Paper Info
Title
Do your friends make you smarter?: An analysis of social strategies in online information seeking
Abstract
Prior research in the social search space has focused on the informational benefits of collaborating with others during web and workplace information seeking. However, social interactions, especially during complex tasks, can have cognitive benefits as well. Our goal in this paper is to document the methods and outcomes of using social resources to help with exploratory search tasks. We used a talk-aloud protocol and video capture to explore the actions of eight subjects as they completed two ''Google-hard'' search tasks. Task questions were alternated between a Social and Non-Social Condition. The Social Condition restricted participants to use only social resources-search engines were not allowed. The Non-Social Condition permitted normal web-based information sources, but restricted the use of social tools. We describe the social tactics our participants used in their search process. Asking questions on social networking sites and targeting friends one-on-one both resulted in increased information processing but during different phases of the question-answering process. Participants received more responses via social networking sites but more thorough answers in private channels (one-on-one). We discuss the possibility that the technological and cultural affordances of different social-informational media may provide complementary cognitive benefits to searchers. Our work suggests that online social tools could be better integrated with each other and with existing search facilities. We conclude with a discussion of our findings and implications for the design of social search tools.
Year
DOI
Venue
2010
10.1016/j.ipm.2009.12.001
Inf. Process. Manage.
Keywords
Field
DocType
social networking site,cognitive task analysis,social search,social interaction,social resource,social tactic,online social tool,social search tool,question–answering,online information,social information seeking,social search space,social search social information seeking question-answering information processing cognitive task analysis verbal protocols,information processing,social strategy,verbal protocols,social tool,social resources-search engine,non-social condition,col,question answering,search engine
World Wide Web,Social network,Social web,Computer science,Social search,Social learning,Social competence,Social computing,Social heuristics,Exploratory search
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
46
6
Information Processing and Management
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
50
3.13
32
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Brynn M. Evans11277.14
Sanjay Kairam242825.39
Peter Pirolli33661538.83