang Hyun

2011-01-01

The science of social network analysis has co-evolved with the development of online environments and computer-mediated communication. Unique and precise data available from computer and information systems have allowed network scientists to explore novel social phenomena and develop new methods. Additionally, advances in the structural analysis and visualization of computer-mediated social networks have informed developers and shaped the design of social media tools. This article reviews som...

Does Sentiment Among Users in Online Social Networks Polarize or Balance Out?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Trier, Matthias; Hillmann, Robert

2017-01-01

Users express and share sentiments electronically when they communicate within online social network applications. One way to analyze such interdependent data is focusing on the inter-user relationships by applying a sociological perspective based on social network analysis. Existing studies exam...... examined the existence or distribution of sentiments in online communication at a general level or in small observed groups....

Limitation of degree information for analyzing the interaction evolution in online social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Shang, Ke-Ke; Yan, Wei-Sheng; Xu, Xiao-Ke

2014-04-01

Previously many studies on online social networks simply analyze the static topology in which the friend relationship once established, then the links and nodes will not disappear, but this kind of static topology may not accurately reflect temporal interactions on online social services. In this study, we define four types of users and interactions in the interaction (dynamic) network. We found that active, disappeared, new and super nodes (users) have obviously different strength distribution properties and this result also can be revealed by the degree characteristics of the unweighted interaction and friendship (static) networks. However, the active, disappeared, new and super links (interactions) only can be reflected by the strength distribution in the weighted interaction network. This result indicates the limitation of the static topology data on analyzing social network evolutions. In addition, our study uncovers the approximately stable statistics for the dynamic social network in which there are a large variation for users and interaction intensity. Our findings not only verify the correctness of our definitions, but also helped to study the customer churn and evaluate the commercial value of valuable customers in online social networks.

Professional Online Presence and Learning Networks: Educating for Ethical Use of Social Media

Science.gov (United States)

Forbes, Dianne

2017-01-01

In a teacher education context, this study considers the use of social media for building a professional online presence and learning network. This article provides an overview of uses of social media in teacher education, presents a case study of key processes in relation to professional online presence and learning networks, and highlights…

Similarity between community structures of different online social networks and its impact on underlying community detection

Science.gov (United States)

Fan, W.; Yeung, K. H.

2015-03-01

As social networking services are popular, many people may register in more than one online social network. In this paper we study a set of users who have accounts of three online social networks: namely Foursquare, Facebook and Twitter. Community structure of this set of users may be reflected in these three online social networks. Therefore, high correlation between these reflections and the underlying community structure may be observed. In this work, community structures are detected in all three online social networks. Also, we investigate the similarity level of community structures across different networks. It is found that they show strong correlation with each other. The similarity between different networks may be helpful to find a community structure close to the underlying one. To verify this, we propose a method to increase the weights of some connections in networks. With this method, new networks are generated to assist community detection. By doing this, value of modularity can be improved and the new community structure match network's natural structure better. In this paper we also show that the detected community structures of online social networks are correlated with users' locations which are identified on Foursquare. This information may also be useful for underlying community detection.

The strategic impact of social networks on the online gaming industry : strategic use of technology

OpenAIRE

Sousa, Sofia Taveira de

2012-01-01

This dissertation focuses on assessing the strategic potential of social networks by answering the following research question: Is there any strategic impact of social networks on the online gaming industry? In order to analyze the strategic potential of social networks for online games, we identify the main factors that online players consider as crucial for them to keep playing. These factors can either be related to the game’s strategy itself, such as all the details, graphics and ambig...

Configurations of using social networking sites and perceived online social capital among adults with and without disabilities

OpenAIRE

Viluckienė, Jolita; Ruškus, Jonas

2017-01-01

Drawing on nationally representative survey 2014 data, this article examines the implications of social networking sites (SNS) use and the relationship with perceived online social capital among Lithuanian adults with and without disabilities. By contributing to the wide academic discussion on the value of online and social networks for people with disabilities, this research shows that intensive participation on SNS (as Facebook) presupposes stronger affective and evaluative dimensions of so...

Leaking privacy and shadow profiles in online social networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia, David

2017-08-01

Social interaction and data integration in the digital society can affect the control that individuals have on their privacy. Social networking sites can access data from other services, including user contact lists where nonusers are listed too. Although most research on online privacy has focused on inference of personal information of users, this data integration poses the question of whether it is possible to predict personal information of nonusers. This article tests the shadow profile hypothesis, which postulates that the data given by the users of an online service predict personal information of nonusers. Using data from a disappeared social networking site, we perform a historical audit to evaluate whether personal data of nonusers could have been predicted with the personal data and contact lists shared by the users of the site. We analyze personal information of sexual orientation and relationship status, which follow regular mixing patterns in the social network. Going back in time over the growth of the network, we measure predictor performance as a function of network size and tendency of users to disclose their contact lists. This article presents robust evidence supporting the shadow profile hypothesis and reveals a multiplicative effect of network size and disclosure tendencies that accelerates the performance of predictors. These results call for new privacy paradigms that take into account the fact that individual privacy decisions do not happen in isolation and are mediated by the decisions of others.

Social and place-focused communities in location-based online social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Brown, Chloë; Nicosia, Vincenzo; Scellato, Salvatore; Noulas, Anastasios; Mascolo, Cecilia

2013-06-01

Thanks to widely available, cheap Internet access and the ubiquity of smartphones, millions of people around the world now use online location-based social networking services. Understanding the structural properties of these systems and their dependence upon users' habits and mobility has many potential applications, including resource recommendation and link prediction. Here, we construct and characterise social and place-focused graphs by using longitudinal information about declared social relationships and about users' visits to physical places collected from a popular online location-based social service. We show that although the social and place-focused graphs are constructed from the same data set, they have quite different structural properties. We find that the social and location-focused graphs have different global and meso-scale structure, and in particular that social and place-focused communities have negligible overlap. Consequently, group inference based on community detection performed on the social graph alone fails to isolate place-focused groups, even though these do exist in the network. By studying the evolution of tie structure within communities, we show that the time period over which location data are aggregated has a substantial impact on the stability of place-focused communities, and that information about place-based groups may be more useful for user-centric applications than that obtained from the analysis of social communities alone.

Private Sharing of User Location over Online Social Networks

OpenAIRE

Freudiger, Julien; Neu, Raoul; Hubaux, Jean-Pierre

2010-01-01

Online social networks increasingly allow mobile users to share their location with their friends. Much to the detriment of users’ privacy, this also means that social network operators collect users’ lo- cation. Similarly, third parties can learn users’ location from localization and location visualization services. Ideally, third-parties should not be given complete access to users’ location. To protect location privacy, we design and implement a platform-independent solution for users to s...

Psychodynamic Factors Behind Online Social Networking and its Excessive Use.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Thomas Cheuk Wing

2016-03-01

This article discusses the psychodynamic factors behind the popularity of one form of Internet activity, online social networking (SN). It views online SN as an extension of the social self, organized in a way that is more controllable than real life relating. The SN platforms reward its users with reassuring surfaces and novel self-object experiences while at the same time induces much anxiety. The addictive quality of online SN is understood in the context of collapse of dialectical space and the defensive use of this technology.

Friend or Foe? Fake Profile Identification in Online Social Networks

OpenAIRE

Fire, Michael; Kagan, Dima; Elyashar, Aviad; Elovici, Yuval

2013-01-01

The amount of personal information unwillingly exposed by users on online social networks is staggering, as shown in recent research. Moreover, recent reports indicate that these networks are infested with tens of millions of fake users profiles, which may jeopardize the users' security and privacy. To identify fake users in such networks and to improve users' security and privacy, we developed the Social Privacy Protector software for Facebook. This software contains three protection layers,...

Comparing social factors affecting recommender decisions in online and educational social network

Science.gov (United States)

MartÍn, Estefanía; Hernán-Losada, Isidoro; Haya, Pablo A.

2016-01-01

In the educational context, there is an increasing interest in learning networks. Recommender systems (RSs) can play an important role in achieving educational objectives. Although we can find many papers focused on recommendation techniques and algorithms, in general, less attention has been dedicated to social factors that influence the recommendation process. This process could be improved if we had a deeper understanding of the social factors that influence the quality or validity of a suggestion made by the RS. This work elucidates and analyses the social factors that influence the design and decision-making process of RSs. We conducted a survey in which 126 undergraduate students were asked to extract which are the main factors for improving suggestions when they are interacting with an Online Social Network (OSN) or in an Educational Social Network (ESN). The results show that different factors have to be considered depending on the type of network.

Users structure and behavior on an online social network during a political protest

Science.gov (United States)

Morales, A. J.; Losada, J. C.; Benito, R. M.

2012-11-01

Over the past years, new technologies and specially online social networks have penetrated into the world’s population at an accelerated pace. In this paper we analyze collected data from the web application Twitter, in order to describe the structure and dynamics of the emergent social networks, based on complexity science. We focused on a Venezuelan protest that took place exclusively by Twitter during December, 2010. We found a community structure with highly connected hubs and three different kinds of user behavior that determine the information flow dynamics. We noticed that even though online social networks appear to be a pure social environment, traditional media still holds loads of influence inside the network.

Engineering Online and In-person Social Networks for Physical Activity: A Randomized Trial

Science.gov (United States)

Rovniak, Liza S.; Kong, Lan; Hovell, Melbourne F.; Ding, Ding; Sallis, James F.; Ray, Chester A.; Kraschnewski, Jennifer L.; Matthews, Stephen A.; Kiser, Elizabeth; Chinchilli, Vernon M.; George, Daniel R.; Sciamanna, Christopher N.

2016-01-01

Background Social networks can influence physical activity, but little is known about how best to engineer online and in-person social networks to increase activity. Purpose To conduct a randomized trial based on the Social Networks for Activity Promotion model to assess the incremental contributions of different procedures for building social networks on objectively-measured outcomes. Methods Physically inactive adults (n = 308, age, 50.3 (SD = 8.3) years, 38.3% male, 83.4% overweight/obese) were randomized to 1 of 3 groups. The Promotion group evaluated the effects of weekly emailed tips emphasizing social network interactions for walking (e.g., encouragement, informational support); the Activity group evaluated the incremental effect of adding an evidence-based online fitness walking intervention to the weekly tips; and the Social Networks group evaluated the additional incremental effect of providing access to an online networking site for walking, and prompting walking/activity across diverse settings. The primary outcome was mean change in accelerometer-measured moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), assessed at 3 and 9 months from baseline. Results Participants increased their MVPA by 21.0 mins/week, 95% CI [5.9, 36.1], p = .005, at 3 months, and this change was sustained at 9 months, with no between-group differences. Conclusions Although the structure of procedures for targeting social networks varied across intervention groups, the functional effect of these procedures on physical activity was similar. Future research should evaluate if more powerful reinforcers improve the effects of social network interventions. Trial Registration Number NCT01142804 PMID:27405724

A sneak into the Devil's Colony - Fake Profiles in Online Social Networks

OpenAIRE

Wani, Mudasir Ahmad; Jabin, Suraiya

2017-01-01

Online Social Networks (OSNs) play an important role for internet users to carry out their daily activities like content sharing, news reading, posting messages, product reviews and discussing events etc. At the same time, various kinds of spammers are also equally attracted towards these OSNs. These cyber criminals including sexual predators, online fraudsters, advertising campaigners, catfishes, and social bots etc. exploit the network of trust by various means especially by creating fake p...

Characteristics of Social Network Gamers: in between Social Networking and Online Role-Playing Games

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Olga eGeisel

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Current research on internet addiction (IA reported moderate to high prevalence rates of IA and comorbid psychiatric symptoms in users of social networking sites (SNS and online role-playing games. The aim of this study was to characterise adult users of an internet multiplayer strategy game within a SNS. Therefore, we conducted an exploratory study using an online survey to assess sociodemographic variables, psychopathology and the rate of IA in a sample of adult social network gamers by Young´s Internet Addiction Test (IAT, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS, the Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II, the Symptom Checklist-90-R (SCL-90-R and the WHO Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF. All participants were listed gamers of combat zone in the SNS Facebook. In the IAT analysis, 16.2 % of the participants (n = 60 were categorized as subjects with IA and 19.5 % (n = 72 fulfilled the criteria for alexithymia. Comparing study participants with and without IA, the IA group had significantly more subjects with alexithymia, reported more depressive symptoms, and showed poorer quality of life. These findings suggest that social network gaming might also be associated with maladaptive patterns of internet use. Furthermore, a relationship between IA, alexithymia and depressive symptoms was found that needs to be elucidated by future studies.

Online Social Networking, Sexual Risk and Protective Behaviors: Considerations for Clinicians and Researchers.

Science.gov (United States)

Holloway, Ian W; Dunlap, Shannon; Del Pino, Homero E; Hermanstyne, Keith; Pulsipher, Craig; Landovitz, Raphael J

2014-09-01

Online social networking refers to the use of internet-based technologies that facilitate connection and communication between users. These platforms may be accessed via computer or mobile device (e.g., tablet, smartphone); communication between users may include linking of profiles, posting of text, photo and video content, instant messaging and email. This review provides an overview of recent research on the relationship between online social networking and sexual risk and protective behaviors with a focus on use of social networking sites (SNS) among young people and populations at high risk for sexually transmitted infections (STIs). While findings are mixed, the widespread use of SNS for sexual communication and partner seeking presents opportunities for the delivery and evaluation of public health interventions. Results of SNS-based interventions to reduce sexual risk are synthesized in order to offer hands-on advice for clinicians and researchers interested in engaging patients and study participants via online social networking.

Multirelational organization of large-scale social networks in an online world.

Science.gov (United States)

Szell, Michael; Lambiotte, Renaud; Thurner, Stefan

2010-08-03

The capacity to collect fingerprints of individuals in online media has revolutionized the way researchers explore human society. Social systems can be seen as a nonlinear superposition of a multitude of complex social networks, where nodes represent individuals and links capture a variety of different social relations. Much emphasis has been put on the network topology of social interactions, however, the multidimensional nature of these interactions has largely been ignored, mostly because of lack of data. Here, for the first time, we analyze a complete, multirelational, large social network of a society consisting of the 300,000 odd players of a massive multiplayer online game. We extract networks of six different types of one-to-one interactions between the players. Three of them carry a positive connotation (friendship, communication, trade), three a negative (enmity, armed aggression, punishment). We first analyze these types of networks as separate entities and find that negative interactions differ from positive interactions by their lower reciprocity, weaker clustering, and fatter-tail degree distribution. We then explore how the interdependence of different network types determines the organization of the social system. In particular, we study correlations and overlap between different types of links and demonstrate the tendency of individuals to play different roles in different networks. As a demonstration of the power of the approach, we present the first empirical large-scale verification of the long-standing structural balance theory, by focusing on the specific multiplex network of friendship and enmity relations.

Are health behavior change interventions that use online social networks effective? A systematic review.

Science.gov (United States)

Maher, Carol A; Lewis, Lucy K; Ferrar, Katia; Marshall, Simon; De Bourdeaudhuij, Ilse; Vandelanotte, Corneel

2014-02-14

The dramatic growth of Web 2.0 technologies and online social networks offers immense potential for the delivery of health behavior change campaigns. However, it is currently unclear how online social networks may best be harnessed to achieve health behavior change. The intent of the study was to systematically review the current level of evidence regarding the effectiveness of online social network health behavior interventions. Eight databases (Scopus, CINAHL, Medline, ProQuest, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Cochrane, Web of Science and Communication & Mass Media Complete) were searched from 2000 to present using a comprehensive search strategy. Study eligibility criteria were based on the PICOS format, where "population" included child or adult populations, including healthy and disease populations; "intervention" involved behavior change interventions targeting key modifiable health behaviors (tobacco and alcohol consumption, dietary intake, physical activity, and sedentary behavior) delivered either wholly or in part using online social networks; "comparator" was either a control group or within subject in the case of pre-post study designs; "outcomes" included health behavior change and closely related variables (such as theorized mediators of health behavior change, eg, self-efficacy); and "study design" included experimental studies reported in full-length peer-reviewed sources. Reports of intervention effectiveness were summarized and effect sizes (Cohen's d and 95% confidence intervals) were calculated wherever possible. Attrition (percentage of people who completed the study), engagement (actual usage), and fidelity (actual usage/intended usage) with the social networking component of the interventions were scrutinized. A total of 2040 studies were identified from the database searches following removal of duplicates, of which 10 met inclusion criteria. The studies involved a total of 113,988 participants (ranging from n=10 to n=107,907). Interventions included

Local Social Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sapuppo, Antonio; Sørensen, Lene Tolstrup

2011-01-01

Online social networks have become essential for many users in their daily communication. Through a combination of the online social networks with opportunistic networks, a new concept arises: Local Social Networks. The target of local social networks is to promote social networking benefits...... in physical environment in order to leverage personal affinities in the users' surroundings. The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss the concept of local social networks as a new social communication system. Particularly, the preliminary architecture and the prototype of local social networks...

Engineering Online and In-Person Social Networks for Physical Activity: A Randomized Trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Rovniak, Liza S; Kong, Lan; Hovell, Melbourne F; Ding, Ding; Sallis, James F; Ray, Chester A; Kraschnewski, Jennifer L; Matthews, Stephen A; Kiser, Elizabeth; Chinchilli, Vernon M; George, Daniel R; Sciamanna, Christopher N

2016-12-01

Social networks can influence physical activity, but little is known about how best to engineer online and in-person social networks to increase activity. The purpose of this study was to conduct a randomized trial based on the Social Networks for Activity Promotion model to assess the incremental contributions of different procedures for building social networks on objectively measured outcomes. Physically inactive adults (n = 308, age, 50.3 (SD = 8.3) years, 38.3 % male, 83.4 % overweight/obese) were randomized to one of three groups. The Promotion group evaluated the effects of weekly emailed tips emphasizing social network interactions for walking (e.g., encouragement, informational support); the Activity group evaluated the incremental effect of adding an evidence-based online fitness walking intervention to the weekly tips; and the Social Networks group evaluated the additional incremental effect of providing access to an online networking site for walking as well as prompting walking/activity across diverse settings. The primary outcome was mean change in accelerometer-measured moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), assessed at 3 and 9 months from baseline. Participants increased their MVPA by 21.0 min/week, 95 % CI [5.9, 36.1], p = .005, at 3 months, and this change was sustained at 9 months, with no between-group differences. Although the structure of procedures for targeting social networks varied across intervention groups, the functional effect of these procedures on physical activity was similar. Future research should evaluate if more powerful reinforcers improve the effects of social network interventions. The trial was registered with the ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT01142804).

Addiction to Internet Use, Online Gaming, and Online Social Networking Among Young Adults in China, Singapore, and the United States.

Science.gov (United States)

Tang, Catherine So-Kum; Koh, Yee Woen; Gan, YiQun

2017-11-01

The current study investigated the rates of addictions to Internet use, online gaming, and online social networking as well as their associations with depressive symptoms among young adults in China, Singapore, and the United States. A total of 3267 undergraduate students were recruited. Psychological instruments were used to assess various Internet-related addictions and depressive symptoms. Male students were more addicted to Internet and online gaming whereas female students were more addicted to online social networking. Compared with students in the United States, Chinese and Singaporean students were more addicted to Internet use and online social networking but less to online gaming. The odds of depression among students with addiction to various Internet-related addictions were highest in China. Internet-related addiction is a new public health concern of young adults, especially in the Asia-Pacific regions. It is found to associate with depressive symptoms. Strategies should address this phenomenon with attention to specific needs of gender and region while managing mood disturbances.

User-friendly matching protocol for online social networks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tang, Qiang

2010-01-01

In this paper, we outline a privacy-preserving matching protocol for OSN (online social network) users to find their potential friends. With the proposed protocol, a logged-in user can match her profile with that of an off-line stranger, while both profiles are maximally protected. Our solution

Craving Facebook? Behavioral addiction to online social networking and its association with emotion regulation deficits.

Science.gov (United States)

Hormes, Julia M; Kearns, Brianna; Timko, C Alix

2014-12-01

To assess disordered online social networking use via modified diagnostic criteria for substance dependence, and to examine its association with difficulties with emotion regulation and substance use. Cross-sectional survey study targeting undergraduate students. Associations between disordered online social networking use, internet addiction, deficits in emotion regulation and alcohol use problems were examined using univariate and multivariate analyses of covariance. A large University in the Northeastern United States. Undergraduate students (n = 253, 62.8% female, 60.9% white, age mean = 19.68, standard deviation = 2.85), largely representative of the target population. The response rate was 100%. Disordered online social networking use, determined via modified measures of alcohol abuse and dependence, including DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for alcohol dependence, the Penn Alcohol Craving Scale and the Cut-down, Annoyed, Guilt, Eye-opener (CAGE) screen, along with the Young Internet Addiction Test, Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II, White Bear Suppression Inventory and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. Disordered online social networking use was present in 9.7% [n = 23; 95% confidence interval (5.9, 13.4)] of the sample surveyed, and significantly and positively associated with scores on the Young Internet Addiction Test (P addictive. Modified measures of substance abuse and dependence are suitable in assessing disordered online social networking use. Disordered online social networking use seems to arise as part of a cluster of symptoms of poor emotion regulation skills and heightened susceptibility to both substance and non-substance addiction. © 2014 Society for the Study of Addiction.

Environmental Learning in Online Social Networks: Adopting Environmentally Responsible Behaviors

Science.gov (United States)

Robelia, Beth A.; Greenhow, Christine; Burton, Lisa

2011-01-01

Online social networks are increasingly important information and communication tools for young people and for the environmental movement. Networks may provide the motivation for young adults to increase environmental behaviors by increasing their knowledge of environmental issues and of the specific actions they can take to reduce greenhouse gas…

Human-Centered Development of an Online Social Network for Metabolic Syndrome Management.

Science.gov (United States)

Núñez-Nava, Jefersson; Orozco-Sánchez, Paola A; López, Diego M; Ceron, Jesus D; Alvarez-Rosero, Rosa E

2016-01-01

According to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), a quarter of the world's population has Metabolic Syndrome (MS). To develop (and assess the users' degree of satisfaction of) an online social network for patients who suffer from Metabolic Syndrome, based on the recommendations and requirements of the Human-Centered Design. Following the recommendations of the ISO 9241-210 for Human-Centered Design (HCD), an online social network was designed to promote physical activity and healthy nutrition. In order to guarantee the active participation of the users during the development of the social network, a survey, an in-depth interview, a focal group, and usability tests were carried out with people suffering from MS. The study demonstrated how the different activities, recommendations, and requirements of the ISO 9241-210 are integrated into a traditional software development process. Early usability tests demonstrated that the user's acceptance and the effectiveness and efficiency of the social network are satisfactory.

Using the Internet, Online Social Networks and Potentially Incurred Risk: Student Opinions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gintautė Žibėnienė

2013-08-01

Full Text Available Regulation of harmful content on the Internet is a soaring problem in the expansion of the information society, and it is being discussed in different European countries. Therefore, it is important to discuss the issue of being safe online: to do research on what children think about when using the Internet, threats experienced while online, to discuss ways of recognising and protecting children from online threats (such as cyber bullying, bullying, abuse, temptations with purpose of sexual harassment, leaking of personal information, spreading, harmful and illegal Internet content, etc.. The research objective of this paper is to present the opinion of gymnasium students on using the Internet, online social networks and likely experienced threats. The methodology—opinion research of the gymnasium students, which was carried out 17–21 December 2012; an analysis of professional target publications and a questionnaire survey were also applied. Analysis of the research findings was based on the analysis methods of quantity analysis (descriptive and analysis of quality content. Statistical findings were analysed applying the software “Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS 21.0 for Windows.” According to the research of student opinion, it was revealed that the most common student online activities are browsing of chat websites, exchange of videos and other material, viewing, listening and participating in social networks, whereas erotica and viewing of pornography are the rarest activities and are unimportant for students. Online social networks are especially popular among students, as most interviewed students (95.3% have their own profile in social networks. Students mostly visit social networks to communicate, to make friends (77.1% of respondents, however, every second student (60.7% visits them just to spend time, which can be assumed about the problems of students’ leisure time. The vast majority of students think that

Interaction patterns of nurturant support exchanged in online health social networking.

