Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Week Four: Question One-Consequences of Online Social Networking
I found this article very interesting because the study aimed to provide useful information regarding online social networks and real life social networks in correlation to self-esteem, body image, extroversion, and anxiety levels. When I read the results of the study I was not very surprised because I already thought that there would be a correlation between people with higher self-esteem and the amount of people they add on their OSNS. The study indicated that the size of people's OSNS are 1.5 times larger than their real social networks, and that people with higher self-esteem were less likely to add people they did not know. I found this very interesting because I have noticed that many people that I remember from high school as introverted people with lower self-esteem levels are adding everyone they possible can from high school on their OSNS (regardless of if they were ever friends with these people). This indicates to me that these people might be more confident on OSNS than they were in real life social networks. This was a great article.
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I enjoyed reading your post. On Facebook, I am one of those people who only adds friends that I know. However, some of my friends have almost 1000 friends on Facebook. I cannot imagine that they are able to keep up a relationship with all of them.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that people are probably more confident on OSNS. I remember in high school, when IMing was big, I was so much more confident talking to guys. It was like I had a protective barrier. Another thing that was great is that I was able to think about things before responding, as opposed to in person where responses are expected in a more timely manner.
Like you, I wasn't really surprised with the results of the study. Most of them were predictable. I still found the study interesting though.