Title
Users and nonusers: interactions between levels of adoption and social capital
Abstract
Although Facebook is the largest social network site in the U.S. and attracts an increasingly diverse userbase, some individuals have chosen not to join the site. Using survey data collected from a sample of non-academic staff at a large Midwestern university (N=614), we explore the demographic and cognitive factors that predict whether a person chooses to join Facebook. We find that older adults and those with higher perceived levels of bonding social capital are less likely to use the site. Analyzing open-ended responses from non-users, we find that they express concerns about privacy, context collapse, limited time, and channel effects in deciding to not adopt Facebook. Finally, we compare non-adopters against users who differ on three dimensions of use. We find that light users often have social capital outcomes similar to, or worse than, non-users, and that heavy users report higher perceived bridging and bonding social capital than either group.
Year
DOI
Venue
2013
10.1145/2441776.2441867
CSCW
Keywords
Field
DocType
heavy user,largest social network site,large midwestern university,context collapse,light user,channel effect,social capital outcome,cognitive factor,bonding social capital,diverse userbase,social capital
Social psychology,Survey data collection,Social capital,Social network,Computer science,Bridging (networking),Cognition
Conference
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
21
1.02
29
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Cliff Lampe13986342.89
Jessica Vitak264839.25
Nicole Ellison36051509.80