Science.gov (United States)

Chuang, Katherine Y; Yang, Christopher C

2012-05-03

Expressing emotion in online support communities is an important aspect of enabling e-patients to connect with each other and expand their social resources. Indirectly it increases the amount of support for coping with health issues. Exploring the supportive interaction patterns in online health social networking would help us better understand how technology features impacts user behavior in this context. To build on previous research that identified different types of social support in online support communities by delving into patterns of supportive behavior across multiple computer-mediated communication formats. Each format combines different architectural elements, affecting the resulting social spaces. Our research question compared communication across different formats of text-based computer-mediated communication provided on the MedHelp.org health social networking environment. We identified messages with nurturant support (emotional, esteem, and network) across three different computer-mediated communication formats (forums, journals, and notes) of an online support community for alcoholism using content analysis. Our sample consisted of 493 forum messages, 423 journal messages, and 1180 notes. Nurturant support types occurred frequently among messages offering support (forum comments: 276/412 messages, 67.0%; journal posts: 65/88 messages, 74%; journal comments: 275/335 messages, 82.1%; and notes: 1002/1180 messages, 84.92%), but less often among messages requesting support. Of all the nurturing supports, emotional (ie, encouragement) appeared most frequently, with network and esteem support appearing in patterns of varying combinations. Members of the Alcoholism Community appeared to adapt some traditional face-to-face forms of support to their needs in becoming sober, such as provision of encouragement, understanding, and empathy to one another. The computer-mediated communication format may have the greatest influence on the supportive interactions

Analyzing the Social Networks of High- and Low-Performing Students in Online Discussion Forums

Science.gov (United States)

Ghadirian, Hajar; Salehi, Keyvan; Ayub, Ahmad Fauzi Mohd

2018-01-01

An ego network is an individual's social network relationships with core members. In this study, the ego network parameters in online discussion spaces of high- and low-performing students were compared. The extent to which students' ego networks changed over the course were also analyzed. Participation in 7 weeks of online discussions were…

Designing for Learning: Online Social Networks as a Classroom Environment

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Gail Casey

2011-11-01

Full Text Available This paper deploys notions of emergence, connections, and designs for learning to conceptualize high school students’ interactions when using online social media as a learning environment. It makes links to chaos and complexity theories and to fractal patterns as it reports on a part of the first author’s action research study, conducted while she was a teacher working in an Australian public high school and completing her PhD. The study investigates the use of a Ning online social network as a learning environment shared by seven classes, and it examines students’ reactions and online activity while using a range of social media and Web 2.0 tools.The authors use Graham Nuthall’s (2007 “lens on learning” to explore the social processes and culture of this shared online classroom. The paper uses his extensive body of research and analyses of classroom learning processes to conceptualize and analyze data throughout the action research cycle. It discusses the pedagogical implications that arise from the use of social media and, in so doing, challenges traditional models of teaching and learning.

Simulating Social Networks of Online Communities: Simulation as a Method for Sociability Design

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Ang, Chee Siang; Zaphiris, Panayiotis

We propose the use of social simulations to study and support the design of online communities. In this paper, we developed an Agent-Based Model (ABM) to simulate and study the formation of social networks in a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) guild community. We first analyzed the activities and the social network (who-interacts-with-whom) of an existing guild community to identify its interaction patterns and characteristics. Then, based on the empirical results, we derived and formalized the interaction rules, which were implemented in our simulation. Using the simulation, we reproduced the observed social network of the guild community as a means of validation. The simulation was then used to examine how various parameters of the community (e.g. the level of activity, the number of neighbors of each agent, etc) could potentially influence the characteristic of the social networks.

Adolescents' and Emerging Adults' Social Networking Online: Homophily or Diversity?

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Mazur, Elizabeth; Richards, Lacey

2011-01-01

More than half of all online American adolescents and emerging adults have created personal profiles for social networking on the Internet. Does homophily in their offline friendships extend online? Drawing mainly on research of face-to-face friendship, we collected data from the public spaces, called "walls," of 129 young Americans ages 16 to 19…

CONSUMER OPINIONS TOWARDS ONLINE MARKETING COMMUNICATION AND ADVERTISING ON SOCIAL NETWORKS

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GHEORGHE ORZAN

2012-05-01

Full Text Available On the Internet, a medium that has already proven its effectiveness in marketing activities, changes take place with astonishing speed. The recent explosion of social networking applications and their number of users has captured the marketers’ attention. Companies have started to rethink their relationships with consumers and adapt to the new online world. In this virtual world of social networks the public is the key element. Consumers perceive the social network as a personal space where they control the content. They decide on their own what they want to see and share with others. Thus, in order to manage marketing communications effectively, marketers must know the consumers’ opinions towards their presence in social networks.

Effect of online social networking on employee productivity

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A. Ferreira

2009-02-01

Full Text Available The popularity of social networking sites is relatively recent and the effect of online social networking (OSN on employee productivity has not received much scholarly attention. The reason most likely lies in the social nature of social networking sites and OSN, which is assumed to have a negative effect on employee productivity and not bear organisational benefit. This reseach investigated recent Internet developments as seen in the social Web and specifically investigated the effect of OSN on employee productivity and what some of the consequences would be if employees were allowed unrestricted access to these networks. The findings concerning the nature of employees' OSN activities, employees' attitude or perceptions with regard to OSN in the workplace and how OSN can contribute or affect the productivity of employees are discussed in this article. Some of the basic misconceptions regarding OSN are highlighted and it is concluded that this technology can be used to increase collaboration between individuals who share a common interest or goal. Increased collaboration will stimulate knowledge sharing between individuals, with the possible effect of increased productivity. However, the risks associated with OSN should be noted, such as loss of privacy, bandwidth and storage consumption, exposure to malware and lower employee productivity.

Social networking site (SNS) use by adolescent mothers: Can social support and social capital be enhanced by online social networks? - A structured review of the literature.

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Nolan, Samantha; Hendricks, Joyce; Ferguson, Sally; Towell, Amanda

2017-05-01

to critically appraise the available literature and summarise the evidence relating to adolescent mothers' use of social networking sites in terms of any social support and social capital they may provide and to identify areas for future exploration. social networking sites have been demonstrated to provide social support to marginalised individuals and provide psycho-social benefits to members of such groups. Adolescent mothers are at risk of; social marginalisation; anxiety disorders and depressive symptoms; and poorer health and educational outcomes for their children. Social support has been shown to benefit adolescent mothers thus online mechanisms require consideration. a review of original research articles METHOD: key terms and Boolean operators identified research reports across a 20-year timeframe pertaining to the area of enquiry in: CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Medline, Scopus, ERIC, ProQuest, PsychINFO, Web of Science, Health Collection (Informit) and Google Scholar databases. Eight original research articles met the inclusion criteria for this review. studies demonstrate that adolescent mothers actively search for health information using the Internet and social networking sites, and that social support and social capital can be attributed to their use of specifically created online groups from within targeted health interventions. Use of a message board forum for pregnant and parenting adolescents also demonstrates elements of social support. There are no studies to date pertaining to adolescent mothers' use of globally accessible social networking sites in terms of social support provision and related outcomes. further investigation is warranted to explore the potential benefits of adolescent mothers' use of globally accessible social networking sites in terms of any social support provision and social capital they may provide. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Social and Virtual Networks: Evaluating Synchronous Online Interviewing Using Instant Messenger

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Hinchcliffe, Vanessa; Gavin, Helen

2009-01-01

This paper describes an evaluation of the quality and utility of synchronous online interviewing for data collection in social network research. Synchronous online interviews facilitated by Instant Messenger as the communication medium, were undertaken with ten final year university students. Quantitative and qualitative content analysis of…

Measurements and analysis of online social networks

OpenAIRE

González Sánchez, Roberto

2014-01-01

Mención Internacional Online Social Networks (OSNs) have become the most used Internet applications attracting hundreds of millions active users every day. The large amount of valuable information in OSNs (not even before available) has attracted the research community to design sophisticated techniques to collect, process, interpret and apply these data into a large range of disciplines including Sociology, Marketing, Computer Science, etc. This thesis presents a series of ...

Dimensionality and effects of information motivation on users’ online social network advertising acceptance

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IMRAN ANWAR MIR

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Social media has produced substantial changes in the communication landscape. Online social network sites (SNS grew as a common platform for online social interaction. SNS firms generate revenue from the advertising appearing on SNS. Their survival depends on users’ approval of such social network advertising (SNA. Marketing literature indicates that users accept advertising if it is consistent with their motivations for using social media. Information seeking is the most recognized SNS motivation. Yet, research on evaluating the influence of SNS information motivation on users’ approval of SNA is scarce. Based on SNS uses and gratifications theory, this study proposes a multidimensional model that shows the influence of SNS information motivation on users’ approval of SNA.

Choosing your network: social preferences in an online health community.

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Centola, Damon; van de Rijt, Arnout

2015-01-01

A growing number of online health communities offer individuals the opportunity to receive information, advice, and support from peers. Recent studies have demonstrated that these new online contacts can be important informational resources, and can even exert significant influence on individuals' behavior in various contexts. However little is known about how people select their health contacts in these virtual domains. This is because selection preferences in peer networks are notoriously difficult to detect. In existing networks, unobserved pressures on tie formation--such as common organizational memberships, introductions to friends of friends, or limitations on accessibility--may mistakenly be interpreted as individual preferences for interacting/not interacting with others. We address these issues by adopting a social media approach to studying network formation. We study social selection using an in vivo study within an online exercise program, in which anonymous participants have equal opportunities for initiating relationships with other program members. This design allows us to identify individuals' preferences for health contacts, and to evaluate what these preferences imply for members' access to new kinds of health information, and for the kinds of social influences to which they are exposed. The study was conducted within a goal-oriented fitness competition, in which participation was greatest among a small core of active individuals. Our results show that the active participants displayed indifference to the fitness and exercise profiles of others, disregarding information about others' fitness levels, exercise preferences, and workout experiences, instead selecting partners almost entirely on the basis of similarities on gender, age, and BMI. Interestingly, the findings suggest that rather than expanding and diversifying their sources of health information, participants' choices limited the value of their online resources by selecting contacts

Modeling geo-homopholy in online social networks for population distribution projection

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Yuanxing Zhang

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Purpose – Projecting the population distribution in geographical regions is important for many applications such as launching marketing campaigns or enhancing the public safety in certain densely populated areas. Conventional studies require the collection of people’s trajectory data through offline means, which is limited in terms of cost and data availability. The wide use of online social network (OSN apps over smartphones has provided the opportunities of devising a lightweight approach of conducting the study using the online data of smartphone apps. This paper aims to reveal the relationship between the online social networks and the offline communities, as well as to project the population distribution by modeling geo-homophily in the online social networks. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, the authors propose the concept of geo-homophily in OSNs to determine how much the data of an OSN can help project the population distribution in a given division of geographical regions. Specifically, the authors establish a three-layered theoretic framework that first maps the online message diffusion among friends in the OSN to the offline population distribution over a given division of regions via a Dirichlet process and then projects the floating population across the regions. Findings – By experiments over large-scale OSN data sets, the authors show that the proposed prediction models have a high prediction accuracy in characterizing the process of how the population distribution forms and how the floating population changes over time. Originality/value – This paper tries to project population distribution by modeling geo-homophily in OSNs.

The social sharing of emotion (SSE) in online social networks: a case study in Live Journal

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Rodriguez Hidalgo, C.T.; Tan, E.S.; Verlegh, P.W.J.

2015-01-01

Social Sharing of Emotion (SSE) occurs when one person shares an emotional experience with another and is considered potentially beneficial. Though social sharing has been shown prevalent in interpersonal communication, research on its occurrence and communication structure in online social networks

Technology use and reasons to participate in online social networking websites for people living with HIV in the US

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Horvath, Keith J.; Danilenko, Gene P.; Williams, Mark L.; Simoni, Jane; Amico, K. Rivet; Oakes, J. Michael; Rosser, B.R. Simon

2012-01-01

It is unknown if online social networking technologies are already highly integrated among some people living with HIV (PLWH) or have yet to be adopted. To fill this gap in understanding, 312 PLWH (84% male, 69% white) residing in the US completed on online survey in 2009 of their patterns of social networking and mobile phone use. Twenty-two persons also participated in one of two online focus groups. Results showed that 76% of participants with lower adherence to HIV medication used social networking websites/features at least once a week. Their ideal online social networking health websites included one that facilitated socializing with others (45% of participants) and relevant informational content (22%), although privacy was a barrier to use (26%). Texting (81%), and to a lesser extent mobile web-access (51%), was widely used among participants. Results support the potential reach of online social networking and text messaging intervention approaches. PMID:22350832

Marketing the Academic Library with Online Social Network Advertising

OpenAIRE

CHan, Christopher

2012-01-01

Facebook is now a ubiquitous part of the lives of many university students across the world. The libraries that serve them now have an opportunity to leverage this online social network to promote their services and resources. However, the effectiveness of a library’s efforts in this area will depend greatly on the number of connections it can make between its users and its Facebook presence. Building on a previous investigation that suggested online advertising might be a cost-effective way ...

Social Capital, Self-Esteem, and Use of Online Social Network Sites: A Longitudinal Analysis

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Steinfield, Charles; Ellison, Nicole B.; Lampe, Cliff

2008-01-01

A longitudinal analysis of panel data from users of a popular online social network site, Facebook, investigated the relationship between intensity of Facebook use, measures of psychological well-being, and bridging social capital. Two surveys conducted a year apart at a large U.S. university, complemented with in-depth interviews with 18 Facebook…

The research of development dynamics of electronic social networks for the effective advertisement of online shops in the segment of Ukrainian network business

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O.I. Grabar

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The article presents the research results of development dynamics of the Ukrainian segment of different social networks in the global network. The general methods of creation and development of online shop are described. The methods of creation and development of marketing communications for online shops and their influence on the development of electronic business in Ukraine are presented. The article gives the detailed analysis of statistical data on age & gender related distribution of the Ukrainian segment of the biggest world social networks. The author also introduces new instruments for marketing communications worked out by every social network. The basic principles of advertisement campaign realization for online shops with the use of target audience of certain groups in social networks are generalized.

Followers are not enough: a multifaceted approach to community detection in online social networks.

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Darmon, David; Omodei, Elisa; Garland, Joshua

2015-01-01

In online social media networks, individuals often have hundreds or even thousands of connections, which link these users not only to friends, associates, and colleagues, but also to news outlets, celebrities, and organizations. In these complex social networks, a 'community' as studied in the social network literature, can have very different meaning depending on the property of the network under study. Taking into account the multifaceted nature of these networks, we claim that community detection in online social networks should also be multifaceted in order to capture all of the different and valuable viewpoints of 'community.' In this paper we focus on three types of communities beyond follower-based structural communities: activity-based, topic-based, and interaction-based. We analyze a Twitter dataset using three different weightings of the structural network meant to highlight these three community types, and then infer the communities associated with these weightings. We show that interesting insights can be obtained about the complex community structure present in social networks by studying when and how these four community types give rise to similar as well as completely distinct community structure.

Leaking privacy and shadow profiles in online social networks

OpenAIRE

Garcia, David

2017-01-01

Social interaction and data integration in the digital society can affect the control that individuals have on their privacy. Social networking sites can access data from other services, including user contact lists where nonusers are listed too. Although most research on online privacy has focused on inference of personal information of users, this data integration poses the question of whether it is possible to predict personal information of nonusers. This article tests the shadow profile ...

The relationship between online social networking and depression : a systematic review of quantitative studies

OpenAIRE

Baker, David; Perez Algorta, Guillermo Daniel

2016-01-01

Online social networking sites (SNSs) such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace are used by billions of people every day to communicate and interact with others. There has been increasing interest in the potential impact of online social networking on wellbeing, with a broadening body of new research into factors associated with both positive and negative mental health outcomes such as depression. This systematic review of empirical studies (n=30) adds to existing research in this field by exami...

Using posts to an online social network to assess fishing effort

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Martin, Dustin R.; Chizinski, Christopher J.; Eskridge, Kent M.; Pope, Kevin L

2014-01-01

Fisheries management has evolved from reservoir to watershed management, creating a need to simultaneously gather information within and across interacting reservoirs. However, costs to gather information on the fishing effort on multiple reservoirs using traditional creel methodology are often prohibitive. Angler posts about reservoirs online provide a unique medium to test hypotheses on the distribution of fishing pressure. We show that the activity on an online fishing social network is related to fishing effort and can be used to facilitate management goals. We searched the Nebraska Fish and Game Association Fishing Forum for all references from April 2009 to December 2010 to 19 reservoirs that comprise the Salt Valley regional fishery in southeastern Nebraska. The number of posts was positively related to monthly fishing effort on a regional scale, with individual reservoirs having the most annual posts also having the most annual fishing effort. Furthermore, this relationship held temporally. Online fishing social networks provide the potential to assess effort on larger spatial scales than currently feasible.

The spreading of opposite opinions on online social networks with authoritative nodes

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Yan, Shu; Tang, Shaoting; Pei, Sen; Jiang, Shijin; Zhang, Xiao; Ding, Wenrui; Zheng, Zhiming

2013-09-01

The study of opinion dynamics, such as spreading and controlling of rumors, has become an important issue on social networks. Numerous models have been devised to describe this process, including epidemic models and spin models, which mainly focus on how opinions spread and interact with each other, respectively. In this paper, we propose a model that combines the spreading stage and the interaction stage for opinions to illustrate the process of dispelling a rumor. Moreover, we set up authoritative nodes, which disseminate positive opinion to counterbalance the negative opinion prevailing on online social networking sites. With analysis of the relationship among positive opinion proportion, opinion strength and the density of authoritative nodes in networks with different topologies, we demonstrate that the positive opinion proportion grows with the density of authoritative nodes until the positive opinion prevails in the entire network. In particular, the relationship is linear in homogeneous topologies. Besides, it is also noteworthy that initial locations of the negative opinion source and authoritative nodes do not influence positive opinion proportion in homogeneous networks but have a significant impact on heterogeneous networks. The results are verified by numerical simulations and are helpful to understand the mechanism of two different opinions interacting with each other on online social networking sites.

An information search model for online social Networks - MOBIRSE

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Miguel Angel Niño Zambrano

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Online Social Networks (OSNs have been gaining great importance among Internet users in recent years.  These are sites where it is possible to meet people, publish, and share content in a way that is both easy and free of charge. As a result, the volume of information contained in these websites has grown exponentially, and web search has consequently become an important tool for users to easily find information relevant to their social networking objectives. Making use of ontologies and user profiles can make these searches more effective. This article presents a model for Information Retrieval in OSNs (MOBIRSE based on user profile and ontologies which aims to improve the relevance of retrieved information on these websites. The social network Facebook was chosen for a case study and as the instance for the proposed model. The model was validated using measures such as At-k Precision and Kappa statistics, to assess its efficiency.

Online social networks that connect users to physical activity partners: a review and descriptive analysis.

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Nakhasi, Atul; Shen, Album Xiaotian; Passarella, Ralph Joseph; Appel, Lawrence J; Anderson, Cheryl Am

2014-06-16

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have identified a lack of encouragement, support, or companionship from family and friends as a major barrier to physical activity. To overcome this barrier, online social networks are now actively leveraging principles of companion social support in novel ways. The aim was to evaluate the functionality, features, and usability of existing online social networks which seek to increase physical activity and fitness among users by connecting them to physical activity partners, not just online, but also face-to-face. In September 2012, we used 3 major databases to identify the website addresses for relevant online social networks. We conducted a Google search using 8 unique keyword combinations: the common keyword "find" coupled with 1 of 4 prefix terms "health," "fitness," "workout," or "physical" coupled with 1 of 2 stem terms "activity partners" or "activity buddies." We also searched 2 prominent technology start-up news sites, TechCrunch and Y Combinator, using 2 unique keyword combinations: the common keyword "find" coupled with 1 of 2 stem terms "activity partners" and "activity buddies." Sites were defined as online social health activity networks if they had the ability to (1) actively find physical activity partners or activities for the user, (2) offer dynamic, real-time tracking or sharing of social activities, and (3) provide virtual profiles to users. We excluded from our analysis sites that were not Web-based, publicly available, in English, or free. Of the 360 initial search results, we identified 13 websites that met our complete criteria of an online social health activity network. Features such as physical activity creation (13/13, 100%) and private messaging (12/13, 92%) appeared almost universally among these websites. However, integration with Web 2.0 technologies such as Facebook and Twitter (9/13, 69%) and the option of direct event joining (8/13, 62%) were not as universally present. Largely

Characteristics of Social Network Gamers: Results of an Online Survey.

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Geisel, Olga; Panneck, Patricia; Stickel, Anna; Schneider, Michael; Müller, Christian A

2015-01-01

Current research on Internet addiction (IA) reported moderate to high prevalence rates of IA and comorbid psychiatric symptoms in users of social networking sites (SNS) and online role-playing games. The aim of this study was to characterize adult users of an Internet multiplayer strategy game within a SNS. Therefore, we conducted an exploratory study using an online survey to assess sociodemographic variables, psychopathology, and the rate of IA in a sample of adult social network gamers by Young's Internet Addiction Test (IAT), the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-26), the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), the Symptom Checklist-90-R (SCL-90-R), and the WHO Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF). All participants were listed gamers of "Combat Zone" in the SNS "Facebook." In this sample, 16.2% of the participants were categorized as subjects with IA and 19.5% fulfilled the criteria for alexithymia. Comparing study participants with and without IA, the IA group had significantly more subjects with alexithymia, reported more depressive symptoms, and showed poorer quality of life. These findings suggest that social network gaming might also be associated with maladaptive patterns of Internet use. Furthermore, a relationship between IA, alexithymia, and depressive symptoms was found that needs to be elucidated by future studies.

Pharmacy faculty members' perspectives on the student/faculty relationship in online social networks.

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Metzger, Anne H; Finley, Kristen N; Ulbrich, Timothy R; McAuley, James W

2010-12-15

To describe pharmacy faculty members' use of the online social network Facebook and compare the perspectives of faculty members with and without Facebook profiles regarding student/faculty relationships. An electronic survey instrument was sent to full-time faculty members (n = 183) at 4 colleges of pharmacy in Ohio seeking their opinions on student/faculty relationships on Facebook. If respondents answered "yes" to having a Facebook profile, they were asked 14 questions on aspects of being "friends" with students. If respondents answered "no," they were asked 4 questions. Of the 95 respondents (52%) to the survey instrument, 44 faculty members (46%) had a Facebook profile, while 51 faculty members (54%) did not. Those who had a profile had been faculty members for an average of 8.6 years, versus 11.4 years for those who did not have a Facebook profile. Seventy-nine percent of faculty members who used Facebook were not "friends" with their students. The majority of respondents reported that they would decline/ignore a "friend" request from a student, or decline until after the student graduated. Although a limited number of faculty members had used Facebook for online discussions, teaching purposes, or student organizations, the majority of universities did not have policies on the use of social networking sites. Online social network sites are used widely by students and faculty members, which may raise questions regarding professionalism and appropriate faculty/student relationships. Further research should address the student/preceptor relationship, other online social networking sites, and whether students are interested in using these sites within the classroom and/or professional organizations.

Theoretical approaches of online social network interventions and implications for behavioral change: a systematic review.

Science.gov (United States)

Arguel, Amaël; Perez-Concha, Oscar; Li, Simon Y W; Lau, Annie Y S

2018-02-01

The aim of this review was to identify general theoretical frameworks used in online social network interventions for behavioral change. To address this research question, a PRISMA-compliant systematic review was conducted. A systematic review (PROSPERO registration number CRD42014007555) was conducted using 3 electronic databases (PsycINFO, Pubmed, and Embase). Four reviewers screened 1788 abstracts. 15 studies were selected according to the eligibility criteria. Randomized controlled trials and controlled studies were assessed using Cochrane Collaboration's "risk-of-bias" tool, and narrative synthesis. Five eligible articles used the social cognitive theory as a framework to develop interventions targeting behavioral change. Other theoretical frameworks were related to the dynamics of social networks, intention models, and community engagement theories. Only one of the studies selected in the review mentioned a well-known theory from the field of health psychology. Conclusions were that guidelines are lacking in the design of online social network interventions for behavioral change. Existing theories and models from health psychology that are traditionally used for in situ behavioral change should be considered when designing online social network interventions in a health care setting. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

POSTER: Privacy-Preserving Profile Similarity Computation in Online Social Networks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Jeckmans, Arjan; Tang, Qiang; Hartel, Pieter H.

2011-01-01

Currently, none of the existing online social networks (OSNs) enables its users to make new friends without revealing their private information. This leaves the users in a vulnerable position when searching for new friends. We propose a solution which enables a user to compute her profile similarity

Individual Search and Social Networks

OpenAIRE

Sanjeev Goyal; Stephanie Rosenkranz; Utz Weitzel; Vincent Buskens

2014-01-01

The explosion in online social networks motivates an enquiry into their structure and their welfare effects. A central feature of these networks is information sharing: online social networks lower the cost of getting information from others. These lower costs affect the attractiveness of individual search vis-a-vis a reliance on social networks. The paper reports the findings of an experiment on these effects. Our experiment shows that online networks can have large effects. Information acqu...

