Paper Info
Title
Relationships and social rules: Teens’ social network and other ICT selection practices
Abstract
The issue of how teens choose social networks and information communication technologies (ICT's) for personal communication is complex. This study focused on describing how U.S. teens from a highly technological suburban high school select ICT's for personal communication purposes. Two research questions guided the study: (a) What factors influence high school seniors’ selection of online social networks and other ICT's for everyday communication? (b) How can social network theory (SNT) help to explain how teens select online social networks and other ICT's for everyday communication purposes? Using focus groups, a purposive sample of 45 teens were asked to discuss (a) their preferred methods for communicating with friends and family and why, (b) the reasons why they chose to engage (or not to engage) in online social networking, (c) how they selected ICT's for social networking and other communication purposes, and (d) how they decided whom to accept as online “friends.” Findings indicated that many factors influenced participants’ ICT selection practices including six major categories of selection factors: relationship factors, information/communication factors, social factors, systems factors, self-protection factors, and recipient factors. SNT was also helpful in explaining how “friendship” was a major determining factor in their communication media and platform choices. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Year
DOI
Venue
2012
10.1002/asi.22612
JASIST
Keywords
Field
DocType
personal communication purpose,social network,personal communication,communication factor,social rule,communication media,online social network,ict selection practice,everyday communication purpose,everyday communication,communication purpose,information communication technology,selection,qualitative research,social networking
World Wide Web,Social network,Information retrieval,Friendship,Public relations,Computer science,Information and Communications Technology,Qualitative research,Focus group
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
63
6
1532-2882
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
27
1.48
22
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Denise E. Agosto124123.07
June Abbas2925.20
Robin Naughton3532.60