Tell me who you are and I will tell you which SNS you use: SNSs participation
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-03-2019-0076 |
| Pages | 139-161 |
| Published date | 17 December 2019 |
| Date | 17 December 2019 |
| Author | Tali Gazit,Noa Aharony,Yair Amichai-Hamburger |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Bibliometrics,Databases,Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet,Records management & preservation,Document management |
Tell me who you are and
I will tell you which SNS
you use: SNSs participation
Tali Gazit and Noa Aharony
Department of Information Science, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel, and
Yair Amichai-Hamburger
The Research Center for Internet Psychology (CIP),
Sammy Ofer School of Communication, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC),
Herzliya, Israel
Abstract
Purpose –Social networkingsites (SNSs) havebecome an essential partof our lives. The purpose of thispaper
is to explorehow demographic variables,SNS importance, social andinformational usage, and personalitytraits
(extroversion/introversion, openness, neuroticism, internal and external locus of control) can explain
participation frequency of the four biggest SNSs in Israel: Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Twitter.
Design/methodology/approach –The research was conducted in Israel during the Fall semester of the
2017–2018 academic year and encompassed 244 students. Researchers used six questionnaires to gather data:
a demographic questionnaire, a participation frequency questionnaire on four different SNSs, four SNSs
importance questionnaire, social and informational usage on four different SNSs questionnaire, personality
questionnaire (extroversion, openness and neuroticism) and the locus of control questionnaire.
Findings –The findings revealed that different social network sites play distinct roles for various
individuals. WhatsApp, the most frequently used platform, is used more by women and people with internal
locus of control. Facebook is more frequently used by open people and Instagram is more frequently used by
women, younger adults and neurotic people. Twitter is more frequently used by men.In addition, for all SNSs,
the higher the social and informational usage is, the more important the SNSs are to the users, which
significantly explains participation frequency.
Originality/value –The differences between social networks can be evidence that each social network
serves a different group and does not compete with other SNSs. This may well explain why many people
make use of several social networks and have a tendency to move from one to another.
Keywords Gender, Participation, Social networks, Personality, Locus of control, SNS importance
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Social networking sites (SNSs) have become an essential part of our lives. They enable
participants to create personal profiles, present their identities, associate with others, view,
share, upload and comment on photos, messages, videos, and other content posted on their
newsfeeds (Boyd and Ellison, 2007; Phua and Jin, 2011). According to the statistical portal
Statista (2018), Facebook has more than 2.2bn active monthly users, WhatsApp has 1.5bn
active monthly users, Instagram has more than 800m active users and Twitter has 330mn
active users. The Pew Research Center determined that as of early 2018, Facebook and
YouTube dominated the American social media landscape. However, young Americans
between the ages 18 and 24 use also Snapchat (around 78 percent), Instagram (around
71 percent) and close to half (about 45 percent) are Twitter users (Smith and Anderson, 2018).
Israeli Internet Report (2018) stated that WhatsApp (87 percent) and Facebook
(80 percent) are the two dominant social network sites among Israeli adults, while
Instagram has more active users (72 percent) than Facebook (63 percent) among young Israelis.
Yet, WhatsAppis the most popularsocial network in Israel:87 percent of adultsand 93 percent
of young Israelis use it. As the current study was carried out in Israel, researchers chose to
focus on the four most popular SNSs there: Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Twitter.
Online Information Review
Vol. 44 No. 1, 2020
pp. 139-161
© Emerald PublishingLimited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-03-2019-0076
Received 7 March 2019
Revised 17 October 2019
Accepted 19 November 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/1468-4527.htm
139
SNSs
participation
Comparing the four platforms, Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp focus on text, visual and
audiovisual content. Instagram concentrates on sharing pictures enhanced by filters
(Waterloo et al., 2017). Karapanos et al. (2016) suggested that Facebook affords asynchronous
communication practices, while in WhatsApp –a controlled environment –people experience a
high sense of presence in their communication with others. Moreover, Facebook can be
considered a semi-public setting composed of strong and weak ties where individuals keep in
touch with old friends and make new ones (Amichai-Hamburger and Hayat, 2017; Ellison et al.,
2007; Joinson, 2008; Raacke and Bonds-Raacke, 2008). WhatsApp can be characterized as a
private platform that is used mainly to interact with close friends and family (strong ties),
openingup the possibility forintimate conversation (Karapanos et al., 2016). Instagram is more
public and is usually composed of weak ties (Waterloo et al., 2017). However, Twitter is
primarily a micro-blogging service that enables posting of texts and links to stored photos
(Kwon et al., 2014).
Various studies were carried out comparing different social platforms relating to diverse
variables. The current research delved into the participation frequency on the four big SNSs
in Israel (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Twitter), as participation is a crucial factor
to the existence of the social network (Faraj et al., 2008). The participation frequency was
found to be strongly related to the degree of motivation individuals possess (Bronstein et al.,
2016). This can be explained by the uses and gratification theory, which today can be
applied to social media and how it is used to fulfill the needs of various users with different
goals (Smock et al., 2011). This framework attempts to explore how different people use the
same media platforms for different purposes in order to satisfy their psychological and
social needs (Katz, 1959). For example, Aharony (2015) found that the U&G paradigm, as
well as individual differences, affects WhatsApp satisfaction and duration of usage.
In accordancewith this notion, we explored howthe following variables: personality traits
(extroversion/introversion, openness, neuroticism, internal and external locus of control),
social and informational usage, SNS importance and demographics (age and gender) explain
participation frequency on these platforms. This study considers a number of media outlets,
rather than just one, since these outlets serve different goals for different people.
It is interesting to map the usage on various SNSs, and it is important to explore different
SNSs participation frequency. Thus, when individuals or organizations understand who
uses a certain social media platform, they will be able to convey a specific message to those
people, while using their favorite, appropriate social media channel.
The objectives of this study are: to what extent do the next variables explain the
participation frequency on these four platforms?
(1) demographic variables (age and gender);
(2) personality traits (extroversion/introversion, openness, neuroticism, internal and
external locus of control);
(3) social and informational usage; and
(4) SNS importance.
Literature review
Social network sites (SNSs)
Various researchers investigatedthe use of distinct social sites platforms. Hargittai (2007)was
one of the first scholars who explored the use of different social media platforms used by
college students.She found that the four social media platforms (Facebook, MySpace, Xanga
and Friendster) differ in their social profiles. Students from educated backgrounds were
using Facebook while the opposite was true for MySpace. Further, the percentage of white
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