Getting acquainted through social networking sites: testing a model of online uncertainty reduction and social attraction

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Antheunis, M.L.; Valkenburg, P.M.; Peter, J.

2010-01-01

The first aim of this study was to examine which uncertainty reduction strategies members of social network sites used to gain information about a person who they had recently met online. The second aim was to investigate whether and how these uncertainty reduction strategies resulted in social

Getting acquainted through social networking sites: Testing a model of online uncertainty reduction and social attraction

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Antheunis, M.L.; Valkenburg, P.M.; Peter, J.

2008-01-01

The first aim of this study was to examine which uncertainty reduction strategies members of social networking sites used to gain information about a person who they had recently met online. The second aim was to investigate whether and how these uncertainty reduction strategies resulted in social

Enforcement of Privacy Policies over Multiple Online Social Networks for Collaborative Activities

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Zhengping; Wang, Lifeng

Our goal is to tend to develop an enforcement architecture of privacy policies over multiple online social networks. It is used to solve the problem of privacy protection when several social networks build permanent or temporary collaboration. Theoretically, this idea is practical, especially due to more and more social network tend to support open source framework “OpenSocial”. But as we known different social network websites may have the same privacy policy settings based on different enforcement mechanisms, this would cause problems. In this case, we have to manually write code for both sides to make the privacy policy settings enforceable. We can imagine that, this is a huge workload based on the huge number of current social networks. So we focus on proposing a middleware which is used to automatically generate privacy protection component for permanent integration or temporary interaction of social networks. This middleware provide functions, such as collecting of privacy policy of each participant in the new collaboration, generating a standard policy model for each participant and mapping all those standard policy to different enforcement mechanisms of those participants.

An Empirical Study Of User Acceptance Of Online Social Networks Marketing

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Olumayowa Mulero

2013-07-01

Full Text Available The explosion of Internet usage has drawn the attention of researchers towards online Social Networks Marketing (SNM. Research has shown that a number of the Internet users are distrustful and indecisive, when it comes to the use of social networks marketing system. Therefore, there is a need for researchers to identify some of the factors that determine users’ acceptance of social networks marketing using Technology Acceptance Model (TAM. This study extended the Technology Acceptance Model theoretical framework to predict consumer acceptance of social networks marketing within Western Cape Province of South Africa. The research model was tested using data collected from 470 questionnaires and analysed using linear regression. The results showed that user intentions to use SNM are strongly and positively correlated with user acceptance of using SNM systems. Empirical results confirmed that perceived credibility and perceived usefulness are the strongest determinant in predicting user intentions to use SNM system.

Social dilemmas in an online social network: The structure and evolution of cooperation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fu Feng; Chen Xiaojie; Liu Lianghuan; Wang Long

2007-01-01

We investigate two paradigms for studying the evolution of cooperation-Prisoner's Dilemma and Snowdrift game in an online friendship network, obtained from a social networking site. By structural analysis, it is revealed that the empirical social network has small-world and scale-free properties. Besides, it exhibits assortative mixing pattern. Then, we study the evolutionary version of the two types of games on it. It is found that cooperation is substantially promoted with small values of game matrix parameters in both games. Whereas the competent cooperators induced by the underlying network of contacts will be dramatically inhibited with increasing values of the game parameters. Further, we explore the role of assortativity in evolution of cooperation by random edge rewiring. We find that increasing amount of assortativity will to a certain extent diminish the cooperation level. We also show that connected large hubs are capable of maintaining cooperation. The evolution of cooperation on empirical networks is influenced by various network effects in a combined manner, compared with that on model networks. Our results can help understand the cooperative behaviors in human groups and society

Design to Thrive Creating Social Networks and Online Communities that Last

CERN Document Server

Howard, Tharon W

2010-01-01

Social networks and online communities are reshaping the way people communicate, both in their personal and professional lives. What makes some succeed and others fail? What draws a user in? What makes them join? What keeps them coming back? Entrepreneurs and businesses are turning to user experience practitioners to figure this out. Though they are well-equipped to evaluate and create a variety of interfaces, social networks require a different set of design principles and ways of thinking about the user in order to be successful. .. .. Design to Thrive presents tried and tested design method

Understanding the impact of online social networks on disruptive innovation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cizel, A; Boonstra, A.; Langley, D.J.; Tan, C.W.

2013-01-01

In this paper we explore the state of current knowledge about online social networks (OSNs), and their role in precipitating changes in existing market structures. We do so by reviewing more than 30 recent papers from top-ranked journals in the relevant fields of study. We begin by providing a

The Relationship Between Use of Social Network Sites, Online Social Support, and Well-Being: Results From a Six-Wave Longitudinal Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Utz, Sonja; Breuer, Johannes

2017-01-01

Existing work on the effects of social network sites (SNS) on well-being has often stressed that SNS can help people gain social support from their online networks, which positively affects their well-being. However, the majority of studies in this area have been cross-sectional in nature and/or relied on student samples. Using data from six waves of a longitudinal study with a representative sample of Dutch Internet users, we first examined whether users and nonusers of SNS differ in online social support and well-being (as indicated by life satisfaction and stress). In a second step, we investigated in more detail how SNS use - more specifically, asking for advice and the number of strong ties on these SNS - are related to online social support, stress, and satisfaction with life. Overall, our results provide no evidence for SNS use and online social support affecting either stress or life satisfaction. SNS users reported more online social support than nonusers did, but also higher levels of stress; the two groups did not differ in overall life satisfaction. With regard to the underlying processes, we found positive cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships between asking for advice on SNS and online social support, indicating that SNS can be an effective tool for receiving social support. However, online social support was not related to higher life satisfaction or reduced stress 6 months later; instead, it seems that SNS users with lower life satisfaction and/or higher stress seek more social support online by asking for advice on SNS.

Towards Assisted Moderation in Online Healthcare Social Networks: Improving Trust in YouTube Searches.

Science.gov (United States)

Cañon, Daniel E; Lopez, Diego M; Blobel, Bernd

2014-01-01

Moderation of content in online Health Social Networks (HSN) is critical because information is not only published and produced by experts or health professionals, but also by users of that information. The objective of this paper is to propose a semi-automatic moderation Web Service for assessing the quality (trustworthiness) of health-related videos published on the YouTube social network. The service is relevant for moderators or community managers, who get enabled to control the quality of videos published on their online HSN sites. The HealthTrust metric was selected as the metric to be implemented in the service in order to support the assessment of trustworthiness of videos in Online HSN. The service is a RESTful service which can be integrated into open source Virtual Social Network Platforms, therefore improving trust in the process of searching and publishing content extracted from YouTube. A preliminary pilot evaluation in a simple use case demonstrated that the relevance of videos retrieved using the moderation service was higher compared to the relevance of the videos retrieved using the YouTube search engine.

Modeling the Propagation of Trojan Malware in Online Social Networks

OpenAIRE

Faghani, Mohammad Reza; Nugyen, Uyen Trang

2017-01-01

The popularity and widespread usage of online social networks (OSN) have attracted cyber criminals who have used OSNs as a platform to spread malware. Among different types of malware in OSNs, Trojan is the most popular type with hundreds of attacks on OSN users in the past few years. Trojans infecting a user's computer have the ability to steal confidential information, install ransomware and infect other computers in the network. Therefore, it is important to understand propagation dynamics...

Social comparison 2.0: examining the effects of online profiles on social-networking sites.

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Haferkamp, Nina; Krämer, Nicole C

2011-05-01

Through their features--such as profile photographs or the personal vita--online profiles on social-networking sites offer a perfect basis for social comparison processes. By looking at the profile photograph, the user gains an impression of a person's physical attractiveness, and the user's vita shows which career path the person is pursuing. Against the background of Festinger's Social Comparison Theory, the focus of this research is on the effects of online profiles on their recipients. Therefore, qualitative interviews (N = 12) and two online experiments were conducted in which virtual online profiles of either physically attractive or unattractive persons (N = 93) and profiles of users with either high or low occupational attainment (N = 103) were presented to the participants. Although qualitative interviews did not initially give reason to expect online profiles to constitute a basis for comparison processes, results of the experiments proved otherwise. The first study indicates that recipients have a more negative body image after looking at beautiful users than persons who were shown the less attractive profile pictures. Male participants of the second study, who were confronted with profiles of successful males, showed a higher perceived discrepancy between their current career status and an ideal vita than male participants who looked at profiles of less successful persons.

Web Sites for Young Children: Gateway to Online Social Networking?

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Bauman, Sheri; Tatum, Tanisha

2009-01-01

Traffic on Web sites for young children (ages 3-12) has increased exponentially in recent years. Advocates proclaim that they are safe introductions to the Internet and online social networking and teach essential 21st-century skills. Critics note developmental concerns. In this article, we provide basic information about Web sites for young…

Frequency of victimization experiences and well-being among online, offline and combined victims on social online network sites of German children and adolescents

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Michael eGlüer

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Victimization is associated with negative developmental outcomes in childhood and adolescence. However, previous studies have provided mixed results regarding the association between offline and online victimization and indicators of social, psychological, and somatic well-being. In this study, we investigated 1,906 German children and adolescents (grades 5 to 10, mean age = 13.9; SD = 2.1 with and without offline or online victimization experiences who participated in a social online network (SNS. Online questionnaires were used to assess previous victimization (offline, online, combined, and without, somatic and psychological symptoms, self-esteem, and social self-concept (social competence, resistance to peer influence, esteem by others. In total, 1,362 (71.4% children and adolescents reported being a member of at least one social online network, and 377 students (28.8% reported previous victimization. Most children and adolescents had offline victimization experiences (17.5%, whereas 2.7% reported online victimization, and 8.6% reported combined experiences. Girls reported more online and combined victimization, and boys reported more offline victimization. The type of victimization (offline, online, combined was associated with increased reports of psychological and somatic symptoms, lower self-esteem and esteem by others, and lower resistance to peer influences. The effects were comparable for the groups with offline and online victimization. They were, however, increased in the combined group in comparison to victims with offline experiences alone.

Modeling online social signed networks

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Li, Le; Gu, Ke; Zeng, An; Fan, Ying; Di, Zengru

2018-04-01

People's online rating behavior can be modeled by user-object bipartite networks directly. However, few works have been devoted to reveal the hidden relations between users, especially from the perspective of signed networks. We analyze the signed monopartite networks projected by the signed user-object bipartite networks, finding that the networks are highly clustered with obvious community structure. Interestingly, the positive clustering coefficient is remarkably higher than the negative clustering coefficient. Then, a Signed Growing Network model (SGN) based on local preferential attachment is proposed to generate a user's signed network that has community structure and high positive clustering coefficient. Other structural properties of the modeled networks are also found to be similar to the empirical networks.

Finding The Most Important Actor in Online Crowd by Social Network Analysis

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Yuliana, I.; Santosa, P. I.; Setiawan, N. A.; Sukirman

2017-02-01

Billion of people create trillions of connections through social media every single day. The increasing use of social media has led to dramatic changes in the of way science, government, healthcare, entertainment and enterprise operate. Large-scale participation in Technology-Mediated Social Participation (TMSP) system has opened up incredible new opportunities to deploy online crowd. This descriptive-correlational research used social network analysis (SNA) on data gathered from Fanpage Facebook of Greenpeace Indonesia related to important critical issues, the bushfires in 2015. SNA identifies relations on each member by sociometrics parameter such as three centrality (degree, closeness and betweenesse) for measuring and finding the most important actor in the online community. This paper use Fruchterman Rein-gold algorithm to visualize the online community in a graph, while Clauset-Newman-Moore is a technique to identify groups in community. As the result found 3735 vertices related to actors, 6927 edges as relation, 14 main actors in size order and 22 groups in Greenpeace Indonesia online community. This research contributes to organize some information for Greenpeace Indonesia managing their potency in online community to identify human behaviour.

How Irish Political Parties are Using Social Networking Sites to Reach Generation Z: an Insight into a New Online Social Network in a Small Democracy

OpenAIRE

Lynch, Kevin; Hogan, John

2016-01-01

This study, using in-depth interviews and focus groups, examines perceptions of social networking sites as a means of communicating with Generation Z, from the perspectives of the major Irish political parties using these online resources and the perspective of their young target audience. There are two research questions: (1) How do political parties perceive social networking sites’ role in communicating with Generation Z? and (2) How do members of Generation Z perceive social networking si...

Engineering online and in-person social networks to sustain physical activity: application of a conceptual model.

Science.gov (United States)

Rovniak, Liza S; Sallis, James F; Kraschnewski, Jennifer L; Sciamanna, Christopher N; Kiser, Elizabeth J; Ray, Chester A; Chinchilli, Vernon M; Ding, Ding; Matthews, Stephen A; Bopp, Melissa; George, Daniel R; Hovell, Melbourne F

2013-08-14

High rates of physical inactivity compromise the health status of populations globally. Social networks have been shown to influence physical activity (PA), but little is known about how best to engineer social networks to sustain PA. To improve procedures for building networks that shape PA as a normative behavior, there is a need for more specific hypotheses about how social variables influence PA. There is also a need to integrate concepts from network science with ecological concepts that often guide the design of in-person and electronically-mediated interventions. Therefore, this paper: (1) proposes a conceptual model that integrates principles from network science and ecology across in-person and electronically-mediated intervention modes; and (2) illustrates the application of this model to the design and evaluation of a social network intervention for PA. A conceptual model for engineering social networks was developed based on a scoping literature review of modifiable social influences on PA. The model guided the design of a cluster randomized controlled trial in which 308 sedentary adults were randomly assigned to three groups: WalkLink+: prompted and provided feedback on participants' online and in-person social-network interactions to expand networks for PA, plus provided evidence-based online walking program and weekly walking tips; WalkLink: evidence-based online walking program and weekly tips only; Minimal Treatment Control: weekly tips only. The effects of these treatment conditions were assessed at baseline, post-program, and 6-month follow-up. The primary outcome was accelerometer-measured PA. Secondary outcomes included objectively-measured aerobic fitness, body mass index, waist circumference, blood pressure, and neighborhood walkability; and self-reported measures of the physical environment, social network environment, and social network interactions. The differential effects of the three treatment conditions on primary and secondary

Digital divide 2.0: the role of social networking sites in seeking health information online from a longitudinal perspective.

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Feng, Yang; Xie, Wenjing

2015-01-01

Adopting a longitudinal angle, this study analyzed data from the Pew Internet's Health Tracking Survey in 2006, 2008, and 2010 to identify potential communication inequalities in social networking site use. Results showed that with the growing role of social networking site use in predicting people's likelihood of seeking health information online, the socioeconomic and demographic factors that contributed to the disparities in social networking site use could also lead to disparities in seeking health information online. Also, results indicated that people are more likely to seek heath-related information online if they or their close family or friends have a chronic disease situation.

Online social networks for crowdsourced multimedia-involved behavioral testing: An empirical study

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Jun-Ho eChoi

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Online social networks have emerged as effective crowdsourcing media to recruit participants in recent days. However, issues regarding how to effectively exploit them have not been adequately addressed yet. In this paper, we investigate the reliability and effectiveness of multimedia-involved behavioral testing via social network-based crowdsourcing, especially focused on Facebook as a medium to recruit participants. We conduct a crowdsourcing-based experiment for a music recommendation problem. It is shown that different advertisement methods yield different degrees of efficiency and there exist significant differences in behavioral patterns across different genders and different age groups. In addition, we perform a comparison of our experiment with other multimedia-involved crowdsourcing experiments built on Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk, which suggests that crowdsourcing-based experiments using social networks for recruitment can achieve comparable efficiency. Based on the analysis results, advantages and disadvantages of social network-based crowdsourcing and suggestions for successful experiments are also discussed. We conclude that social networks have the potential to support multimedia-involved behavioral tests to gather in-depth data even for long-term periods.

Online Social Networks for Crowdsourced Multimedia-Involved Behavioral Testing: An Empirical Study

Science.gov (United States)

Choi, Jun-Ho; Lee, Jong-Seok

2016-01-01

Online social networks have emerged as effective crowdsourcing media to recruit participants in recent days. However, issues regarding how to effectively exploit them have not been adequately addressed yet. In this paper, we investigate the reliability and effectiveness of multimedia-involved behavioral testing via social network-based crowdsourcing, especially focused on Facebook as a medium to recruit participants. We conduct a crowdsourcing-based experiment for a music recommendation problem. It is shown that different advertisement methods yield different degrees of efficiency and there exist significant differences in behavioral patterns across different genders and different age groups. In addition, we perform a comparison of our experiment with other multimedia-involved crowdsourcing experiments built on Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), which suggests that crowdsourcing-based experiments using social networks for recruitment can achieve comparable efficiency. Based on the analysis results, advantages and disadvantages of social network-based crowdsourcing and suggestions for successful experiments are also discussed. We conclude that social networks have the potential to support multimedia-involved behavioral tests to gather in-depth data even for long-term periods. PMID:26793137

Online Social Networks for Crowdsourced Multimedia-Involved Behavioral Testing: An Empirical Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Choi, Jun-Ho; Lee, Jong-Seok

2015-01-01

Online social networks have emerged as effective crowdsourcing media to recruit participants in recent days. However, issues regarding how to effectively exploit them have not been adequately addressed yet. In this paper, we investigate the reliability and effectiveness of multimedia-involved behavioral testing via social network-based crowdsourcing, especially focused on Facebook as a medium to recruit participants. We conduct a crowdsourcing-based experiment for a music recommendation problem. It is shown that different advertisement methods yield different degrees of efficiency and there exist significant differences in behavioral patterns across different genders and different age groups. In addition, we perform a comparison of our experiment with other multimedia-involved crowdsourcing experiments built on Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), which suggests that crowdsourcing-based experiments using social networks for recruitment can achieve comparable efficiency. Based on the analysis results, advantages and disadvantages of social network-based crowdsourcing and suggestions for successful experiments are also discussed. We conclude that social networks have the potential to support multimedia-involved behavioral tests to gather in-depth data even for long-term periods.

Applying social network analysis to understand the knowledge sharing behaviour of practitioners in a clinical online discussion forum.

Science.gov (United States)

Stewart, Samuel Alan; Abidi, Syed Sibte Raza

2012-12-04

Knowledge Translation (KT) plays a vital role in the modern health care community, facilitating the incorporation of new evidence into practice. Web 2.0 tools provide a useful mechanism for establishing an online KT environment in which health practitioners share their practice-related knowledge and experiences with an online community of practice. We have implemented a Web 2.0 based KT environment--an online discussion forum--for pediatric pain practitioners across seven different hospitals in Thailand. The online discussion forum enabled the pediatric pain practitioners to share and translate their experiential knowledge to help improve the management of pediatric pain in hospitals. The goal of this research is to investigate the knowledge sharing dynamics of a community of practice through an online discussion forum. We evaluated the communication patterns of the community members using statistical and social network analysis methods in order to better understand how the online community engages to share experiential knowledge. Statistical analyses and visualizations provide a broad overview of the communication patterns within the discussion forum. Social network analysis provides the tools to delve deeper into the social network, identifying the most active members of the community, reporting the overall health of the social network, isolating the potential core members of the social network, and exploring the inter-group relationships that exist across institutions and professions. The statistical analyses revealed a network dominated by a single institution and a single profession, and found a varied relationship between reading and posting content to the discussion forum. The social network analysis discovered a healthy network with strong communication patterns, while identifying which users are at the center of the community in terms of facilitating communication. The group-level analysis suggests that there is strong interprofessional and interregional

Bridging Social Capital in Online Communities: Heterogeneity and Social Tolerance of Online Game Players in Japan

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Kobayashi, Tetsuro

2010-01-01

This article examines the democratic potential of online communities by investigating the influence of network heterogeneity on social tolerance in an online gaming environment. Online game communities are potential sources of bridging social capital because they tend to be relatively heterogeneous. Causal analyses are conducted using structural…

Structural and dynamical patterns on online social networks: the Spanish May 15th movement as a case study.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Javier Borge-Holthoefer

Full Text Available The number of people using online social networks in their everyday life is continuously growing at a pace never saw before. This new kind of communication has an enormous impact on opinions, cultural trends, information spreading and even in the commercial success of new products. More importantly, social online networks have revealed as a fundamental organizing mechanism in recent country-wide social movements. In this paper, we provide a quantitative analysis of the structural and dynamical patterns emerging from the activity of an online social network around the ongoing May 15th (15M movement in Spain. Our network is made up by users that exchanged tweets in a time period of one month, which includes the birth and stabilization of the 15M movement. We characterize in depth the growth of such dynamical network and find that it is scale-free with communities at the mesoscale. We also find that its dynamics exhibits typical features of critical systems such as robustness and power-law distributions for several quantities. Remarkably, we report that the patterns characterizing the spreading dynamics are asymmetric, giving rise to a clear distinction between information sources and sinks. Our study represents a first step towards the use of data from online social media to comprehend modern societal dynamics.

Structural and dynamical patterns on online social networks: the Spanish May 15th movement as a case study.

Science.gov (United States)

Borge-Holthoefer, Javier; Rivero, Alejandro; García, Iñigo; Cauhé, Elisa; Ferrer, Alfredo; Ferrer, Darío; Francos, David; Iñiguez, David; Pérez, María Pilar; Ruiz, Gonzalo; Sanz, Francisco; Serrano, Fermín; Viñas, Cristina; Tarancón, Alfonso; Moreno, Yamir

2011-01-01

The number of people using online social networks in their everyday life is continuously growing at a pace never saw before. This new kind of communication has an enormous impact on opinions, cultural trends, information spreading and even in the commercial success of new products. More importantly, social online networks have revealed as a fundamental organizing mechanism in recent country-wide social movements. In this paper, we provide a quantitative analysis of the structural and dynamical patterns emerging from the activity of an online social network around the ongoing May 15th (15M) movement in Spain. Our network is made up by users that exchanged tweets in a time period of one month, which includes the birth and stabilization of the 15M movement. We characterize in depth the growth of such dynamical network and find that it is scale-free with communities at the mesoscale. We also find that its dynamics exhibits typical features of critical systems such as robustness and power-law distributions for several quantities. Remarkably, we report that the patterns characterizing the spreading dynamics are asymmetric, giving rise to a clear distinction between information sources and sinks. Our study represents a first step towards the use of data from online social media to comprehend modern societal dynamics.

Social dilemmas in an online social network: The structure and evolution of cooperation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fu Feng [Center for Systems and Control, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China); Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China)], E-mail: fufeng@pku.edu.cn; Chen Xiaojie; Liu Lianghuan [Center for Systems and Control, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China); Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China); Wang Long [Center for Systems and Control, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China); Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China)], E-mail: longwang@pku.edu.cn

2007-11-05

We investigate two paradigms for studying the evolution of cooperation-Prisoner's Dilemma and Snowdrift game in an online friendship network, obtained from a social networking site. By structural analysis, it is revealed that the empirical social network has small-world and scale-free properties. Besides, it exhibits assortative mixing pattern. Then, we study the evolutionary version of the two types of games on it. It is found that cooperation is substantially promoted with small values of game matrix parameters in both games. Whereas the competent cooperators induced by the underlying network of contacts will be dramatically inhibited with increasing values of the game parameters. Further, we explore the role of assortativity in evolution of cooperation by random edge rewiring. We find that increasing amount of assortativity will to a certain extent diminish the cooperation level. We also show that connected large hubs are capable of maintaining cooperation. The evolution of cooperation on empirical networks is influenced by various network effects in a combined manner, compared with that on model networks. Our results can help understand the cooperative behaviors in human groups and society.

Social multimedia signals a signal processing approach to social network phenomena

CERN Document Server

Roy, Suman Deb

2014-01-01

This book provides a comprehensive coverage of the state-of-the-art in understanding media popularity and trends in online social networks through social multimedia signals. With insights from the study of popularity and sharing patterns of online media, trend spread in social media, social network analysis for multimedia and visualizing diffusion of media in online social networks. In particular, the book will address the following important issues: Understanding social network phenomena from a signal processing point of view; The existence and popularity of multimedia as shared and social me

An Online Life Like Any Other: Identity, Self-Determination, and Social Networking Among Adults with Intellectual Disabilities.

Science.gov (United States)

Chadwick, Darren D; Fullwood, Chris

2018-01-01

Research focusing on online identity and the personal experiences of adults with intellectual disabilities (ID) is currently limited. Eleven adults with ID were interviewed regarding personal experiences of being online and using social media. Data were analyzed qualitatively using thematic network analysis. Two global themes, online relatedness and sharing and online agency and support, highlighted the positive potential of social media in enabling the development and maintenance of social bonds, valued social roles, and feelings of enjoyment, competence, autonomy, and self-worth. Participants reported sharing various expressed online identities that did not focus on or hide impairment, challenging notions of dependency, with participants both providing support and being supported online.

Nationwide online social networking for cardiovascular care in Korea using Facebook.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Changsun; Kang, Bo Seung; Choi, Hyuk Joong; Lee, Young Joo; Kang, Gu Hyun; Choi, Wook Jin; Kwon, In Ho

2014-01-01

To examine the use of online social networking for cardiovascular care using Facebook. All posts and comments in a Facebook group between June 2011 and May 2012 were reviewed, and a survey was conducted. A total of 298 members participated. Of the 277 wall posts, 26.7% were question posts requesting rapid replies, and 50.5% were interesting cases shared with other members. The median response time for the question posts was 16 min (IQR 8-47), which tended to decrease as more members joined the group. Many members (37.4%) accessed the group more than once a day, and more than half (64%) monitored the group posts in real time with automatic notifications of new posts. Most members expressed confidence in the content posted. Facebook enables online social networking between physicians in near-real time and appears to be a useful tool for physicians to share clinical experience and request assistance in decision-making.

The Deep Structure of Organizational Online Networking

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Trier, Matthias; Richter, Alexander

2015-01-01

While research on organizational online networking recently increased significantly, most studies adopt quantitative research designs with a focus on the consequences of social network configurations. Very limited attention is paid to comprehensive theoretical conceptions of the complex phenomenon...... of organizational online networking. We address this gap by adopting a theoretical framework of the deep structure of organizational online networking with a focus on their emerging meaning for the employees. We apply and assess the framework in a qualitative case study of a large-scale implementation...... of a corporate social network site (SNS) in a global organization. We reveal organizational online networking as a multi-dimensional phenomenon with multiplex relationships that are unbalanced, primarily consist of weak ties and are subject to temporal change. Further, we identify discourse drivers...

Original research: online social networking patterns among adolescents, young adults, and sexual offenders.

Science.gov (United States)

Dowdell, Elizabeth B; Burgess, Ann W; Flores, J Robert

2011-07-01

The use of online social networks like Facebook continues to increase rapidly among all age groups and segments of our society, presenting new opportunities for the exchange of sexual information as well as for potentially unsafe encounters between predators and the vulnerable or young. This study surveyed middle school, high school, and college-age students, as well as sexual offenders, regarding their use of social networking sites in order to provide information to better focus education and prevention efforts from nurses and other health care providers. Written questionnaires asking about various characteristics of participants' use of social networking sites were distributed to each group and filled out by 404 middle school students, 2,077 high school students, 1,284 students drawn from five traditional four-year colleges, and 466 adults who had committed either an Internet sexual offense or a hands-on sexual offense (in some cases both). Notable findings emerging from our analysis of the questionnaire responses included the following: offenders and students both frequent social networking sites, although at the time of the study offenders reported that they preferred Myspace and students that they preferred Facebook; nearly two-thirds of the Internet offenders said they'd initiated the topic of sex in their first chat session; more than half of the Internet offenders disguised their identity when online; most Internet offenders we surveyed said they preferred communicating with teenage girls rather than teenage boys; high school students' experience with "sexting" (sharing nude photos of themselves or others on cell phones or online) differed significantly according to their sex; a small number of students are being threatened and assaulted by people they meet online; avatar sites such as Second Life were used both by students and offenders, with both child molesters and Internet offenders expressing interest in Second Life. The use of the Internet presents

How risky are social networking sites? A comparison of places online where youth sexual solicitation and harassment occurs.

Science.gov (United States)

Ybarra, Michele L; Mitchell, Kimberly J

2008-02-01

Recently, public attention has focused on the possibility that social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook are being widely used to sexually solicit underage youth, consequently increasing their vulnerability to sexual victimization. Beyond anecdotal accounts, however, whether victimization is more commonly reported in social networking sites is unknown. The Growing up With Media Survey is a national cross-sectional online survey of 1588 youth. Participants were 10- to 15-year-old youth who have used the Internet at least once in the last 6 months. The main outcome measures were unwanted sexual solicitation on the Internet, defined as unwanted requests to talk about sex, provide personal sexual information, and do something sexual, and Internet harassment, defined as rude or mean comments, or spreading of rumors. Fifteen percent of all of the youth reported an unwanted sexual solicitation online in the last year; 4% reported an incident on a social networking site specifically. Thirty-three percent reported an online harassment in the last year; 9% reported an incident on a social networking site specifically. Among targeted youth, solicitations were more commonly reported via instant messaging (43%) and in chat rooms (32%), and harassment was more commonly reported in instant messaging (55%) than through social networking sites (27% and 28%, respectively). Broad claims of victimization risk, at least defined as unwanted sexual solicitation or harassment, associated with social networking sites do not seem justified. Prevention efforts may have a greater impact if they focus on the psychosocial problems of youth instead of a specific Internet application, including funding for online youth outreach programs, school antibullying programs, and online mental health services.

Friending, IMing, and hanging out face-to-face: overlap in adolescents' online and offline social networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Reich, Stephanie M; Subrahmanyam, Kaveri; Espinoza, Guadalupe

2012-03-01

Many new and important developmental issues are encountered during adolescence, which is also a time when Internet use becomes increasingly popular. Studies have shown that adolescents are using these online spaces to address developmental issues, especially needs for intimacy and connection to others. Online communication with its potential for interacting with unknown others, may put teens at increased risk. Two hundred and fifty-one high school students completed an in-person survey, and 126 of these completed an additional online questionnaire about how and why they use the Internet, their activities on social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, MySpace) and their reasons for participation, and how they perceive these online spaces to impact their friendships. To examine the extent of overlap between online and offline friends, participants were asked to list the names of their top interaction partners offline and online (Facebook and instant messaging). Results reveal that adolescents mainly use social networking sites to connect with others, in particular with people known from offline contexts. While adolescents report little monitoring by their parents, there was no evidence that teens are putting themselves at risk by interacting with unknown others. Instead, adolescents seem to use the Internet, especially social networking sites, to connect with known others. While the study found moderate overlap between teens' closest online and offline friends, the patterns suggest that adolescents use online contexts to strengthen offline relationships. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved.

A Qualitative Study to Examine Feasibility and Design of an Online Social Networking Intervention to Increase Physical Activity in Teenage Girls.

Science.gov (United States)

Van Kessel, Gisela; Kavanagh, Madeleine; Maher, Carol

2016-01-01

Online social networks present wide-reaching and flexible platforms through which to deliver health interventions to targeted populations. This study used a social marketing approach to explore teenage girls' perceptions of physical activity and the potential use of online social networks to receive a physical activity intervention. Six focus groups were conducted with 19 Australian teenage girls (ages 13 to 18 years) with varying levels of physical activity and socioeconomic status. A semi-structured format was used, with groups discussion transcribed verbatim. Content analysis identified emergent themes, with triangulation and memos used to ensure accuracy. Physical activity was most appealing when it emphasised sport, exercise and fitness, along with opportunities for socialisation with friends and self-improvement. Participants were receptive to delivery of a physical activity intervention via online social networks, with Facebook the most widely reported site. Participants commonly accessed online social networks via mobile devices and particularly smartphones. Undesirable features included promotion of physical activity in terms of walking; use of cartoon imagery; use of humour; and promotion of the intervention via schools, each of which were considered "uncool". Participants noted that their parents were likely to be supportive of them using an online social networking physical activity intervention, particularly if not promoted as a weight loss intervention. This study identified key features likely to increase the feasibility and retention of an online social networking physical activity intervention for teenage girls. Guidelines for the design of interventions for teenage girls are provided for future applications.

The relationship between online social networking and sexual risk behaviors among men who have sex with men (MSM.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sean D Young

Full Text Available Online social networking usage is growing rapidly, especially among at-risk populations, such as men who have sex with men (MSM. However, little research has studied the relationship between online social networking usage and sexual risk behaviors among at-risk populations. One hundred and eighteen Facebook-registered MSM (60.1% Latino, 28% African American; 11.9% other were recruited from online (social networking websites and banner advertisements and offline (local clinics, restaurants and organizations venues frequented by minority MSM. Inclusion criteria required participants to be men who were 18 years of age or older, had had sex with a man in the past 12 months, were living in Los Angeles, and had a Facebook account. Participants completed an online survey on their social media usage and sexual risk behaviors. Results from a multivariable regression suggest that number of sexual partners met from online social networking technologies is associated with increased: 1 likelihood of having exchanged sex for food, drugs, or a place to stay within the past 3 months; 2 number of new partners within the past 3 months; 3 number of male sex partners within the past 3 months; and 4 frequency of engaging in oral sex within the past 3 months, controlling for age, race, education, and total number of sexual partners. Understanding the relationship between social media sex-seeking and sexual risk behaviors among at-risk populations will help inform population-focused HIV prevention and treatment interventions.

From Subjective Trust to Objective Trustworthiness in On-line Social Networks: Overview and Challenges

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David Zejda

2010-04-01

Full Text Available Nowadays dozens of people share their content in the current Web 2.0 space, talk with friends in social networking sites such as Facebook and live on the Net in many other ways. They do all this quite naturally, forgetting the healthy cautiousness sometimes. In real life we rely on trusted people. Do we know how to reflect real-world trust mechanisms into on-line social software? In the article we focused to bring overview on state of the art in main ideas behind a trust processing in online social networking systems. What are common sources of subjective trust, how the trust emerges and what are the sources of trust dynamics? How can be trust captured into the systems, how can be explicit trust processed to infer indirect trust, the trust between users who do not know each other? And what are the ways to infer objective metrics of trust, the reputation or trustworthiness? Finally, we point out selected challenges related to the trust in current highly dynamic social networks.

The Online Social Networking of Cyberspace: A Study on the Development of an Online Social Network Project and the Sport Industry's Perception of Its Relative Advantage

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Liptrap, Timothy John

2011-01-01

This exploratory case study examined online social networking (OSN), and the perceptions of Sport Marketing students and sport industry professional as to the relative advantage of the OSN tools in the marketplace. The conceptual framework for this study was based on Boyer's (1990) concepts of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), and the…

Mental disorder recovery correlated with centralities and interactions on an online social network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xinpei Ma

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Recent research has established both a theoretical basis and strong empirical evidence that effective social behavior plays a beneficial role in the maintenance of physical and psychological well-being of people. To test whether social behavior and well-being are also associated in online communities, we studied the correlations between the recovery of patients with mental disorders and their behaviors in online social media. As the source of the data related to the social behavior and progress of mental recovery, we used PatientsLikeMe (PLM, the world’s first open-participation research platform for the development of patient-centered health outcome measures. We first constructed an online social network structure based on patient-to-patient ties among 200 patients obtained from PLM. We then characterized patients’ online social activities by measuring the numbers of “posts and views” and “helpful marks” each patient obtained. The patients’ recovery data were obtained from their self-reported status information that was also available on PLM. We found that some node properties (in-degree, eigenvector centrality and PageRank and the two online social activity measures were significantly correlated with patients’ recovery. Furthermore, we re-collected the patients’ recovery data two months after the first data collection. We found significant correlations between the patients’ social behaviors and the second recovery data, which were collected two months apart. Our results indicated that social interactions in online communities such as PLM were significantly associated with the current and future recoveries of patients with mental disorders.

Social networking and online recruiting for HIV research: ethical challenges.

Science.gov (United States)

Curtis, Brenda L

2014-02-01

Social networking sites and online advertising organizations provide HIV/AIDS researchers access to target populations, often reaching difficult-to-reach populations. However, this benefit to researchers raises many issues for the protections of prospective research participants. Traditional recruitment procedures have involved straightforward transactions between the researchers and prospective participants; online recruitment is a more complex and indirect form of communication involving many parties engaged in the collecting, aggregating, and storing of research participant data. Thus, increased access to online data has challenged the adequacy of current and established procedures for participants' protections, such as informed consent and privacy/confidentiality. Internet-based HIV/AIDS research recruitment and its ethical challenges are described, and research participant safeguards and best practices are outlined.

Social Networking and Online Recruiting for HIV Research: Ethical Challenges

Science.gov (United States)

Curtis, Brenda L.

2015-01-01

Social networking sites and online advertising organizations provide HIV/AIDS researchers access to target populations, often reaching difficult-to-reach populations. However, this benefit to researchers raises many issues for the protections of prospective research participants. Traditional recruitment procedures have involved straightforward transactions between the researchers and prospective participants; online recruitment is a more complex and indirect form of communication involving many parties engaged in the collecting, aggregating, and storing of research participant data. Thus, increased access to online data has challenged the adequacy of current and established procedures for participants’ protections, such as informed consent and privacy/confidentiality. Internet-based HIV/AIDS research recruitment and its ethical challenges are described, and research participant safeguards and best practices are outlined. PMID:24572084

"Newbies" and "Celebrities": Detecting Social Roles in an Online Network of Teachers via Participation Patterns

Science.gov (United States)

Smith Risser, H.; Bottoms, SueAnn

2014-01-01

The advent of social networking tools allows teachers to create online networks and share information. While some virtual networks have a formal structure and defined boundaries, many do not. These unstructured virtual networks are difficult to study because they lack defined boundaries and a formal structure governing leadership roles and the…

Online and social networking interventions for the treatment of depression in young people: a systematic review.

Science.gov (United States)

Rice, Simon M; Goodall, Joanne; Hetrick, Sarah E; Parker, Alexandra G; Gilbertson, Tamsyn; Amminger, G Paul; Davey, Christopher G; McGorry, Patrick D; Gleeson, John; Alvarez-Jimenez, Mario

2014-09-16

Major depression accounts for the greatest burden of all diseases globally. The peak onset of depression occurs between adolescence and young adulthood, and for many individuals, depression displays a relapse-remitting and increasingly severe course. Given this, the development of cost-effective, acceptable, and population-focused interventions for depression is critical. A number of online interventions (both prevention and acute phase) have been tested in young people with promising results. As these interventions differ in content, clinician input, and modality, it is important to identify key features (or unhelpful functions) associated with treatment outcomes. A systematic review of the research literature was undertaken. The review was designed to focus on two aspects of online intervention: (1) standard approaches evaluating online intervention content in randomized controlled designs (Section 1), and (2) second-generation online interventions and services using social networking (eg, social networking sites and online support groups) in any type of research design (Section 2). Two specific literature searches were undertaken. There was no date range specified. The Section 1 search, which focused on randomized controlled trials, included only young people (12-25 years) and yielded 101 study abstracts, of which 15 met the review inclusion criteria. The Section 2 search, which included all study design types and was not restricted in terms of age, yielded 358 abstracts, of which 22 studies met the inclusion criteria. Information about the studies and their findings were extracted and tabulated for review. The 15 studies identified in Section 1 described 10 trials testing eight different online interventions, all of which were based on a cognitive behavioral framework. All but one of the eight identified studies reported positive results; however, only five of the 15 studies used blinded interviewer administered outcomes with most trials using self-report data

Emergence of scale-free close-knit friendship structure in online social networks.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ai-Xiang Cui

Full Text Available Although the structural properties of online social networks have attracted much attention, the properties of the close-knit friendship structures remain an important question. Here, we mainly focus on how these mesoscale structures are affected by the local and global structural properties. Analyzing the data of four large-scale online social networks reveals several common structural properties. It is found that not only the local structures given by the indegree, outdegree, and reciprocal degree distributions follow a similar scaling behavior, the mesoscale structures represented by the distributions of close-knit friendship structures also exhibit a similar scaling law. The degree correlation is very weak over a wide range of the degrees. We propose a simple directed network model that captures the observed properties. The model incorporates two mechanisms: reciprocation and preferential attachment. Through rate equation analysis of our model, the local-scale and mesoscale structural properties are derived. In the local-scale, the same scaling behavior of indegree and outdegree distributions stems from indegree and outdegree of nodes both growing as the same function of the introduction time, and the reciprocal degree distribution also shows the same power-law due to the linear relationship between the reciprocal degree and in/outdegree of nodes. In the mesoscale, the distributions of four closed triples representing close-knit friendship structures are found to exhibit identical power-laws, a behavior attributed to the negligible degree correlations. Intriguingly, all the power-law exponents of the distributions in the local-scale and mesoscale depend only on one global parameter, the mean in/outdegree, while both the mean in/outdegree and the reciprocity together determine the ratio of the reciprocal degree of a node to its in/outdegree. Structural properties of numerical simulated networks are analyzed and compared with each of the four

Emergence of scale-free close-knit friendship structure in online social networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Cui, Ai-Xiang; Zhang, Zi-Ke; Tang, Ming; Hui, Pak Ming; Fu, Yan

2012-01-01

Although the structural properties of online social networks have attracted much attention, the properties of the close-knit friendship structures remain an important question. Here, we mainly focus on how these mesoscale structures are affected by the local and global structural properties. Analyzing the data of four large-scale online social networks reveals several common structural properties. It is found that not only the local structures given by the indegree, outdegree, and reciprocal degree distributions follow a similar scaling behavior, the mesoscale structures represented by the distributions of close-knit friendship structures also exhibit a similar scaling law. The degree correlation is very weak over a wide range of the degrees. We propose a simple directed network model that captures the observed properties. The model incorporates two mechanisms: reciprocation and preferential attachment. Through rate equation analysis of our model, the local-scale and mesoscale structural properties are derived. In the local-scale, the same scaling behavior of indegree and outdegree distributions stems from indegree and outdegree of nodes both growing as the same function of the introduction time, and the reciprocal degree distribution also shows the same power-law due to the linear relationship between the reciprocal degree and in/outdegree of nodes. In the mesoscale, the distributions of four closed triples representing close-knit friendship structures are found to exhibit identical power-laws, a behavior attributed to the negligible degree correlations. Intriguingly, all the power-law exponents of the distributions in the local-scale and mesoscale depend only on one global parameter, the mean in/outdegree, while both the mean in/outdegree and the reciprocity together determine the ratio of the reciprocal degree of a node to its in/outdegree. Structural properties of numerical simulated networks are analyzed and compared with each of the four real networks. This

Interprofessional Student Perspectives of Online Social Networks in Health and Business Education.

Science.gov (United States)

Doyle, Glynda; Jones, Cyri; Currie, Leanne

2016-01-01

The education sector is experiencing unprecedented change with the increasing use by students of mobile devices, social networks and e-portfolios as they prepare for future positions in the workforce. The purpose of this study was to examine student's preferences around these technologies. A mixed methods research strategy was used with an initial online survey using 29 Likert scale style questions to students from the School of Health Sciences and the School of Business at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT). Descriptive statistics and ANOVAs were performed to examine if there were any differences between groups regarding their overall responses to the survey questions. Content analysis was used for qualitative focus group data. Overall, students (n = 260) were enthusiastic about technology but wary of cost, lack of choice, increased workload and faculty involvement in their online social networks. Of note, students see significant value in face-to-face classroom time.

A Qualitative Study to Examine Feasibility and Design of an Online Social Networking Intervention to Increase Physical Activity in Teenage Girls.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gisela Van Kessel

Full Text Available Online social networks present wide-reaching and flexible platforms through which to deliver health interventions to targeted populations. This study used a social marketing approach to explore teenage girls' perceptions of physical activity and the potential use of online social networks to receive a physical activity intervention.Six focus groups were conducted with 19 Australian teenage girls (ages 13 to 18 years with varying levels of physical activity and socioeconomic status. A semi-structured format was used, with groups discussion transcribed verbatim. Content analysis identified emergent themes, with triangulation and memos used to ensure accuracy.Physical activity was most appealing when it emphasised sport, exercise and fitness, along with opportunities for socialisation with friends and self-improvement. Participants were receptive to delivery of a physical activity intervention via online social networks, with Facebook the most widely reported site. Participants commonly accessed online social networks via mobile devices and particularly smartphones. Undesirable features included promotion of physical activity in terms of walking; use of cartoon imagery; use of humour; and promotion of the intervention via schools, each of which were considered "uncool". Participants noted that their parents were likely to be supportive of them using an online social networking physical activity intervention, particularly if not promoted as a weight loss intervention.This study identified key features likely to increase the feasibility and retention of an online social networking physical activity intervention for teenage girls. Guidelines for the design of interventions for teenage girls are provided for future applications.

Communication, opponents, and clan performance in online games: a social network approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Hong Joo; Choi, Jaewon; Kim, Jong Woo; Park, Sung Joo; Gloor, Peter

2013-12-01

Online gamers form clans voluntarily to play together and to discuss their real and virtual lives. Although these clans have diverse goals, they seek to increase their rank in the game community by winning more battles. Communications among clan members and battles with other clans may influence the performance of a clan. In this study, we compared the effects of communication structure inside a clan, and battle networks among clans, with the performance of the clans. We collected battle histories, posts, and comments on clan pages from a Korean online game, and measured social network indices for communication and battle networks. Communication structures in terms of density and group degree centralization index had no significant association with clan performance. However, the centrality of clans in the battle network was positively related to the performance of the clan. If a clan had many battle opponents, the performance of the clan improved.

Usefulness of Social Network Sites for Adolescents' Development of Online Career Skills

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Rutten, Mariëlle; Ros, Anje; Kuijpers, Marinka; Kreijns, Karel

2018-01-01

Schools have an important role in teaching students how to use Social Network Site (SNS) for career purposes. This involves the opportunity for students to practice online career skills. Different types of digital environments are available for schools. There are SNS designed to enable users to

Methods for Inferring Health-Related Social Networks among Coworkers from Online Communication Patterns

Science.gov (United States)

Matthews, Luke J.; DeWan, Peter; Rula, Elizabeth Y.

2013-01-01

Studies of social networks, mapped using self-reported contacts, have demonstrated the strong influence of social connections on the propensity for individuals to adopt or maintain healthy behaviors and on their likelihood to adopt health risks such as obesity. Social network analysis may prove useful for businesses and organizations that wish to improve the health of their populations by identifying key network positions. Health traits have been shown to correlate across friendship ties, but evaluating network effects in large coworker populations presents the challenge of obtaining sufficiently comprehensive network data. The purpose of this study was to evaluate methods for using online communication data to generate comprehensive network maps that reproduce the health-associated properties of an offline social network. In this study, we examined three techniques for inferring social relationships from email traffic data in an employee population using thresholds based on: (1) the absolute number of emails exchanged, (2) logistic regression probability of an offline relationship, and (3) the highest ranked email exchange partners. As a model of the offline social network in the same population, a network map was created using social ties reported in a survey instrument. The email networks were evaluated based on the proportion of survey ties captured, comparisons of common network metrics, and autocorrelation of body mass index (BMI) across social ties. Results demonstrated that logistic regression predicted the greatest proportion of offline social ties, thresholding on number of emails exchanged produced the best match to offline network metrics, and ranked email partners demonstrated the strongest autocorrelation of BMI. Since each method had unique strengths, researchers should choose a method based on the aspects of offline behavior of interest. Ranked email partners may be particularly useful for purposes related to health traits in a social network. PMID

Methods for inferring health-related social networks among coworkers from online communication patterns.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luke J Matthews

Full Text Available Studies of social networks, mapped using self-reported contacts, have demonstrated the strong influence of social connections on the propensity for individuals to adopt or maintain healthy behaviors and on their likelihood to adopt health risks such as obesity. Social network analysis may prove useful for businesses and organizations that wish to improve the health of their populations by identifying key network positions. Health traits have been shown to correlate across friendship ties, but evaluating network effects in large coworker populations presents the challenge of obtaining sufficiently comprehensive network data. The purpose of this study was to evaluate methods for using online communication data to generate comprehensive network maps that reproduce the health-associated properties of an offline social network. In this study, we examined three techniques for inferring social relationships from email traffic data in an employee population using thresholds based on: (1 the absolute number of emails exchanged, (2 logistic regression probability of an offline relationship, and (3 the highest ranked email exchange partners. As a model of the offline social network in the same population, a network map was created using social ties reported in a survey instrument. The email networks were evaluated based on the proportion of survey ties captured, comparisons of common network metrics, and autocorrelation of body mass index (BMI across social ties. Results demonstrated that logistic regression predicted the greatest proportion of offline social ties, thresholding on number of emails exchanged produced the best match to offline network metrics, and ranked email partners demonstrated the strongest autocorrelation of BMI. Since each method had unique strengths, researchers should choose a method based on the aspects of offline behavior of interest. Ranked email partners may be particularly useful for purposes related to health traits in a

Methods for inferring health-related social networks among coworkers from online communication patterns.

Science.gov (United States)

Matthews, Luke J; DeWan, Peter; Rula, Elizabeth Y

2013-01-01

Studies of social networks, mapped using self-reported contacts, have demonstrated the strong influence of social connections on the propensity for individuals to adopt or maintain healthy behaviors and on their likelihood to adopt health risks such as obesity. Social network analysis may prove useful for businesses and organizations that wish to improve the health of their populations by identifying key network positions. Health traits have been shown to correlate across friendship ties, but evaluating network effects in large coworker populations presents the challenge of obtaining sufficiently comprehensive network data. The purpose of this study was to evaluate methods for using online communication data to generate comprehensive network maps that reproduce the health-associated properties of an offline social network. In this study, we examined three techniques for inferring social relationships from email traffic data in an employee population using thresholds based on: (1) the absolute number of emails exchanged, (2) logistic regression probability of an offline relationship, and (3) the highest ranked email exchange partners. As a model of the offline social network in the same population, a network map was created using social ties reported in a survey instrument. The email networks were evaluated based on the proportion of survey ties captured, comparisons of common network metrics, and autocorrelation of body mass index (BMI) across social ties. Results demonstrated that logistic regression predicted the greatest proportion of offline social ties, thresholding on number of emails exchanged produced the best match to offline network metrics, and ranked email partners demonstrated the strongest autocorrelation of BMI. Since each method had unique strengths, researchers should choose a method based on the aspects of offline behavior of interest. Ranked email partners may be particularly useful for purposes related to health traits in a social network.

Political campaigning 2.0: The influence of online news and social networking sites on attitudes and behavior

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Montathar Faraon

2014-11-01

Full Text Available This study aimed to examine differences in influence between online news (e.g., New York Times and social networking sites (e.g., Facebook and Twitter on attitudes in political campaigns. In a web-based experiment, campaign, polls and election between two fictitious candidates were simulated. Participants’ explicit and implicit attitudes as well as voting behavior were assessed using self-report items and the Implicit Association Test (IAT. The results reveal that information emanating from online news had a significant influence on explicit and implicit attitudes while that of social networking sites did not. Overall, negative items had a stronger impact than positive ones, more so in online news compared to social networking sites. Negative information from either type of media was more likely to change participants’ explicit attitudes in a negative direction and as a consequence also change their vote. Practical implications of the findings and limitations of the study are discussed.

Interaction, Critical Thinking, and Social Network Analysis (SNA in Online Courses

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joan Thormann

2013-07-01

Full Text Available This study tried to ascertain a possible relationship between the number of student moderators (1, 2, and 3, online interactions, and critical thinking of K-12 educators enrolled in an online course that was taught from a constructivist approach. The course topic was use of technology in special education. Social network analysis (SNA and measures of critical thinking (Newman, Webb, & Cochrane, 1995 were used to research and assess if there was a difference in interaction and critical thinking between 1, 2, or 3 student moderators who facilitated a forum discussion of an assignment in an online course. The same course was repeated over three years. Each year either 1, 2, or 3 students moderated. The analysis indicated more discussion per non-moderating student with the three student moderated group. Using SNA we found that there was only one noticeable difference among the three groups which was in the value of network centralization. Using critical thinking measures the three student moderator group scored higher in five of the eight critical thinking categories. Variations in instructor presence in the online courses may have influenced these findings.

Exploring Co-studied Massive Open Online Course Subjects via Social Network Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katy Jordan

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs allow students to study online courses without requiring previous experience or qualifications. This offers students the freedom to study a wide variety of topics, freed from the curriculum of a degree programme for example; however, it also poses a challenge for students in terms of making connections between individual courses. This paper examines the subjects which students at one MOOC platform (Coursera choose to study. It uses a social network analysis based approach to create a network graph of co-studied subjects. The resulting network demonstrates a good deal of overlap between different disciplinary areas. Communities are identified within the graph and characterised. The results suggests that MOOC students may not be seeking to replicate degree-style courses in one specialist area, which may have implications for the future moves toward ‘MOOCs for credit’.

Privacy Practices of Health Social Networking Sites: Implications for Privacy and Data Security in Online Cancer Communities.

Science.gov (United States)

Charbonneau, Deborah H

2016-08-01

While online communities for social support continue to grow, little is known about the state of privacy practices of health social networking sites. This article reports on a structured content analysis of privacy policies and disclosure practices for 25 online ovarian cancer communities. All of the health social networking sites in the study sample provided privacy statements to users, yet privacy practices varied considerably across the sites. The majority of sites informed users that personal information was collected about participants and shared with third parties (96%, n = 24). Furthermore, more than half of the sites (56%, n = 14) stated that cookies technology was used to track user behaviors. Despite these disclosures, only 36% (n = 9) offered opt-out choices for sharing data with third parties. In addition, very few of the sites (28%, n = 7) allowed individuals to delete their personal information. Discussions about specific security measures used to protect personal information were largely missing. Implications for privacy, confidentiality, consumer choice, and data safety in online environments are discussed. Overall, nurses and other health professionals can utilize these findings to encourage individuals seeking online support and participating in social networking sites to build awareness of privacy risks to better protect their personal health information in the digital age.

One Health in social networks and social media.

Science.gov (United States)

Mekaru, S R; Brownstein, J S

2014-08-01

In the rapidly evolving world of social media, social networks, mobile applications and citizen science, online communities can develop organically and separately from larger or more established organisations. The One Health online community is experiencing expansion from both the bottom up and the top down. In this paper, the authors review social media's strengths and weaknesses, earlier work examining Internet resources for One Health, the current state of One Health in social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) and online social networking sites (e.g. LinkedIn and ResearchGate), as well as social media in One Health-related citizen science projects. While One Health has a fairly strong presence on websites, its social media presence is more limited and has an uneven geographic distribution. In work following the Stone Mountain Meeting,the One Health Global Network Task Force Report recommended the creation of an online community of practice. Professional social networks as well as the strategic use of social media should be employed in this effort. Finally, One Health-related research projects using volunteers (citizen science) often use social media to enhance their recruitment. Including these researchers in a community of practitioners would take full advantage of their existing social media presence. In conclusion, the interactive nature of social media, combined with increasing global Internet access, provides the One Health community with opportunities to meaningfully expand their community and promote their message.

Relationship between Social Networks Adoption and Social Intelligence

Science.gov (United States)

Gunduz, Semseddin

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study was to set forth the relationship between the individuals' states to adopt social networks and social intelligence and analyze both concepts according to various variables. Research data were collected from 1145 social network users in the online media by using the Adoption of Social Network Scale and Social Intelligence…

Analyzing negative ties in social networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mankirat Kaur

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Online social networks are a source of sharing information and maintaining personal contacts with other people through social interactions and thus forming virtual communities online. Social networks are crowded with positive and negative relations. Positive relations are formed by support, endorsement and friendship and thus, create a network of well-connected users whereas negative relations are a result of opposition, distrust and avoidance creating disconnected networks. Due to increase in illegal activities such as masquerading, conspiring and creating fake profiles on online social networks, exploring and analyzing these negative activities becomes the need of hour. Usually negative ties are treated in same way as positive ties in many theories such as balance theory and blockmodeling analysis. But the standard concepts of social network analysis do not yield same results in respect of each tie. This paper presents a survey on analyzing negative ties in social networks through various types of network analysis techniques that are used for examining ties such as status, centrality and power measures. Due to the difference in characteristics of flow in positive and negative tie networks some of these measures are not applicable on negative ties. This paper also discusses new methods that have been developed specifically for analyzing negative ties such as negative degree, and h∗ measure along with the measures based on mixture of positive and negative ties. The different types of social network analysis approaches have been reviewed and compared to determine the best approach that can appropriately identify the negative ties in online networks. It has been analyzed that only few measures such as Degree and PN centrality are applicable for identifying outsiders in network. For applicability in online networks, the performance of PN measure needs to be verified and further, new measures should be developed based upon negative clique concept.

Breach of Personal Security through Applicative use of Online Social Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bojan Nikolovski

2013-11-01

Full Text Available Throughout this article there is an attempt to indicate the threats of potential to breach of personal security through applicative use of internet as well as applicative use of online social networks. In addition to many other ways of privacy protection applicative users of social network’s sites must take into considerations the risk of distributing private data. Through a series of actions and settings users can customize the security settings with the ultimate goal of reducing the risk of attack on their privacy.

User Participation and Honesty in Online Rating Systems: What a Social Network Can Do

OpenAIRE

Davoust, Alan; Esfandiari, Babak

2016-01-01

An important problem with online communities in general, and online rating systems in particular, is uncooperative behavior: lack of user participation, dishonest contributions. This may be due to an incentive structure akin to a Prisoners' Dilemma (PD). We show that introducing an explicit social network to PD games fosters cooperative behavior, and use this insight to design a new aggregation technique for online rating systems. Using a dataset of ratings from Yelp, we show that our aggrega...

Making "social" safer: are Facebook and other online networks becoming less hazardous for health professionals?

Science.gov (United States)

George, Daniel R

2012-01-01

Major concerns about privacy have limited health professionals' usage of popular social networking sites such as Facebook. However, the landscape of social media is changing in favor of more sophisticated privacy controls that enable users to more carefully manage public and private information. This evolution in technology makes it potentially less hazardous for health professionals to consider accepting colleagues and patients into their online networks, and invites medicine to think constructively about how social media may add value to contemporary healthcare.

The Role of Social Network Technologies in Online Health Promotion: A Narrative Review of Theoretical and Empirical Factors Influencing Intervention Effectiveness

Science.gov (United States)

Kennedy, Catriona M; Buchan, Iain; Powell, John; Ainsworth, John

2015-01-01

Background Social network technologies have become part of health education and wider health promotion—either by design or happenstance. Social support, peer pressure, and information sharing in online communities may affect health behaviors. If there are positive and sustained effects, then social network technologies could increase the effectiveness and efficiency of many public health campaigns. Social media alone, however, may be insufficient to promote health. Furthermore, there may be unintended and potentially harmful consequences of inaccurate or misleading health information. Given these uncertainties, there is a need to understand and synthesize the evidence base for the use of online social networking as part of health promoting interventions to inform future research and practice. Objective Our aim was to review the research on the integration of expert-led health promotion interventions with online social networking in order to determine the extent to which the complementary benefits of each are understood and used. We asked, in particular, (1) How is effectiveness being measured and what are the specific problems in effecting health behavior change?, and (2) To what extent is the designated role of social networking grounded in theory? Methods The narrative synthesis approach to literature review was used to analyze the existing evidence. We searched the indexed scientific literature using keywords associated with health promotion and social networking. The papers included were only those making substantial study of both social networking and health promotion—either reporting the results of the intervention or detailing evidence-based plans. General papers about social networking and health were not included. Results The search identified 162 potentially relevant documents after review of titles and abstracts. Of these, 42 satisfied the inclusion criteria after full-text review. Six studies described randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating

The Role of Social Network Technologies in Online Health Promotion: A Narrative Review of Theoretical and Empirical Factors Influencing Intervention Effectiveness.

Science.gov (United States)

Balatsoukas, Panos; Kennedy, Catriona M; Buchan, Iain; Powell, John; Ainsworth, John

2015-06-11

Social network technologies have become part of health education and wider health promotion—either by design or happenstance. Social support, peer pressure, and information sharing in online communities may affect health behaviors. If there are positive and sustained effects, then social network technologies could increase the effectiveness and efficiency of many public health campaigns. Social media alone, however, may be insufficient to promote health. Furthermore, there may be unintended and potentially harmful consequences of inaccurate or misleading health information. Given these uncertainties, there is a need to understand and synthesize the evidence base for the use of online social networking as part of health promoting interventions to inform future research and practice. Our aim was to review the research on the integration of expert-led health promotion interventions with online social networking in order to determine the extent to which the complementary benefits of each are understood and used. We asked, in particular, (1) How is effectiveness being measured and what are the specific problems in effecting health behavior change?, and (2) To what extent is the designated role of social networking grounded in theory? The narrative synthesis approach to literature review was used to analyze the existing evidence. We searched the indexed scientific literature using keywords associated with health promotion and social networking. The papers included were only those making substantial study of both social networking and health promotion—either reporting the results of the intervention or detailing evidence-based plans. General papers about social networking and health were not included. The search identified 162 potentially relevant documents after review of titles and abstracts. Of these, 42 satisfied the inclusion criteria after full-text review. Six studies described randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating the effectiveness of online social

Graduate Inquiry: Social Capital in Online Courses

Science.gov (United States)

Mays, Thomas

2016-01-01

As colleges and universities increase their online course offerings, student social experiences in online learning environments require further examination, specifically for nonresidential students who may already be less integrated into college social networks. A social capital framework was used to guide this qualitative study of 17…

An Online Social Networking Approach to Reinforce Learning of Rocks and Minerals

Science.gov (United States)

Kennelly, Patrick

2009-01-01

Numerous and varied methods are used in introductory Earth science and geology classes to help students learn about rocks and minerals, such as classroom lectures, laboratory specimen identification, and field trips. This paper reports on a method using online social networking. The choice of this forum was based on two criteria. First, many…

Online Social Media and Political Awareness in Autoritarian Regimes

OpenAIRE

John Reuter; David Szakonyi

2012-01-01

Does online social media undermine authoritarianism? We examine the conditions under which online social networks can increase public awareness of electoral fraud in non-democracies. We argue that a given online social network will only increase political awareness if it is first politicized by elites. Using survey data from the 2011 Russian parliamentary elections, we show that usage of Twitter and Facebook, which were politicized by opposition elites, significantly increased respondents' pe...

The Security of Organizations and Individuals in Online Social Networks

OpenAIRE

Elyashar, Aviad

2016-01-01

The serious privacy and security problems related to online social networks (OSNs) are what fueled two complementary studies as part of this thesis. In the first study, we developed a general algorithm for the mining of data of targeted organizations by using Facebook (currently the most popular OSN) and socialbots. By friending employees in a targeted organization, our active socialbots were able to find new employees and informal organizational links that we could not find by crawling with ...

Next Generation Social Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, Lene Tolstrup; Skouby, Knud Erik

2008-01-01

different online networks for communities of people who share interests or individuals who presents themselves through user produced content is what makes up the social networking of today. The purpose of this paper is to discuss perceived user requirements to the next generation social networks. The paper...

Talking about your health to strangers: understanding the use of online social networks by patients

Science.gov (United States)

Colineau, Nathalie; Paris, Cécile

2010-04-01

The internet has become a participatory place where everyone can contribute and interact with others. In health in particular, social media have changed traditional patient-physician relationships. Patients are organising themselves in groups, sharing observations and helping each other, although there is still little evidence of the effectiveness of these online communities on people's health. To understand why and how people use health-related sites, we studied these sites and identified three dimensions characterising most of them: informational/supportive; general/focused; and new relationships/existing ones. We conducted an online survey about the use of health-related social networking (SN) sites and learnt that, consistent with previous research, most patients were seeking information about their medical condition online, while, at the same time, still interacting with health professionals to talk about sensitive information and complex issues. We also found that, while people's natural social network played an important role for emotional support, sometimes, people chose to not involve their family, but instead interact with peers online because of their perceived support and ability to understand someone's experience, and also to maintain a comfortable emotional distance. Finally, our results show that people using general SN sites do not necessarily use health-related sites and vice versa.

Online social networking sites-a novel setting for health promotion?

Science.gov (United States)

Loss, Julika; Lindacher, Verena; Curbach, Janina

2014-03-01

Among adolescents, online social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook are popular platforms for social interaction and may therefore be considered as 'novel settings' that could be exploited for health promotion. In this article, we examine the relevant definitions in health promotion and literature in order to analyze whether key characteristics of 'settings for health promotion' and the socio-ecological settings approach can be transferred to SNS. As many of our daily activities have shifted to cyberspace, we argue that online social interaction may gain more importance than geographic closeness for defining a 'setting'. While exposition to positive references to risk behavior by peers may render the SNS environment detrimental to health, SNS may allow people to create their own content and therefore foster participation. However, those health promotion projects delivered on SNS up until today solely relied on health education directed at end users. It remains unclear how health promotion on SNS can meet other requirements of the settings approach (e.g. building partnerships, changing the environment). As yet, one should be cautious in terming SNS a 'setting'. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Exploring the Usefulness of Corporate Online Social Networks in the Human Resource Management

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Slaviša Sovilj

2014-04-01

who represent the nodes of communication, but also provides a wealth of information on employees or those who are interested in the right jobs, who use social networks to post information about themselves. This paper explored the possibility of obtaining information relevant to the selection of internal human resources based on an analysis of corporate online social networks. Research methods are taken from the field of graph theory and social network analysis (SNA, whereas in addition to quantitative parameters of nodes also additional dimensions of data filtering are considered. This approach is called the extended SNA. In addition to demonstrating and explaining, the extended SNA has developed an application that simulates the communication between employees within a corporation, for the analysis and detection of suitable employees, and visualizes the results in the form of a graph.

CSR communication through online social media

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Araceli Castelló-Martínez, Ph.D.

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Online social networks such as Facebook and Twitter have become essential channels in business strategies. Corporate Social Responsibility communication faces new challenges in these spaces of the Web 2.0, where companies can interact with users, generate a brand community, increase their visibility, and strengthen their position in the market. This research study aims to analyse the way companies use the major online social media to communicate their Corporate Social Responsibility programmes. The methodology involves the examination of the presence in online social platforms and the online corporate reputation of ten companies/brands. The results show that companies use these spaces as channels for business and advertising communication, but not so much for Corporate Social Responsibility communication, despite these social media offer many possibilities for interaction and dialogue.

PRIVACY PROTECTION PROBLEMS IN SOCIAL NETWORKS

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OKUR, M. Cudi

2011-01-01

Protecting privacy has become a major concern for most social network users because of increased difficulties of controlling the online data. This article presents an assessment of the common privacy related risks of social networking sites. Open and hidden privacy risks of active and passive online profiles are examined and increasing share of social networking in these phenomena is discussed. Inadequacy of available legal and institutional protection is demonstrated and the effectiveness of...

ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKS AS A TOOL FOR THE PROMOTION OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND HEALTH: A RESOURCE SCIENTIFICALLY FEW EXPLORED

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Arían Ramón Aladro Gonzalvo

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Due to the great impact  that are exerting the networks in society, it is crucial to know the features that distinguish online social networks bringing together users interested in receiving information and resources to improve or maintain the body in shape. This article aims to comment on the limited research interested in studying the features and particularities of online communities that provide information, advice and support in the execution, performance and promotion of the health and fitness activities. Particularly, it underline about the necessity to know of networks structure, user profiles and peer-to-peer interaction, sort of membership, mechanisms of communication, representation of the body image and patterns of association. Likewise, the size of the support networks, telepresence, technology acceptance and perceived risk on the network. Besides, we recommend exploring two Fitness-related online social networks. Finally, it makes known the recurring problems in the analysis in order to characterize psychosocial and communicative aspects of users in the virtual environment.

Mobile social networking an innovative approach

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Zhang, Daqing

2014-01-01

The use of contextually aware, pervasive, distributed computing, and sensor networks to bridge the gap between the physical and online worlds is the basis of mobile social networking. This book shows how applications can be built to provide mobile social networking, the research issues that need to be solved to enable this vision, and how mobile social networking can be used to provide computational intelligence that will improve daily life. With contributions from the fields of sociology, computer science, human-computer interaction and design, this book demonstrates how mobile social networks can be inferred from users' physical interactions both with the environment and with others, as well as how users behave around them and how their behavior differs on mobile vs. traditional online social networks.

Online professional networks for physicians: risk management.

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Hyman, Jon L; Luks, Howard J; Sechrest, Randale

2012-05-01

The rapidly developing array of online physician-only communities represents a potential extraordinary advance in the availability of educational and informational resources to physicians. These online communities provide physicians with a new range of controls over the information they process, but use of this social media technology carries some risk. The purpose of this review was to help physicians manage the risks of online professional networking and discuss the potential benefits that may come with such networks. This article explores the risks and benefits of physicians engaging in online professional networking with peers and provides suggestions on risk management. Through an Internet search and literature review, we scrutinized available case law, federal regulatory code, and guidelines of conduct from professional organizations and consultants. We reviewed the OrthoMind.com site as a case example because it is currently the only online social network exclusively for orthopaedic surgeons. Existing case law suggests potential liability for orthopaedic surgeons who engage with patients on openly accessible social network platforms. Current society guidelines in both the United States and Britain provide sensible rules that may mitigate such risks. However, the overall lack of a strong body of legal opinions, government regulations as well as practical experience for most surgeons limit the suitability of such platforms. Closed platforms that are restricted to validated orthopaedic surgeons may limit these downside risks and hence allow surgeons to collaborate with one another both as clinicians and practice owners. Educating surgeons about the pros and cons of participating in these networking platforms is helping them more astutely manage risks and optimize benefits. This evolving online environment of professional interaction is one of few precedents, but the application of risk management strategies that physicians use in daily practice carries over

Social Networking Sites and Addiction: Ten Lessons Learned.

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Kuss, Daria J; Griffiths, Mark D

2017-03-17

Online social networking sites (SNSs) have gained increasing popularity in the last decade, with individuals engaging in SNSs to connect with others who share similar interests. The perceived need to be online may result in compulsive use of SNSs, which in extreme cases may result in symptoms and consequences traditionally associated with substance-related addictions. In order to present new insights into online social networking and addiction, in this paper, 10 lessons learned concerning online social networking sites and addiction based on the insights derived from recent empirical research will be presented. These are: (i) social networking and social media use are not the same; (ii) social networking is eclectic; (iii) social networking is a way of being; (iv) individuals can become addicted to using social networking sites; (v) Facebook addiction is only one example of SNS addiction; (vi) fear of missing out (FOMO) may be part of SNS addiction; (vii) smartphone addiction may be part of SNS addiction; (viii) nomophobia may be part of SNS addiction; (ix) there are sociodemographic differences in SNS addiction; and (x) there are methodological problems with research to date. These are discussed in turn. Recommendations for research and clinical applications are provided.

Social network analysis as a method for analyzing interaction in collaborative online learning environments

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Patricia Rice Doran

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Social network analysis software such as NodeXL has been used to describe participation and interaction in numerous social networks, but it has not yet been widely used to examine dynamics in online classes, where participation is frequently required rather than optional and participation patterns may be impacted by the requirements of the class, the instructor’s activities, or participants’ intrinsic engagement with the subject matter. Such social network analysis, which examines the dynamics and interactions among groups of participants in a social network or learning group, can be valuable in programs focused on teaching collaborative and communicative skills, including teacher preparation programs. Applied to these programs, social network analysis can provide information about instructional practices likely to facilitate student interaction and collaboration across diverse student populations. This exploratory study used NodeXL to visualize students’ participation in an online course, with the goal of identifying (1 ways in which NodeXL could be used to describe patterns in participant interaction within an instructional setting and (2 identifying specific patterns in participant interaction among students in this particular course. In this sample, general education teachers demonstrated higher measures of connection and interaction with other participants than did those from specialist (ESOL or special education backgrounds, and tended to interact more frequently with all participants than the majority of participants from specialist backgrounds. We recommend further research to delineate specific applications of NodeXL within an instructional context, particularly to identify potential patterns in student participation based on variables such as gender, background, cultural and linguistic heritage, prior training and education, and prior experience so that instructors can ensure their practice helps to facilitate student interaction

Myths on Bi-direction Communication of Web 2.0 Based Social Networks: Is Social Network Truly Interactive?

Science.gov (United States)

2011-03-10

more and more social interactions are happening on the on-line. Especially recent uptake of the social network sites (SNSs), such as Facebook (http...Smart phones • Live updates within social networks • Facebook & Twitters Solution: WebMon for Risk Management Need for New WebMon for Social Networks ...Title: Myths on bi-direction communication of Web 2.0 based social networks : Is social network truly interactive

Professional conduct among registered nurses in the use of online social networking sites.

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Levati, Sara

2014-10-01

To explore the use of Facebook by Registered Nurses (RNs) in Italy and the United Kingdom (UK), focusing on the disclosure of personal and professional information. The use of online social network sites among medical students and doctors is posing new ethical challenges to the profession. To date, little research has explored the use of online social networking sites among nurses. A cross-national survey. Data were assessed on 124 nurses' profile pages, readily available without viewing restrictions. Content analysis and inferential statistics were undertaken to describe usage and identify similarities and differences between the two country-groups of nurses. Data were collected between December 2011-January 2012. Overall, UK and Italian RNs showed a similar use of the online platform, tending to disclose personal pictures, home town and current home location, as well as updates and comments related to personal and work-related activities. A statistically significant higher proportion of nurses in Italy disclosed their sexual orientation. In both groups, a few cases were observed of potentially unprofessional content in relation to the use of alcohol, nudity and material of a salacious nature. Although most of the UK and Italy RNs appear to be aware of the risks posed by their online exposure, their online activity indicates the blurring of their personal and professional lives; this is posing new ethical, legal and professional challenges to members of the nursing profession. Further research and debate is encouraged at national and international level. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Habit as a moderator and exogenous predictor of social networks: The case of online social networking

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Akwesi Assensoh-Kodua

2015-10-01

Full Text Available This paper tests the factors likely to impact continuance intentions through the medium of online social networks (OSN for business transactions. The expectation-confirmation theory (ECT from the consumer behaviour literature is made use of; to forward a set of theories that validate a prior model from IS usage research. Eight research hypotheses, after a field survey of OSNs participants for business transactions were conducted are empirically validated. 300 useable responses from LinkedIn and Twitter social networking platforms users for business transactions were analysed with the WarpPLS 4.0 bootstrapping technique. The study results provide significant evidence in support of perceived trust and user satisfaction, as determinants of the continuance intention of people using OSN platforms for business transactions. Above all, the research model was tested for the moderating effects of usage habit, which was found to impact relationships between continuance intention and perceived trust, resulting in an improved predictive capability of (R2=0.55 as compared to base model of (R2=0.52. The moderating result indicates that a higher level of habit increases the effect of perceived trust on continuance intention

Analysis of Context Dependence in Social Interaction Networks of a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game

OpenAIRE

Son, Seokshin; Kang, Ah Reum; Kim, Hyun-chul; Kwon, Taekyoung; Park, Juyong; Kim, Huy Kang

2012-01-01

Rapid advances in modern computing and information technology have enabled millions of people to interact online via various social network and gaming services. The widespread adoption of such online services have made possible analysis of large-scale archival data containing detailed human interactions, presenting a very promising opportunity to understand the rich and complex human behavior. In collaboration with a leading global provider of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (...

Efficacy of Online Social Networks on Language Teaching: A Bangladeshi Perspective

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Shaila Shams

2014-08-01

Full Text Available It is now an established fact that the use of technology facilitates teaching and learning in language classrooms. With the advancement of technology, social networking websites have emerged too. Social networking sites have been quite popular among various age group users particularly the young users since their invention. Also, they are conceived to be able to motivate (Greenhow, Robelia, & Hughes, 2009 and expose learners to the authentic use of the target language (Baralt, 2011. However, very little research has been done, especially in Bangladesh, on how much these websites can contribute to language learning and teaching though they seem to offer ample opportunities. Therefore, this study aims at investigating the effect of using ‘The Facebook’, a social networking website, in language classrooms at tertiary level in Bangladesh. Participants of this study were first year first semester university students doing a foundation course in English focusing to improve their listening, speaking and writing skills. The participants were divided into two groups. Group 1 was the control group who was taught traditionally and non-digitally without using Facebook. Group 2, along with classroom teaching, received help from the instructor through Facebook and did tasks assigned on Facebook. At the end of the three months semester a test was taken and the result of both groups was compared. Thus, this study shall try to provide an answer regarding to what extent online social networks can facilitate second language acquisition.

Structural characteristics of the online social networks of maltreated youth and offline sexual risk behavior.

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Negriff, Sonya; Valente, Thomas W

2018-02-07

Maltreated youth are at risk for exposure to online sexual content and high-risk sexual behavior, yet characteristics of their online social networks have not been examined as a potential source of vulnerability. The aims of the current study were: 1) to test indicators of size (number of friends) and fragmentation (number of connections between friends) of maltreated young adults' online networks as predictors of intentional and unintentional exposure to sexual content and offline high-risk sexual behavior and 2) to test maltreatment as a moderator of these associations. Participants were selected from a longitudinal study on the effects of child maltreatment (n = 152; Mean age 21.84 years). Data downloaded from Facebook were used to calculate network variables of size (number of friends), density (connections between friends), average degree (average number of connections for each friend), and percent isolates (those not connected to others in the network). Self-reports of intentional and unintentional exposure to online sexual content and offline high-risk sexual behavior were the outcome variables. Multiple-group path modeling showed that only for the maltreated group having a higher percent of isolates in the network predicted intentional exposure to online sexual content and offline high-risk sexual behavior. An implication of this finding is that the composition of the Facebook network may be used as a risk indicator for individuals with child-welfare documented maltreatment experiences. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

A meta-analysis of social networking online and social capital

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Liu, Dong; Ainsworth, Sarah E.; Baumeister, Roy F.

2016-01-01

Social networking sites offer new avenues for interpersonal communication that may enable people to build social capital. The meta-analyses reported in this paper evaluated the relationship between social network site (SNS) use and 2 types of social capital: bridging social capital and bonding

To View or Not To View: The Influence of Social Networks and Subjective Norms on Online Pornography Consumption

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Wan-Ying Lin

2012-06-01

Full Text Available This study investigates the influence of social networks and subjective norms on an individual’s online pornography consumption. The empirical survey results of 324 voluntary participants indicated that the individual’s positive outcome evaluation was associated with a higher level of online pornography exposure. Social pressure also plays a significant, but negative, role in one’s viewing decision.

Semantic network analysis of vaccine sentiment in online social media.

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Kang, Gloria J; Ewing-Nelson, Sinclair R; Mackey, Lauren; Schlitt, James T; Marathe, Achla; Abbas, Kaja M; Swarup, Samarth

2017-06-22

To examine current vaccine sentiment on social media by constructing and analyzing semantic networks of vaccine information from highly shared websites of Twitter users in the United States; and to assist public health communication of vaccines. Vaccine hesitancy continues to contribute to suboptimal vaccination coverage in the United States, posing significant risk of disease outbreaks, yet remains poorly understood. We constructed semantic networks of vaccine information from internet articles shared by Twitter users in the United States. We analyzed resulting network topology, compared semantic differences, and identified the most salient concepts within networks expressing positive, negative, and neutral vaccine sentiment. The semantic network of positive vaccine sentiment demonstrated greater cohesiveness in discourse compared to the larger, less-connected network of negative vaccine sentiment. The positive sentiment network centered around parents and focused on communicating health risks and benefits, highlighting medical concepts such as measles, autism, HPV vaccine, vaccine-autism link, meningococcal disease, and MMR vaccine. In contrast, the negative network centered around children and focused on organizational bodies such as CDC, vaccine industry, doctors, mainstream media, pharmaceutical companies, and United States. The prevalence of negative vaccine sentiment was demonstrated through diverse messaging, framed around skepticism and distrust of government organizations that communicate scientific evidence supporting positive vaccine benefits. Semantic network analysis of vaccine sentiment in online social media can enhance understanding of the scope and variability of current attitudes and beliefs toward vaccines. Our study synthesizes quantitative and qualitative evidence from an interdisciplinary approach to better understand complex drivers of vaccine hesitancy for public health communication, to improve vaccine confidence and vaccination coverage

The Role of Online Social Identity in the Relationship Between Alcohol-Related Content on Social Networking Sites and Adolescent Alcohol Use.

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Pegg, Karlee J; O'Donnell, Alexander W; Lala, Girish; Barber, Bonnie L

2018-01-01

Social networking sites (SNSs) are social platforms that facilitate communication. For adolescents, peers play a crucial role in constructing the self online through displays of group norms on SNSs. The current study investigated the role of online social identity (OSI) in the relationship between adolescent exposure to alcohol-related content posted by peers on SNSs and alcohol use. In a sample (N = 929) of Australian adolescents (Age M = 17.25, SD = 0.31) higher levels of exposure to alcohol-related content on SNSs was associated with higher levels of alcohol use. Importantly, the association was stronger when the participants reported higher OSI particularly when also reporting low or moderate amount of time spent on SNS. The findings can be explained by social identity literature that demonstrates individuals align their behaviors with other members of their social group to demonstrate, enact, and maintain social identity. The results of this study reflect the importance of considering the construction of the "self" through online and offline constructs.

Social Networking Sites and Addiction: Ten Lessons Learned

Science.gov (United States)

Kuss, Daria J.; Griffiths, Mark D.

2017-01-01

Online social networking sites (SNSs) have gained increasing popularity in the last decade, with individuals engaging in SNSs to connect with others who share similar interests. The perceived need to be online may result in compulsive use of SNSs, which in extreme cases may result in symptoms and consequences traditionally associated with substance-related addictions. In order to present new insights into online social networking and addiction, in this paper, 10 lessons learned concerning online social networking sites and addiction based on the insights derived from recent empirical research will be presented. These are: (i) social networking and social media use are not the same; (ii) social networking is eclectic; (iii) social networking is a way of being; (iv) individuals can become addicted to using social networking sites; (v) Facebook addiction is only one example of SNS addiction; (vi) fear of missing out (FOMO) may be part of SNS addiction; (vii) smartphone addiction may be part of SNS addiction; (viii) nomophobia may be part of SNS addiction; (ix) there are sociodemographic differences in SNS addiction; and (x) there are methodological problems with research to date. These are discussed in turn. Recommendations for research and clinical applications are provided. PMID:28304359

Social Networking Sites and Addiction: Ten Lessons Learned

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Daria J. Kuss

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Online social networking sites (SNSs have gained increasing popularity in the last decade, with individuals engaging in SNSs to connect with others who share similar interests. The perceived need to be online may result in compulsive use of SNSs, which in extreme cases may result in symptoms and consequences traditionally associated with substance-related addictions. In order to present new insights into online social networking and addiction, in this paper, 10 lessons learned concerning online social networking sites and addiction based on the insights derived from recent empirical research will be presented. These are: (i social networking and social media use are not the same; (ii social networking is eclectic; (iii social networking is a way of being; (iv individuals can become addicted to using social networking sites; (v Facebook addiction is only one example of SNS addiction; (vi fear of missing out (FOMO may be part of SNS addiction; (vii smartphone addiction may be part of SNS addiction; (viii nomophobia may be part of SNS addiction; (ix there are sociodemographic differences in SNS addiction; and (x there are methodological problems with research to date. These are discussed in turn. Recommendations for research and clinical applications are provided.

Online Social Network Interactions:

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Hui-Jung Chang

2018-01-01

Full Text Available A cross-cultural comparison of social networking structure on McDonald’s Facebook fan sites between Taiwan and the USA was conducted utilizing the individualism/collectivism dimension proposed by Hofstede. Four network indicators are used to describe the network structure of McDonald’s Facebook fan sites: size, density, clique and centralization. Individuals who post on both Facebook sites for the year of 2012 were considered as network participants for the purpose of the study. Due to the huge amount of data, only one thread of postings was sampled from each month of the year of 2012. The final data consists of 1002 postings written by 896 individuals and 5962 postings written by 5532 individuals from Taiwan and the USA respectively. The results indicated that the USA McDonald’s Facebook fan network has more fans, while Taiwan’s McDonald’s Facebook fan network is more densely connected. Cliques did form among the overall multiplex and within the individual uniplex networks in two countries, yet no significant differences were found between them. All the fan networks in both countries are relatively centralized, mostly on the site operators.

Recruiting migrants for health research through social network sites: an online survey among chinese migrants in australia.

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Jie; Wong, Kam Cheong; Wang, Zhiqiang

2015-04-27

Traditionally, postal surveys or face to face interviews are the main approaches for health researchers to obtain essential research data. However, with the prevalence of information technology and Internet, Web-based surveys are gaining popularity in health research. This study aims to report the process and outcomes of recruiting Chinese migrants through social network sites in Australia and to examine the sample characteristics of online recruitment by comparing the sample which was recruited by an online survey to a sample of Australian Chinese migrants collected by a postal survey. Descriptive analyses were performed to describe and compare the process and outcomes of online recruitment with postal survey questionnaires. Chi square tests and t tests were performed to assess the differences between the two samples for categorical and continuous variables respectively. In total, 473 Chinese migrants completed the online health survey from July to October 2013. Out of 426 participants recruited through the three Chinese social network sites in Australia, over 86.6% (369/426) were recruited within six weeks. Participants of the Web-based survey were younger, with a higher education level or had resided in Australia for less time compared to those recruited via a postal survey. However, there was no significant difference in gender, marital status, and professional occupation. The recruitment of Chinese migrants through social network sites in our online survey was feasible. Compared to a postal survey of Chinese migrants, the online survey attracted different group of Chinese migrants who may have diverse health needs and concerns. Our findings provided insightful information for researchers who are considering employing a Web-based approach to recruit migrants and ethnic minority participants.

Analyzing the Impact of Storage Shortage on Data Availability in Decentralized Online Social Networks

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Songling Fu

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Maintaining data availability is one of the biggest challenges in decentralized online social networks (DOSNs. The existing work often assumes that the friends of a user can always contribute to the sufficient storage capacity to store all data. However, this assumption is not always true in today’s online social networks (OSNs due to the fact that nowadays the users often use the smart mobile devices to access the OSNs. The limitation of the storage capacity in mobile devices may jeopardize the data availability. Therefore, it is desired to know the relation between the storage capacity contributed by the OSN users and the level of data availability that the OSNs can achieve. This paper addresses this issue. In this paper, the data availability model over storage capacity is established. Further, a novel method is proposed to predict the data availability on the fly. Extensive simulation experiments have been conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the data availability model and the on-the-fly prediction.

Information filtering on coupled social networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Nie, Da-Cheng; Zhang, Zi-Ke; Zhou, Jun-Lin; Fu, Yan; Zhang, Kui

2014-01-01

In this paper, based on the coupled social networks (CSN), we propose a hybrid algorithm to nonlinearly integrate both social and behavior information of online users. Filtering algorithm, based on the coupled social networks, considers the effects of both social similarity and personalized preference. Experimental results based on two real datasets, Epinions and Friendfeed, show that the hybrid pattern can not only provide more accurate recommendations, but also enlarge the recommendation coverage while adopting global metric. Further empirical analyses demonstrate that the mutual reinforcement and rich-club phenomenon can also be found in coupled social networks where the identical individuals occupy the core position of the online system. This work may shed some light on the in-depth understanding of the structure and function of coupled social networks.

Online social networking in adolescence: patterns of use in six European countries and links with psychosocial functioning.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tsitsika, A.K.; Tzavela, E.C.; Janikian, M.; Olafsson, K.; Iordache, A.; Schoenmakers, T.M.; Tzavara, C.; Richardson, C.

2014-01-01

Purpose: Online communication tools, such as social networking sites (SNS), have been comprehensively embraced by adolescents and have become a dominant daily social practice. Recognizing SNS as a key context of adolescent development, this study aimed to investigate associations between heavier SNS

Fra onlinefællesskaber til onlinenetværk: Facebook som augmentering af den sociale virkelighed [From online communities to online networks: Facebook as an augmentation of social reality

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Jakob Linaa Jensen

2009-06-01

Full Text Available This article discusses the Facebook phenomenon, using it as an example of how the most dominant social use of the Internet today is network-based rather than community-based. In the early years of the Internet, online communities were popular fora for meeting new people with related interests or opinions. Today, the dominant social use is to create and maintain relationships with your existing social network. It is also demonstrated that the success of Facebook, is dependent, among other factors, upon the fulfilment of five social functions for the users: self-presentation, friendship, object sharing, publication, and having a “sixth sense”. Thus, Facebook contributes to an enhancement of existing social relationships offline, what I call an augmentation of social reality.

Actual versus perceived peer sexual risk behavior in online youth social networks.

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Black, Sandra R; Schmiege, Sarah; Bull, Sheana

2013-09-01

Perception of peer behaviors is an important predictor of actual risk behaviors among youth. However, we lack understanding of peer influence through social media and of actual and perceived peer behavior concordance. The purpose of this research is to document the relationship between individual perception of and actual peer sexual risk behavior using online social networks. The data are a result of a secondary analysis of baseline self-reported and peer-reported sexual risk behavior from a cluster randomized trial including 1,029 persons from 162 virtual networks. Individuals (seeds) recruited up to three friends who then recruited additional friends, extending three waves from the seed. ANOVA models compared network means of actual participant behavior across categories of perceived behavior. Concordance varied between reported and perceived behavior, with higher concordance between perceived and reported condom use, multiple partners, concurrent partners, sexual pressure, and drug and alcohol use during sex. Individuals significantly over-reported risk and under-reported protective peer behaviors related to sex.

PRESS AND SOCIAL NETWORKING SERVICES IN THE INTERNET: APPROACHES TO THE RELATIONS OF TWO ARGENTINE ONLINE NEWSPAPERS WITH FACEBOOK AND TWITTER

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Natalia Raimondo Anselmino

2013-12-01

Full Text Available This article describes the incorporation of the social networks resources on Internet into digital interfaces of the two main Argentine newspapers, Clarín and La Nación, as well as the ways in which these online newspapers manage and use their official accounts on Facebook (FB and Twitter (TW. Such reflections are part of the first stage of a research project which aims to understand the relationship established, at present, between digital media and social networking, to account for the impact of the latter both the link to the press with his readership as in the press-public sphere relationship. As we have seen until now, these observed online newspapers use their official accounts on FB and TW for several purposes: to get viral spread of content; to establish a direct contact with the public; to get the audience involved and encourage their participation; to consolidate their own positions into the social networks; and to get users to control the quality of his speeches on the Internet. Besides, the incorporation of the social networks resources on these online newspapers would impact, specially, on news circulation process since a piece of news is no longer a stable unit and gets modified as the story travels through Internet social networks.

Press and social networking services in the internet: approaches to the relations of two Argentine online newspapers with Facebook and Twitter

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Natalia Raimondo Anselmino

2013-12-01

Full Text Available This article describes the incorporation of the social networks resources on Internet into digital interfaces of the two main Argentine newspapers, Clarín and La Nación, as well as the ways in which these online newspapers manage and use their official accounts on Facebook (FB and Twitter (TW. Such reflections are part of the first stage of a research project which aims to understand the relationship established, at present, between digital media and social networking, to account for the impact of the latter both the link to the press with his readership as in the press-public sphere relationship. As we have seen until now, these observed online newspapers use their official accounts on FB and TW for several purposes: to get viral spread of content; to establish a direct contact with the public; to get the audience involved and encourage their participation; to consolidate their own positions into the social networks; and to get users to control the quality of his speeches on the Internet. Besides, the incorporation of the social networks resources on these online newspapers would impact, specially, on news circulation process since a piece of news is no longer a stable unit and gets modified as the story travels through Internet social networks.

Frequency of Victimization Experiences and Well-Being Among Online, Offline, and Combined Victims on Social Online Network Sites of German Children and Adolescents.

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Glüer, Michael; Lohaus, Arnold

2015-01-01

Victimization is associated with negative developmental outcomes in childhood and adolescence. However, previous studies have provided mixed results regarding the association between offline and online victimization and indicators of social, psychological, and somatic well-being. In this study, we investigated 1,890 German children and adolescents (grades 5-10, mean age = 13.9; SD = 2.1) with and without offline or online victimization experiences who participated in a social online network (SNS). Online questionnaires were used to assess previous victimization (offline, online, combined, and without), somatic and psychological symptoms, self-esteem, and social self-concept (social competence, resistance to peer influence, esteem by others). In total, 1,362 (72.1%) children and adolescents reported being a member of at least one SNS, and 377 students (28.8%) reported previous victimization. Most children and adolescents had offline victimization experiences (17.5%), whereas 2.7% reported online victimization, and 8.6% reported combined experiences. Girls reported more online and combined victimization, and boys reported more offline victimization. The type of victimization (offline, online, combined) was associated with increased reports of psychological and somatic symptoms, lower self-esteem and esteem by others, and lower resistance to peer influences. The effects were comparable for the groups with offline and online victimization. They were, however, increased in the combined group in comparison to victims with offline experiences alone.

Association between online social networking and depression in high school students: behavioral physiology viewpoint.

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Pantic, Igor; Damjanovic, Aleksandar; Todorovic, Jovana; Topalovic, Dubravka; Bojovic-Jovic, Dragana; Ristic, Sinisa; Pantic, Senka

2012-03-01

Frequent use of Facebook and other social networks is thought to be associated with certain behavioral changes, and some authors have expressed concerns about its possible detrimental effect on mental health. In this work, we investigated the relationship between social networking and depression indicators in adolescent population. Total of 160 high school students were interviewed using an anonymous, structured questionnaire and Back Depression Inventory - second edition (BDI-II-II). Apart from BDI-II-II, students were asked to provide the data for height and weight, gender, average daily time spent on social networking sites, average time spent watching TV, and sleep duration in a 24-hour period. Average BDI-II-II score was 8.19 (SD=5.86). Average daily time spent on social networking was 1.86 h (SD=2.08 h), and average time spent watching TV was 2.44 h (SD=1.74 h). Average body mass index of participants was 21.84 (SD=3.55) and average sleep duration was 7.37 (SD=1.82). BDI-II-II score indicated minimal depression in 104 students, mild depression in 46 students, and moderate depression in 10 students. Statistically significant positive correlation (psocial networking. Our results indicate that online social networking is related to depression. Additional research is required to determine the possible causal nature of this relationship.

Linking Online and Offline Social Worlds: Opportunities and Threats

Science.gov (United States)

Dong, Cailing

2017-01-01

Social networks bring both opportunities and threats to the users. On one hand, social networks provide a platform for users to build online profiles, make connections with others beyond geographical boundaries, enjoy the "openness" of social networks to meet their intrinsic need of "self-presentation", explore and strengthen…

Recommender systems for location-based social networks

CERN Document Server

Symeonidis, Panagiotis; Manolopoulos, Yannis

2014-01-01

Online social networks collect information from users' social contacts and their daily interactions (co-tagging of photos, co-rating of products etc.) to provide them with recommendations of new products or friends. Lately, technological progressions in mobile devices (i.e. smart phones) enabled the incorporation of geo-location data in the traditional web-based online social networks, bringing the new era of Social and Mobile Web. The goal of this book is to bring together important research in a new family of recommender systems aimed at serving Location-based Social Networks (LBSNs). The chapters introduce a wide variety of recent approaches, from the most basic to the state-of-the-art, for providing recommendations in LBSNs. The book is organized into three parts. Part 1 provides introductory material on recommender systems, online social networks and LBSNs. Part 2 presents a wide variety of recommendation algorithms, ranging from basic to cutting edge, as well as a comparison of the characteristics of t...

Effects of Social Network Exposure on Nutritional Learning: Development of an Online Educational Platform.

Science.gov (United States)

Dagan, Noa; Beskin, Daniel; Brezis, Mayer; Reis, Ben Y

2015-10-05

Social networking sites (SNSs) such as Facebook have the potential to enhance online public health interventions, in part, as they provide social exposure and reinforcement. The objective of the study was to evaluate whether social exposure provided by SNSs enhances the effects of online public health interventions. As a sample intervention, we developed Food Hero, an online platform for nutritional education in which players feed a virtual character according to their own nutritional needs and complete a set of virtual sport challenges. The platform was developed in 2 versions: a "private version" in which a user can see only his or her own score, and a "social version" in which a user can see other players' scores, including preexisting Facebook friends. We assessed changes in participants' nutritional knowledge using 4 quiz scores and 3 menu-assembly scores. Monitoring feeding and exercising attempts assessed engagement with the platform. The 2 versions of the platform were randomly assigned between a study group (30 members receiving the social version) and a control group (33 members, private version). The study group's performance on the quizzes gradually increased over time, relative to that of the control group, becoming significantly higher by the fourth quiz (P=.02). Furthermore, the study group's menu-assembly scores improved over time compared to the first score, whereas the control group's performance deteriorated. Study group members spent an average of 3:40 minutes assembling each menu compared to 2:50 minutes in the control group, and performed an average of 1.58 daily sport challenges, compared to 1.21 in the control group (P=.03). This work focused on isolating the SNSs' social effects in order to help guide future online interventions. Our results indicate that the social exposure provided by SNSs is associated with increased engagement and learning in an online nutritional educational platform.

Online Social Support for Young People: Does It Recapitulate In-person Social Support; Can It Help?

Science.gov (United States)

Cole, David A; Nick, Elizabeth A; Zelkowitz, Rachel L; Roeder, Kathryn M; Spinelli, Tawny

2017-03-01

As social media websites have grown in popularity, public concern about online victimization has grown as well; however, much less attention has focused on the possible beneficial effects of online social networks. If theory and research about in-person social networks pertain, then online social relationships may represent an important modern source of or vehicle for support. In a study of 231 undergraduates, three major findings emerged: (1) for people with weaker in-person social support, social media sites provide a source of social support that is less redundant of the social support they receive in person; (2) in ways that were not redundant of each other, both online and in-person social support were associated with lower levels of depression-related thoughts and feelings, and (3) the beneficial effects of online social support (like in-person social support) offset some of the adverse effects of peer victimization. The study suggests that augmenting social relations via strategic use of social media can enhance young people's social support systems in beneficial ways.

Ethical considerations when employing fake identities in online social networks for research.

Science.gov (United States)

Elovici, Yuval; Fire, Michael; Herzberg, Amir; Shulman, Haya

2014-12-01

Online social networks (OSNs) have rapidly become a prominent and widely used service, offering a wealth of personal and sensitive information with significant security and privacy implications. Hence, OSNs are also an important--and popular--subject for research. To perform research based on real-life evidence, however, researchers may need to access OSN data, such as texts and files uploaded by users and connections among users. This raises significant ethical problems. Currently, there are no clear ethical guidelines, and researchers may end up (unintentionally) performing ethically questionable research, sometimes even when more ethical research alternatives exist. For example, several studies have employed "fake identities" to collect data from OSNs, but fake identities may be used for attacks and are considered a security issue. Is it legitimate to use fake identities for studying OSNs or for collecting OSN data for research? We present a taxonomy of the ethical challenges facing researchers of OSNs and compare different approaches. We demonstrate how ethical considerations have been taken into account in previous studies that used fake identities. In addition, several possible approaches are offered to reduce or avoid ethical misconducts. We hope this work will stimulate the development and use of ethical practices and methods in the research of online social networks.

Civility vs. Incivility in Online Social Interactions: An Evolutionary Approach.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Angelo Antoci

Full Text Available Evidence is growing that forms of incivility-e.g. aggressive and disrespectful behaviors, harassment, hate speech and outrageous claims-are spreading in the population of social networking sites' (SNS users. Online social networks such as Facebook allow users to regularly interact with known and unknown others, who can behave either politely or rudely. This leads individuals not only to learn and adopt successful strategies for using the site, but also to condition their own behavior on that of others. Using a mean field approach, we define anevolutionary game framework to analyse the dynamics of civil and uncivil ways of interaction in online social networks and their consequences for collective welfare. Agents can choose to interact with others-politely or rudely-in SNS, or to opt out from online social networks to protect themselves from incivility. We find that, when the initial share of the population of polite users reaches a critical level, civility becomes generalized if its payoff increases more than that of incivility with the spreading of politeness in online interactions. Otherwise, the spreading of self-protective behaviors to cope with online incivility can lead the economyto non-socially optimal stationary states. JEL Codes: C61, C73, D85, O33, Z13. PsycINFO Codes: 2240, 2750.

Civility vs. Incivility in Online Social Interactions: An Evolutionary Approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Antoci, Angelo; Delfino, Alexia; Paglieri, Fabio; Panebianco, Fabrizio; Sabatini, Fabio

2016-01-01

Evidence is growing that forms of incivility-e.g. aggressive and disrespectful behaviors, harassment, hate speech and outrageous claims-are spreading in the population of social networking sites' (SNS) users. Online social networks such as Facebook allow users to regularly interact with known and unknown others, who can behave either politely or rudely. This leads individuals not only to learn and adopt successful strategies for using the site, but also to condition their own behavior on that of others. Using a mean field approach, we define anevolutionary game framework to analyse the dynamics of civil and uncivil ways of interaction in online social networks and their consequences for collective welfare. Agents can choose to interact with others-politely or rudely-in SNS, or to opt out from online social networks to protect themselves from incivility. We find that, when the initial share of the population of polite users reaches a critical level, civility becomes generalized if its payoff increases more than that of incivility with the spreading of politeness in online interactions. Otherwise, the spreading of self-protective behaviors to cope with online incivility can lead the economyto non-socially optimal stationary states. JEL Codes: C61, C73, D85, O33, Z13. PsycINFO Codes: 2240, 2750.

The Role of Online Social Identity in the Relationship Between Alcohol-Related Content on Social Networking Sites and Adolescent Alcohol Use

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O'Donnell, Alexander W.; Lala, Girish; Barber, Bonnie L.

2018-01-01

Abstract Social networking sites (SNSs) are social platforms that facilitate communication. For adolescents, peers play a crucial role in constructing the self online through displays of group norms on SNSs. The current study investigated the role of online social identity (OSI) in the relationship between adolescent exposure to alcohol-related content posted by peers on SNSs and alcohol use. In a sample (N = 929) of Australian adolescents (Age M = 17.25, SD = 0.31) higher levels of exposure to alcohol-related content on SNSs was associated with higher levels of alcohol use. Importantly, the association was stronger when the participants reported higher OSI particularly when also reporting low or moderate amount of time spent on SNS. The findings can be explained by social identity literature that demonstrates individuals align their behaviors with other members of their social group to demonstrate, enact, and maintain social identity. The results of this study reflect the importance of considering the construction of the “self” through online and offline constructs. PMID:28574719

Signed Networks in Social Media

OpenAIRE

Leskovec, Jure; Huttenlocher, Daniel; Kleinberg, Jon

2010-01-01

Relations between users on social media sites often reflect a mixture of positive (friendly) and negative (antagonistic) interactions. In contrast to the bulk of research on social networks that has focused almost exclusively on positive interpretations of links between people, we study how the interplay between positive and negative relationships affects the structure of on-line social networks. We connect our analyses to theories of signed networks from social psychology. We find that the c...

Does Online Social Media Lead to Social Connection or Social Disconnection?

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Twenge, Jean M.

2013-01-01

Today’s young generation (often called "Millennials," "GenY," or "Generation Me") are the first to grow up with the Internet and social networking websites. Have these experiences led to more and better social connections, or fewer and atrophied ones? Social media use may lead to online political action such as signing an e-mail petition but does…

Teleaudiology: efficacy assessment of an online social network as a support tool for parents of children candidates for cochlear implant.

Science.gov (United States)

Aiello, Camila Piccini; Ferrari, Deborah Viviane

2015-01-01

To assess the efficacy of an online social network as a support for parents of children with hearing impairment. Twenty-two mothers, randomly divided into experimental (n=11) and control (n=11) groups, filled in an online form containing the Parental Stress Index - Short Form (PSI-SF). Only the experimental group had access to the "Babies' Portal" social network. Both groups filled in the online form once again 3 months after the first assessment, for evaluating the use and participation in the social network. The posts on the social network were rated by two independent raters regarding themes and mechanisms of self-help. No difference was observed in mean PSI-SF scores between the groups for both assessments. Intragroup analysis showed no difference for total and subscale results of PSI-SF between the two data collected for both groups except for the "Defensive Response" subscale, in which a decrease was observed in the score for the control group. The most frequent posting themes were related to personal information and expressions of religious beliefs. Regarding self-help mechanisms, a higher frequency of exchanging experiences and gratitude expressions was observed. Participants in the experimental group stated they would have liked to participate more frequently in the social network as they considered this tool important because of the exchange of information and experience with other mothers and hearing health-care professionals. The posts and the assessment of participants indicated the potential of this network to support parents of children with hearing impairment.

Analysis of context dependence in social interaction networks of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

Science.gov (United States)

Son, Seokshin; Kang, Ah Reum; Kim, Hyun-chul; Kwon, Taekyoung; Park, Juyong; Kim, Huy Kang

2012-01-01

Rapid advances in modern computing and information technology have enabled millions of people to interact online via various social network and gaming services. The widespread adoption of such online services have made possible analysis of large-scale archival data containing detailed human interactions, presenting a very promising opportunity to understand the rich and complex human behavior. In collaboration with a leading global provider of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs), here we present a network science-based analysis of the interplay between distinct types of user interaction networks in the virtual world. We find that their properties depend critically on the nature of the context-interdependence of the interactions, highlighting the complex and multilayered nature of human interactions, a robust understanding of which we believe may prove instrumental in the designing of more realistic future virtual arenas as well as provide novel insights to the science of collective human behavior.

Development and Analyses of Privacy Management Models in Online Social Networks Based on Communication Privacy Management Theory

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Ki Jung

2013-01-01

Online social networks (OSNs), while serving as an emerging means of communication, promote various issues of privacy. Users of OSNs encounter diverse occasions that lead to invasion of their privacy, e.g., published conversation, public revelation of their personally identifiable information, and open boundary of distinct social groups within…

Impacto de la ansiedad social, las habilidades sociales y la cibervictimización en la comunicación online (Impact of Social Anxiety, Social Skills and Cyberbullying on Online Communication

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Raúl Navarro

2012-12-01

Full Text Available The present research examined online communication behaviour in a sample of preadolescents (10-12 years, n= 812. In addition, we examined the effect of social anxiety, social skills and experiences of cyberbullying on online communication behaviour. Online communication measures included items related to time online, platforms used, relationships and motives to go online. Social anxiety was assessed using the Social Anxiety Scale of Children Revised, social skills were measured using the Matson Questionnaire subscale and cyberbullying using the Victimization Scale via Internet. The results show that the group with high social skills and low levels of anxiety spend more time communicating online and use instant messages to talk to friends. In contrast, the online behaviour of the group with high levels of anxiety and low social skills are more motivated to communicate online by their desire to make new friends. Cybervictims spend more time online, use chat rooms and communicate more with strangers than those who do not suffer cyberbullying. These findings suggest that the Internet offers opportunities to maintain and extend social networks but also exposes young people to online risks.

Profiles of social networking sites users in the Netherlands

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Constantinides, Efthymios; Alarcón del Amo, Maria del Carmen; Lorenzo Romero, Carlota

2010-01-01

Online social networking has become a reality and integral part of the daily personal, social and business life. The extraordinary increase of the user numbers of Social Networking Sites (SNS) and the rampant creation of online communities presents businesses with many challenges and opportunities.

Online Social Networking among students and its impact on Marketing - The Case of YouTube

OpenAIRE

Sahgal, Shaira

2008-01-01

ABSTRACT The literature on online social networking and the use of the internet for socialising purposes by adolescents and youngsters today is fairly recent and there does not seem to be much existing research on the topic barring the few. This study aims to try and fill that gap through interviews conducted among university students and understanding the reasons behind their preference for such online means of communicating and broadcasting as opposed to traditional offline methods like...

BRAND COMMUNICATION ON SOCIAL NETWORKS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Otilia-Elena PLATON

2015-07-01

Full Text Available The communication represents a basic element for the marketing activity that helps companies to achieve their objectives. Building long-term relationships between brands and consumers is one of the most important objectives pursued by marketers. This involves brand communication and creating multiple connections with consumers, even in the online environment. From this point of view, social networks proved to be an effective way of linking brands and consumers online. This paper aims to present some aspects involved by the usage of social networks in brand communication by analyzing several examples of online marketing campaigns implemented on Facebook on the occasion of Valentine's Day by six different brands.

Connecting to young adults: an online social network survey of beliefs and attitudes associated with prescription opioid misuse among college students.

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Lord, Sarah; Brevard, Julie; Budman, Simon

2011-01-01

A survey of motives and attitudes associated with patterns of nonmedical prescription opioid medication use among college students was conducted on Facebook, a popular online social networking Web site. Response metrics for a 2-week random advertisement post, targeting students who had misused prescription medications, surpassed typical benchmarks for online marketing campaigns and yielded 527 valid surveys. Respondent characteristics, substance use patterns, and use motives were consistent with other surveys of prescription opioid use among college populations. Results support the potential of online social networks to serve as powerful vehicles to connect with college-aged populations about their drug use. Limitations of the study are noted.

[Hispanic American kidney patients in the age of online social networks: content analysis of postings, 2010 - 2012].

Science.gov (United States)

Mercado-Martínez, Francisco J; Urias-Vázquez, Jorge E

2014-01-01

Describe the use of online social networks by people with chronic kidney disease, their caregivers, and family members, living in Hispanic American countries, and identify the most frequent topics and subtopics in their postings. A qualitative study was conducted of postings by chronic kidney patients, their caregivers, and family members, living in Hispanic America, on five social networks: Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, and YouTube, from 2010 to 2012. The internal search engines of each network were used with medical and lay terms in Spanish: chronic kidney disease, renal failure, peritoneal dialysis, hemodialysis, renal transplant, renal patient, nephropathy, and kidney patients association. An analysis was carried out of the thematic content of 1 846 postings on Facebook, Blogger, and WordPress. A total of 162 social network accounts were identified (97 individuals and 65 groups); the majority was in Mexico (46), with others in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Peru (44 accounts). The most frequent topics were exchange of information (46.0%), descriptions of experiences as patients (17.9%), support (15.6%), descriptions of experiences with health services (8.5%), interaction with peers (3.5%), and promotion of behavior change (3.4%). Chronic kidney patients living in Hispanic America use online social networks to inform and to be informed, describe their experiences with the disease and health services, and as a support mechanism. This produces knowledge that is different from and complementary to knowledge conveyed by health professionals. There is a pressing need to promote studies of the opportunities that these technologies offer in the Americas, a region characterized by enormous social inequality.

Revisiting Social Network Utilization by Physicians-in-Training.

Science.gov (United States)

Black, Erik W; Thompson, Lindsay A; Duff, W Patrick; Dawson, Kara; Saliba, Heidi; Black, Nicole M Paradise

2010-06-01

To measure and compare the frequency and content of online social networking among 2 cohorts of medical students and residents (2007 and 2009). Using the online social networking application Facebook, we evaluated social networking profiles for 2 cohorts of medical students (n  =  528) and residents (n  =  712) at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Objective measures included existence of a profile, whether it was made private, and whether any personally identifiable information was included. Subjective outcomes included photographic content, affiliated social groups, and personal information not generally disclosed in a doctor-patient encounter. We compared our results to our previously published and reported data from 2007. Social networking continues to be common amongst physicians-in-training, with 39.8% of residents and 69.5% of medical students maintaining Facebook accounts. Residents' participation significantly increased (P privacy settings (P privacy and the expansive and impersonal networks of online "friends" who may view profiles.

Mining human mobility in location-based social networks

CERN Document Server

Gao, Huiji

2015-01-01

In recent years, there has been a rapid growth of location-based social networking services, such as Foursquare and Facebook Places, which have attracted an increasing number of users and greatly enriched their urban experience. Typical location-based social networking sites allow a user to ""check in"" at a real-world POI (point of interest, e.g., a hotel, restaurant, theater, etc.), leave tips toward the POI, and share the check-in with their online friends. The check-in action bridges the gap between real world and online social networks, resulting in a new type of social networks, namely l

An Introduction to Models of Online Peer-to-Peer Social Networking

CERN Document Server

Kesidis, George

2010-01-01

This book concerns peer-to-peer applications and mechanisms operating on the Internet, particularly those that are not fully automated and involve significant human interaction. So, the realm of interest is the intersection of distributed systems and online social networking. Generally, simple models are described to clarify the ideas. Beginning with short overviews of caching, graph theory and game theory, we cover the basic ideas of structured and unstructured search. We then describe a simple framework for reputations and for iterated referrals and consensus. This framework is applied to a

The responsible use of online social networking: who should mentor medical students.

Science.gov (United States)

Patel, Pradip D; Roberts, John L; Miller, Karen Hughes; Ziegler, Craig; Ostapchuk, Michael

2012-01-01

As medical students become more active in online social networking (OSN), there are increasing concerns regarding violations of patient privacy and a lack of professionalism. Students need to be mentored, but who is best suited to the task? We hypothesized that residents are closer to students in usage and attitudes toward online communication than are faculty. If so, they would be more credible as mentors. We surveyed faculty (N = 16), 1st-year residents (N = 120), and 3rd-year medical students (N = 130) to compare attitudes about OSN and the online usage patterns. We found residents to be more like students in usage patterns of personal electronic media and in their choice of the mentoring techniques that should be used. Residents say they were not prepared to mentor students without additional guidance but were more confident than faculty members that they had the knowledge to do so.

Entrepreneurial Idea Identification through Online Social Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Lang, Matthew C.

2010-01-01

The increasing use of social network websites may signal a change in the way the next generation of entrepreneurs identify entrepreneurial ideas. An important part of the entrepreneurship literature emphasizes how vital the use of social networks is to entrepreneurial idea identification, opportunity recognition, and ultimately new venture…

Analysis of Context Dependence in Social Interaction Networks of a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game

Science.gov (United States)

Son, Seokshin; Kang, Ah Reum; Kim, Hyun-chul; Kwon, Taekyoung; Park, Juyong; Kim, Huy Kang

2012-01-01

Rapid advances in modern computing and information technology have enabled millions of people to interact online via various social network and gaming services. The widespread adoption of such online services have made possible analysis of large-scale archival data containing detailed human interactions, presenting a very promising opportunity to understand the rich and complex human behavior. In collaboration with a leading global provider of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs), here we present a network science-based analysis of the interplay between distinct types of user interaction networks in the virtual world. We find that their properties depend critically on the nature of the context-interdependence of the interactions, highlighting the complex and multilayered nature of human interactions, a robust understanding of which we believe may prove instrumental in the designing of more realistic future virtual arenas as well as provide novel insights to the science of collective human behavior. PMID:22496771

Analysis of context dependence in social interaction networks of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Seokshin Son

Full Text Available Rapid advances in modern computing and information technology have enabled millions of people to interact online via various social network and gaming services. The widespread adoption of such online services have made possible analysis of large-scale archival data containing detailed human interactions, presenting a very promising opportunity to understand the rich and complex human behavior. In collaboration with a leading global provider of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs, here we present a network science-based analysis of the interplay between distinct types of user interaction networks in the virtual world. We find that their properties depend critically on the nature of the context-interdependence of the interactions, highlighting the complex and multilayered nature of human interactions, a robust understanding of which we believe may prove instrumental in the designing of more realistic future virtual arenas as well as provide novel insights to the science of collective human behavior.

The Social Network Classroom

Science.gov (United States)

Bunus, Peter

Online social networking is an important part in the everyday life of college students. Despite the increasing popularity of online social networking among students and faculty members, its educational benefits are largely untested. This paper presents our experience in using social networking applications and video content distribution websites as a complement of traditional classroom education. In particular, the solution has been based on effective adaptation, extension and integration of Facebook, Twitter, Blogger YouTube and iTunes services for delivering educational material to students on mobile platforms like iPods and 3 rd generation mobile phones. The goals of the proposed educational platform, described in this paper, are to make the learning experience more engaging, to encourage collaborative work and knowledge sharing among students, and to provide an interactive platform for the educators to reach students and deliver lecture material in a totally new way.

Gender Differences in the Continuance of Online Social Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Shi, Na; Cheung, Christy M. K.; Lee, Matthew K. O.; Chen, Huaping

Social network sites (SNS) have become increasingly popular in the past few years benefiting from the rapid growth of Web 2.0 applications. However, research on the adoption and usage of SNS is limited. In this study, we attempt to understand users' continuance intention to use SNS and investigate the role of gender. A research model was developed and tested with 213 respondents from an online survey. The results confirm that users' continuance intention to use SNS is strongly determined by satisfaction. The effect of disconfirmation of maintaining offline contacts on satisfaction is more important for women, while the effect of disconfirmation of entertainment is more salient for men. Implications of this study for both researchers and practitioners are discussed.

Multilayer Brokerage in Geo-Social Networks

OpenAIRE

Hristova, Desislava; Panzarasa, Pietro; Mascolo, Cecilia

2016-01-01

This is a metadata record relating to an article that cannot be shared due to publisher copyright. Open network structures and brokerage positions have long been seen as playing a crucial role in sustaining social capital and competitive advantage. The degree to which individuals intermediate between otherwise disconnected others can differ across online and offline social networks. For example, users may broker online between two others who then exchange offline the i...

A Novel, Privacy Preserving, Architecture for Online Social Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhe Wang

2015-12-01

Full Text Available The centralized nature of conventional OSNs poses serious risks to the privacy and security of information exchanged between their members. These risks prompted several attempts to create decentralized OSNs, or DOSNs. The basic idea underlying these attempts, is that each member of a social network keeps its data under its own control, instead of surrendering it to a central host, providing access to it to other members according to its own access-control policy. Unfortunately all existing versions of DOSNs have a very serious limitation. Namely, they are unable to subject the membership of a DOSN, and the interaction between its members, to any global policy—which is essential for many social communities. Moreover, the DOSN architecture is unable to support useful capabilities such as narrowcasting and profile based search. This paper describes a novel architecture of decentralized OSNs—called DOSC, for “online social community”. DOSC adopts the decentralization idea underlying DOSNs, but it is able to subject the membership of a DOSC-community, and the interaction between its members, to a wide range of policies, including privacy-preserving narrowcasting and profile-sensitive search.

"Everybody Puts Their Whole Life on Facebook": Identity Management and the Online Social Networks of LGBTQ Youth.

Science.gov (United States)

McConnell, Elizabeth; Néray, Bálint; Hogan, Bernie; Korpak, Aaron; Clifford, Antonia; Birkett, Michelle

2018-05-26

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth and young adults almost inevitably "come out", or self-disclose their identity to others. Some LGBTQ youth are more uniformly "out", while others may disclose to some groups but not others. This selective disclosure is complicated on real name social media sites, which tend to encourage a unified presentation of self across social contexts. We explore these complications with a cohort of LBGTQ youth on Facebook ( N = 199, M age = 24.13). Herein we ask: How do LBGTQ youth manage the disclosure of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity to different people in their lives? Further, are there identifiable differences in the online social network structure for LGBTQ youth who manage outness in different ways? Finally, how do LGBTQ young people describe their experiences on Facebook? We answer these questions using a mixed methods approach, combining statistical cluster analysis, network visualization, and qualitative data. Our findings illustrate patterns in network structure by outness cluster type, highlighting both the work involved in managing one's online identity as well as the costs to (semi-) closeted individuals including a considerably lower overall network connectivity. In particular, outness to family characterized LGBTQ young people's experiences on Facebook.

Use of online social networking sites among pre-service information technology teachers

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Elif Buğra Kuzu

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The current study aimed to investigate the current status and perceptions of pre-service information technology (IT teachers regarding the use of online social networking sites (SNSs. The investigation was further supported through participant feedback regarding the design and implementation of a blended learning environment to embrace online SNSs in instructional settings. The study had a qualitative nature and employed a focus group interview to collect data. Participants were ten fourth graders who were randomly selected from voluntary undergraduate students enrolled at an IT education department of a Turkish state university. Researchers resorted to content analysis through an inductive coding process, provided themes addressing student perceptions and needs, and proposed implications and suggestions for further instructional practices.

Connecting the invisible dots: reaching lesbian, gay, and bisexual adolescents and young adults at risk for suicide through online social networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Silenzio, Vincent M B; Duberstein, Paul R; Tang, Wan; Lu, Naiji; Tu, Xin; Homan, Christopher M

2009-08-01

Young lesbian, gay, and bisexual (young LGB) individuals report higher rates of suicide ideation and attempts from their late teens through early twenties. Their high rate of Internet use suggests that online social networks offer a novel opportunity to reach them. This study explores online social networks as a venue for prevention research targeting young LGB. An automated data collection program was used to map the social connections between LGB self-identified individuals between 16 and 24 years old participating in an online social network. We then completed a descriptive analysis of the structural characteristics known to affect diffusion within such networks. Finally, we conducted Monte Carlo simulations of peer-driven diffusion of a hypothetical preventive intervention within the observed network under varying starting conditions. We mapped a network of 100,014 young LGB. The mean age was 20.4 years. The mean nodal degree was 137.5, representing an exponential degree distribution ranging from 1 through 4309. Monte Carlo simulations revealed that a peer-driven preventive intervention ultimately reached final sample sizes of up to 18,409 individuals. The network's structure is consistent with other social networks in terms of the underlying degree distribution. Such networks are typically formed dynamically through a process of preferential attachment. This implies that some individuals could be more important to target to facilitate the diffusion of interventions. However, in terms of determining the success of an intervention targeting this population, our simulation results suggest that varying the number of peers that can be recruited is more important than increasing the number of randomly-selected starting individuals. This has implications for intervention design. Given the potential to access this previously isolated population, this novel approach represents a promising new frontier in suicide prevention and other research areas.

COPD360social Online Community: A Social Media Review.

Science.gov (United States)

Stellefson, Michael; Paige, Samantha R; Alber, Julia M; Stewart, Margaret

2018-06-01

People living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) commonly report feelings of loneliness and social isolation due to lack of support from family, friends, and health care providers. COPD360social is an interactive and disease-specific online community and social network dedicated to connecting people living with COPD to evidence-based resources. Through free access to collaborative forums, members can explore, engage, and discuss an array of disease-related topics, such as symptom management. This social media review provides an overview of COPD360social, specifically its features that practitioners can leverage to facilitate patient-provider communication, knowledge translation, and community building. The potential of COPD360social for chronic disease self-management is maximized through community recognition programming and interactive friend-finding tools that encourage members to share their own stories through blogs and multimedia (e.g., images, videos). The platform also fosters collaborative knowledge dissemination and helping relationships among patients, family members, friends, and health care providers. Successful implementation of COPD360social has dramatically expanded patient education and self-management support resources for people affected by COPD. Practitioners should refer patients and their families to online social networks such as COPD360social to increase knowledge and awareness of evidence-based chronic disease management practices.

Social network in patient safety: Social media visibility

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Azucena Santillán García

2011-11-01

Full Text Available Internet social network (social media is a powerful communication tool, and its use is expanding significantly. This paper seeks to know the current state of visibility in online social networks of active citizen talking about patient safety. This is an observational cross-sectional study whose target population is the websites Facebook, Twitter and Tuenti in Spain. By three consecutive cuts social profiles were found using the searching terms “seguridad+paciente” and “safety+patient”. There were found 5 profiles on Facebook that met the search criteria, 6 on Twitter and none were found on Tuenti. It is concluded that although there is evidence of the rise of social networking, citizen network involved in patient safety appears not to be significantly represented within the social networks examined.

Online social networks—Paradise of computer viruses

Science.gov (United States)

Fan, W.; Yeung, K. H.

2011-01-01

Online social network services have attracted more and more users in recent years. So the security of social networks becomes a critical problem. In this paper, we propose a virus propagation model based on the application network of Facebook, which is the most popular among these social network service providers. We also study the virus propagation with an email virus model and compare the behaviors of a virus spreading on Facebook with the original email network. It is found that Facebook provides the same chance for a virus spreading while it gives a platform for application developers. And a virus will spread faster in the Facebook network if users of Facebook spend more time on it.

Multi-Relational Characterization of Dynamic Social Network Communities

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Yu-Ru; Sundaram, Hari; Kelliher, Aisling

The emergence of the mediated social web - a distributed network of participants creating rich media content and engaging in interactive conversations through Internet-based communication technologies - has contributed to the evolution of powerful social, economic and cultural change. Online social network sites and blogs, such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and LiveJournal, thrive due to their fundamental sense of "community". The growth of online communities offers both opportunities and challenges for researchers and practitioners. Participation in online communities has been observed to influence people's behavior in diverse ways ranging from financial decision-making to political choices, suggesting the rich potential for diverse applications. However, although studies on the social web have been extensive, discovering communities from online social media remains challenging, due to the interdisciplinary nature of this subject. In this article, we present our recent work on characterization of communities in online social media using computational approaches grounded on the observations from social science.

Predicting Social Networking Site Use and Online Communication Practices among Adolescents: The Role of Access and Device Ownership

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Drew P. Cingel

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Given adolescents' heavy social media use, this study examined a number of predictors of adolescent social media use, as well as predictors of online communication practices. Using data collected from a national sample of 467 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 17, results indicate that demographics, technology access, and technology ownership are related to social media use and communication practices. Specifically, females log onto and use more constructive communication practices on Facebook compared to males. Additionally, adolescents who own smartphones engage in more constructive online communication practices than those who share regular cell phones or those who do not have access to a cell phone. Overall, results imply that ownership of mobile technologies, such as smartphones and iPads, may be more predictive of social networking site use and online communication practices than general ownership of technology.

Predicting Social Networking Site Use and Online Communication Practices among Adolescents: The Role of Access and Device Ownership

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Drew P. Cingel

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Given adolescents' heavy social media use, this study examined a number of predictors of adolescent social media use, as well as predictors of online communication practices. Using data collected from a national sample of 467 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 17, results indicate that demographics, technology access, and technology ownership are related to social media use and communication practices. Specifically, females log onto and use more constructive com-munication practices on Facebook compared to males. Additionally, adolescents who own smartphones engage in more constructive online communication practices than those who share regular cell phones or those who do not have access to a cell phone. Overall, results imply that ownership of mobile technologies, such as smartphones and iPads, may be more predictive of social networking site use and online communication practices than general ownership of technology.

Online Social Behavior in Twitter : A Literature Review

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Aarts, O.A.J.; Maanen, P.P. van; Ouboter, T.; Schraagen, J.M.

2012-01-01

This literature review is aimed at examining state of the art research in the field of online social networks. The goal is to identify the current challenges within this area of research, given the questions raised in society. In this review we pay attention to three aspects of social networks:

Subtle role of latency for information diffusion in online social networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Xiong Fei; Wang Xi-Meng; Cheng Jun-Jun

2016-01-01

Information diffusion in online social networks is induced by the event of forwarding information for users, and latency exists widely in user spreading behaviors. Little work has been done to reveal the effect of latency on the diffusion process. In this paper, we propose a propagation model in which nodes may suspend their spreading actions for a waiting period of stochastic length. These latent nodes may recover their activity again. Meanwhile, the mechanism of forwarding information is also introduced into the diffusion model. Mean-field analysis and numerical simulations indicate that our model has three nontrivial results. First, the spreading threshold does not correlate with latency in neither homogeneous nor heterogeneous networks, but depends on the spreading and refractory parameter. Furthermore, latency affects the diffusion process and changes the infection scale. A large or small latency parameter leads to a larger final diffusion extent, but the intrinsic dynamics is different. Large latency implies forwarding information rapidly, while small latency prevents nodes from dropping out of interactions. In addition, the betweenness is a better descriptor to identify influential nodes in the model with latency, compared with the coreness and degree. These results are helpful in understanding some collective phenomena of the diffusion process and taking measures to restrain a rumor in social networks. (paper)

Suicide ideation of individuals in online social networks.

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Naoki Masuda

Full Text Available Suicide explains the largest number of death tolls among Japanese adolescents in their twenties and thirties. Suicide is also a major cause of death for adolescents in many other countries. Although social isolation has been implicated to influence the tendency to suicidal behavior, the impact of social isolation on suicide in the context of explicit social networks of individuals is scarcely explored. To address this question, we examined a large data set obtained from a social networking service dominant in Japan. The social network is composed of a set of friendship ties between pairs of users created by mutual endorsement. We carried out the logistic regression to identify users' characteristics, both related and unrelated to social networks, which contribute to suicide ideation. We defined suicide ideation of a user as the membership to at least one active user-defined community related to suicide. We found that the number of communities to which a user belongs to, the intransitivity (i.e., paucity of triangles including the user, and the fraction of suicidal neighbors in the social network, contributed the most to suicide ideation in this order. Other characteristics including the age and gender contributed little to suicide ideation. We also found qualitatively the same results for depressive symptoms.

Suicide ideation of individuals in online social networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Masuda, Naoki; Kurahashi, Issei; Onari, Hiroko

2013-01-01

Suicide explains the largest number of death tolls among Japanese adolescents in their twenties and thirties. Suicide is also a major cause of death for adolescents in many other countries. Although social isolation has been implicated to influence the tendency to suicidal behavior, the impact of social isolation on suicide in the context of explicit social networks of individuals is scarcely explored. To address this question, we examined a large data set obtained from a social networking service dominant in Japan. The social network is composed of a set of friendship ties between pairs of users created by mutual endorsement. We carried out the logistic regression to identify users' characteristics, both related and unrelated to social networks, which contribute to suicide ideation. We defined suicide ideation of a user as the membership to at least one active user-defined community related to suicide. We found that the number of communities to which a user belongs to, the intransitivity (i.e., paucity of triangles including the user), and the fraction of suicidal neighbors in the social network, contributed the most to suicide ideation in this order. Other characteristics including the age and gender contributed little to suicide ideation. We also found qualitatively the same results for depressive symptoms.

The Role of online Social networks in Teaching and Learning a foreign Language : Effects on Learning Process and Outcome

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Akbari, E.

2016-01-01

Today, online social networks are among the most important communications tools, connecting millions of people with common interests and ideas all over the world (Zaidieh, 2012). The rapid proliferation of Internet services has facilitated access to these networks not only via computers, but also

Social Networking Sites and Addiction: Ten Lessons Learned

OpenAIRE

Kuss, Daria J.; Griffiths, Mark D.

2017-01-01

Online social networking sites (SNSs) have gained increasing popularity in the last decade, with individuals engaging in SNSs to connect with others who share similar interests. The perceived need to be online may result in compulsive use of SNSs, which in extreme cases may result in symptoms and consequences traditionally associated with substance-related addictions. In order to present new insights into online social networking and addiction, in this paper, 10 lessons learned concerning onl...

Can Health 2.0 Address Critical Healthcare Challenges? Insights from the Case of How Online Social Networks Can Assist in Combatting the Obesity Epidemic

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Janine Hacker

2017-03-01

Full Text Available One of the serious concerns in healthcare in this 21st century is obesity. While the causes of obesity are multifaceted, social networks have been identified as one of the most important dimensions of people's social environment that may influence the adoption of many behaviours, including health-promoting behaviours. In this article, we examine the possibility of harnessing the appeal of online social networks to address the obesity epidemic currently plaguing society. Specifically, a design science research methodology is adopted to design, implement and test the Health 2.0 application called “Calorie Cruncher”. The application is designed specifically to explore the influence of online social networks on individual’s health-related behaviour. In this regard, pilot data collected based on qualitative interviews indicate that online social networks may influence health-related behaviours in several ways. Firstly, they can influence people’s norms and value system that have an impact on their health-related behaviours. Secondly, social control and pressure of social connections may also shape health-related behaviours, and operate implicitly when people make food selection decisions. Thirdly, social relationships may provide emotional support. Our study has implications for research and practice. From a theoretical perspective, the article inductively identifies three factors that influence specific types of health outcomes in the context of obesity. From a practical perspective, the study underscores the benefits of adopting a design science methodology to design and implement a technology solution for a healthcare issue as well as the key role for online social media to assist with health and wellness management and maintenance.

Social networking for well-being

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Steen, M.G.D.; Aarts, O.A.J.; Broekman, C.C.M.T.; Prins, S.C.L.

2011-01-01

In this paper, we present some of the work that is being done in the WeCare project (in the AAL programme). The project’s goal is to introduce social networking services in the lives of older people, in order to improve their well-being. Participation in social networks, both online and ‘in real

Social Network Sites, Individual Social Capital and Happiness

NARCIS (Netherlands)

E. Arampatzi (Efstratia); M.J. Burger (Martijn); N.A. Novik (Natallia)

2016-01-01

textabstractCan online social contacts replace the importance of real-life social connections in our pursuit of happiness? With the growing use of social network sites (SNSs), attention has been increasingly drawn to this topic. Our study empirically examines the effect of SNS use on happiness for

Understanding the Context of Learning in an Online Social Network for Health Professionals' Informal Learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Xin; Gray, Kathleen; Verspoor, Karin; Barnett, Stephen

2017-01-01

Online social networks (OSN) enable health professionals to learn informally, for example by sharing medical knowledge, or discussing practice management challenges and clinical issues. Understanding the learning context in OSN is necessary to get a complete picture of the learning process, in order to better support this type of learning. This study proposes critical contextual factors for understanding the learning context in OSN for health professionals, and demonstrates how these contextual factors can be used to analyse the learning context in a designated online learning environment for health professionals.

Social networking sites as business tool: a study of user behavior

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Constantinides, Efthymios; Lorenzo-Romero, C.; Alarcon-del-Amo, M.d.C.; Glykas, M.

2013-01-01

Social Networking Sites (SNS) are second generation web applications allowing the creation of personal online networks; the social networking domain has become one of the fastest growing online environments connecting hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Businesses are increasingly interested

Diffusion of influence in energy awareness campaigns on the online social networking site of facebook

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Samaha, Kimberly

2010-09-15

The era of government jurisdiction based on separate and autonomous entities has been replaced with an intergovernmental and intersectoral network of industry, regulators, special interest groups and individual citizens. New forms of regulatory feedback will be inspired more by the concepts of networks- they will be flatter, leaner, and more flexible. An evaluation of new methods for the diffusion of public awareness regarding energy technologies, policies and projects, was conducted using the technology platform of Facebook. This paper reports on the results of an eighteen month formal study of the Diffusion of Influence in Online Social Networks.

The Strategic Paradox of Social Networks

Science.gov (United States)

2011-03-18

United States claimed to have met online.9 And in 2010, Facebook claimed over 500 million users, which would make the social networking service the...service culture, or occupational specialty. One drawback with social networks concerns the protection of individual privacy. Facebook , for...St ra te gy R es ea rc h Pr oj ec t THE STRATEGIC PARADOX OF SOCIAL NETWORKS BY COLONEL ROBERT COTE United States Marine Corps

The Impact of Online Social Networks on Health and Health Systems: A Scoping Review and Case Studies.

Science.gov (United States)

Griffiths, Frances; Dobermann, Tim; Cave, Jonathan A K; Thorogood, Margaret; Johnson, Samantha; Salamatian, Kavé; Gomez Olive, Francis X; Goudge, Jane

2015-12-01

Interaction through online social networks potentially results in the contestation of prevailing ideas about health and health care, and to mass protest where health is put at risk or health care provision is wanting. Through a review of the academic literature and case studies of four social networking health sites (PatientsLikeMe, Mumsnet, Treatment Action Campaign, and My Pro Ana), we establish the extent to which this phenomenon is documented, seek evidence of the prevalence and character of health-related networks, and explore their structure, function, participants, and impact, seeking to understand how they came into being and how they sustain themselves. Results indicate mass protest is not arising from these established health-related networking platforms. There is evidence of changes in policy following campaigning activity prompted by experiences shared through social networking such as improved National Health Service care for miscarriage (a Mumsnet campaign). Platform owners and managers have considerable power to shape these campaigns. Social networking is also influencing health policy indirectly through increasing awareness and so demand for health care. Transient social networking about health on platforms such as Twitter were not included as case studies but may be where the most radical or destabilizing influence on health care policy might arise.

The Use of Online Social Networks by Polish Former Erasmus Students: A Large-Scale Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Bryla, Pawel

2014-01-01

There is an increasing role of online social networks in the life of young Poles. We conducted a large-scale survey among Polish former Erasmus students. We have received 2450 completed questionnaires from alumni of 115 higher education institutions all over Poland. 85.4% of our respondents reported they kept in touch with their former Erasmus…

Data mining for social network data

CERN Document Server

Memon, Nasrullah; Hicks, David L; Chen, Hsinchun

2010-01-01

Driven by counter-terrorism efforts, marketing analysis and an explosion in online social networking in recent years, data mining has moved to the forefront of information science. This proposed Special Issue on ""Data Mining for Social Network Data"" will present a broad range of recent studies in social networking analysis. It will focus on emerging trends and needs in discovery and analysis of communities, solitary and social activities, and activities in open fora, and commercial sites as well. It will also look at network modeling, infrastructure construction, dynamic growth and evolution

An Analysis of Density and Degree-Centrality According to the Social Networking Structure Formed in an Online Learning Environment

Science.gov (United States)

Ergün, Esin; Usluel, Yasemin Koçak

2016-01-01

In this study, we assessed the communication structure in an educational online learning environment using social network analysis (SNA). The communication structure was examined with respect to time, and instructor's participation. The course was implemented using ELGG, a network learning environment, blended with face-to-face sessions over a…

“Everybody Puts Their Whole Life on Facebook”: Identity Management and the Online Social Networks of LGBTQ Youth

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elizabeth McConnell

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ youth and young adults almost inevitably “come out”, or self-disclose their identity to others. Some LGBTQ youth are more uniformly “out”, while others may disclose to some groups but not others. This selective disclosure is complicated on real name social media sites, which tend to encourage a unified presentation of self across social contexts. We explore these complications with a cohort of LBGTQ youth on Facebook (N = 199, Mage = 24.13. Herein we ask: How do LBGTQ youth manage the disclosure of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity to different people in their lives? Further, are there identifiable differences in the online social network structure for LGBTQ youth who manage outness in different ways? Finally, how do LGBTQ young people describe their experiences on Facebook? We answer these questions using a mixed methods approach, combining statistical cluster analysis, network visualization, and qualitative data. Our findings illustrate patterns in network structure by outness cluster type, highlighting both the work involved in managing one’s online identity as well as the costs to (semi- closeted individuals including a considerably lower overall network connectivity. In particular, outness to family characterized LGBTQ young people’s experiences on Facebook.

Affording to exchange: social capital and online information sharing.

Science.gov (United States)

Maksl, Adam; Young, Rachel

2013-08-01

The potential harm and benefit associated with sharing personal information online is a topic of debate and discussion. Using survey methods (n=872), we explore whether attainment of social capital online relates to greater comfort with sharing personal information. We found that perceptions of bridging and bonding social capital earned from using Facebook are significant predictors of overall comfort levels with sharing personal information. This research raises timely questions about how the perceived benefits of social networking sites influence how personal information is shared online.

Popular Topics Spread Faster: New Dimension for Influence Propagation in Online Social Networks

OpenAIRE

Pan, Tianyi; Kuhnle, Alan; Li, Xiang; Thai, My T.

2017-01-01

Information can propagate among Online Social Network (OSN) users at a high speed, which makes the OSNs become important platforms for viral marketing. Although the viral marketing related problems in OSNs have been extensively studied in the past decade, the existing works all assume known propagation rates and are not able to solve the scenario when the rates may dynamically increase for popular topics. In this paper, we propose a novel model, Dynamic Influence Propagation (DIP), which allo...

Social network sites: Indispensable or optional social tools?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Shklovski, Irina

2012-01-01

Much research has enumerated potential benefits of online social network sites. Given the pervasiveness of these sites and the numbers of people that use them daily, both re-search and media tend to make the assumption that social network sites have become indispensible to their users. Based...... on the analysis of qualitative data from users of social network sites in Russia and Kazakhstan, this paper consid-ers under what conditions social network sites can become indispensable to their users and when these technologies remain on the periphery of life despite fulfilling useful func-tions. For some...... respondents, these sites had become indis-pensable tools as they were integrated into everyday rou-tines of communicating with emotionally important and proximal contacts and were often used for coordination of offline activities. For others social network sites remained spaces where they occasionally visited...

Using Social Media Technologies to Enhance Online Learning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hershey H. Friedman

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Models of distance education have evolved over decades, just in time to collide with modern pedagogies in which communication, interaction, student engagement, and active learning are of critical importance. The number of college students taking online classes continues to grow. Today, nearly 30% of college students are taking at least one online class. The social media technologies encompass a wide variety of Web-based technologies such as blogs, wikis, online social networking, and virtual worlds. This paper examines the relevant published literature, looking at online learning activities through the prism of the defining characteristics of today’s new communication technologies.

Muslim Young People Online: “Acts of Citizenship” in Socially Networked Spaces

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Amelia Johns

2014-08-01

Full Text Available This paper reviews the current literature regarding Muslim young people’s online social networking and participatory practices with the aim of examining whether these practices open up new spaces of civic engagement and political participation. The paper focuses on the experiences of young Muslims living in western societies, where, since September 11, the ability to assert claims as citizens in the public arena has diminished. The paper draws upon Isin & Nielsen’s (2008 “acts of citizenship” to define the online practices of many Muslim youth, for whom the internet provides a space where new performances of citizenship are enacted outside of formal citizenship rights and spaces of participation. These “acts" are evaluated in light of theories which articulate the changing nature of publics and the public sphere in a digital era. The paper will use this conceptual framework in conjunction with the literature review to explore whether virtual, online spaces offer young Muslims an opportunity to create a more inclusive discursive space to interact with co-citizens, engage with social and political issues and assert their citizen rights than is otherwise afforded by formal political structures; a need highlighted by policies which target minority Muslim young people for greater civic participation but which do not reflect the interests and values of Muslim young people.

More Questions than Answers: Assessing the Impact of Online Social Networking on a Service-Learning Project

Science.gov (United States)

Moeller, Mary R.; Nagy, Dianne

2013-01-01

This article details the evolution and results of a service-learning project designed to extend cross-cultural relationships via online social networking between students at a U.S. Bureau of Indian Education boarding school and teacher candidates in a required diversity course. The goals for the partnership included helping Native American…

The Best of Both Worlds? Online Ties and the Alternating Use of Social Network Sites in the Context of Migration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jens F. Binder

2014-12-01

Full Text Available While an ever-growing body of research is concerned with user behavior on individual social network sites (SNSs—mostly Facebook—studies addressing an alternating use of two or more SNS are rare. Here, we investigate the relationship between alternating SNS use and social capital in the context of migration. Alternating SNS use avoids some of the problems associated with large networks located on one site; in particular the management of different social or cultural spheres. Not only does this strategy hold potential for increased social capital, it also provides a particular incentive for migrants faced with the challenge of staying in touch with back home and managing a new social environment. Two survey studies are presented that focus on the relationship between alternating SNS use and online ties in a migrant context involving Indian nationals. Study 1 looked at migration within India, whereas Study 2 compared international with domestic SNS users. In both studies, alternating SNS use added to the prediction of online network size and accounted for differences in network size found for migrant and non-migrant users. Differences were due to the number of peripheral ties, rather than core ties. Findings suggest that alternating SNS use may constitute a compensatory strategy that helps to overcome lower levels of socializing represented through a single SNS.

Structural Changes in Online Discussion Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Yang, Yang; Medaglia, Rony

2014-01-01

Social networking platforms in China provide a hugely interesting and relevant source for understanding dynamics of online discussions in a unique socio-cultural and institutional environment. This paper investigates the evolution of patterns of similar-minded and different-minded interactions ov...

Social networking for adolescents with severe haemophilia.

Science.gov (United States)

Khair, K; Holland, M; Carrington, S

2012-05-01

Access to modern treatments allows adolescents with haemophilia to manage their haemophilia at home, with improved treatment outcomes and quality of life, but has reduced peer support and the potential for experiential learning from older peers. Social networking, aided by modern communication technologies, may offer health benefits through peer support. We sought to assess whether or not disease-specific social networking could benefit adolescents with severe haemophilia. A total of 150 adolescents (aged 10-18) with severe haemophilia A or B from 11 UK treatment centres or those who had attended focus groups to explore the potential for a social network designed specifically for their use were surveyed. Teenage boys with severe haemophilia in the UK who responded to an online and paper questionnaire (n = 47; 31% response rate) rarely knew of or socialized with others with haemophilia outside their families. Two-thirds of respondents said they would like to meet others. For 70% of boys, parents were the major source of information about haemophilia, yet more than half said they often had trouble finding answers to their questions. These boys frequently used online social networks to chat with friends. Adolescents with severe haemophilia frequently have limited contact with others and many wish to have greater contact. They may benefit from peer support and experiential learning gained through online social networking. The SixVibe restricted access social network is to be launched in 2011. It includes features designed to promote and facilitate the development of peer-to peer disease management skills for adolescents with severe haemophilia. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Online Social Networks: Essays on Membership, Privacy, and Structure

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hofstra, B.

2017-01-01

The structure of social networks is crucial for obtaining social support, for meaningful connections to unknown social groups, and to overcome prejudice. Yet, we know little about the structure of social networks beyond those contacts that stand closest to us. This lack of knowledge results from a

A Game Theoretic Approach for Modeling Privacy Settings of an Online Social Network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jundong Chen

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Users of online social networks often adjust their privacy settings to control how much information on their profiles is accessible to other users of the networks. While a variety of factors have been shown to affect the privacy strategies of these users, very little work has been done in analyzing how these factors influence each other and collectively contribute towards the users’ privacy strategies. In this paper, we analyze the influence of attribute importance, benefit, risk and network topology on the users’ attribute disclosure behavior by introducing a weighted evolutionary game model. Results show that: irrespective of risk, users aremore likely to reveal theirmost important attributes than their least important attributes; when the users’ range of influence is increased, the risk factor plays a smaller role in attribute disclosure; the network topology exhibits a considerable effect on the privacy in an environment with risk.

Social network profiles as information sources for adolescents' offline relations

OpenAIRE

Courtois, Cédric; All, Anissa; Vanwynsberghe, Hadewijch

2012-01-01

This paper presents the results of a study concerning the use of online profile pages by adolescents to know more about “offline” friends and acquaintances. Previous research has indicated that social networking sites (SNSs) are used to gather information on new online contacts. However, several studies have demonstrated a substantial overlap between offline and online social networks. Hence, we question whether online connections are meaningful in gathering information on offline friends and...