Findings | project1

Starting Point - 2/25/13

I thought a good starting point for my research would be to look into the definition of judgements and how it is we make them. The definition that best fits my research is Merriam-Webster's definition of judgement as "the process of forming an opinion or evaluation by discerning and comparing" (Merriam). As I looked into the different types of judgment, I found that a judgement based on something seen on Facebook would likely be called a posteriori judgement. According to Kant, a posteriori judgment must be grounded upon experience and are consequently limited and uncertain in their application to specific cases (Kant). In the specific case of my research, the "experience" Kant is referring to would be the interaction on Facebook. In addition, this research is limited and uncertain in its application to specific cases because judgement made from the same Facebook page vary from individual to individual.

Survey - 2/27/13

Today I put out my survey, which can be found by clicking here. My hope is that through this survey, I will discover who makes which types of judgements and how. In addition, hopefully it will tell me which kind of people let those judgements influence future interactions.

Research - 2/28/13

I thought it might be interesting to see what kind of similar research has been done on this topic, so I went to the Virginia Tech Library's website and searched its database. I found nothing. I could not even find one piece of literature, journal article, book, or anything else that was even close to my topic. I tried the key words of "social media," "Facebook," "judge," "judgement," and a combination of all of those; nothing was pertinent to my research. So that gave me another idea. Since no research has been done on this (or at least it is not available to me) I will look at this from another angle. Thus commenced my Google search for information on my topic.

More Research - 3/1/13

Google is a great resource, but I know and understand that database searches through the Library would have been ideal. Through the Google search I found an article in Science Daily called, "How Do We Make Moral Judgments? Insights from Psychological Science." This article discusses that while we might like to think that our judgments are always well thought-out, there is actually research that suggests that our moral judgments are often based on intuition. In addition, the article notes that our emotions seem to drive our intuitions, giving us the gut feeling that something is 'right' or 'wrong.' I like this explanation because I see a clear connection between this discussion and my research. Intuition is essentially a quick and ready insight according to Merriam and Webster. This is something we do all the time when it comes to Facebook. Even if it is just a glimpse of a photograph that rubs you the wrong way, or a status that just doesn't seem quite right, we are absolutely making quick decisions about people when we view their Facebook pages.

This also influences how I view my survey results. The reason this influences my survey results is because according to Merriam and Webster, intuition is also defined as "the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought or inference. This means that while some people might have marked that Facebook did not impact their judgements, they could just not realize it because it is happening without the presence of rational though, thus it happens on a subconscious level that some people might ignore.

Survey Results - 3/4/13

100 people took my survey. The first set of results, the general results, were as follows:

Sex: 36 male, 62 females, 2 chose to not answer the question.
Age range: 0 participants age 17 or younger, 12 participants age 18-20, 60 participants age 21-29, 12 participants age30-39, 8 participants age 40-49, 6 participants age 50-59, and 2 participants did not answer.
Hours a day spent on Facebook: 34 people spent less than one hour, 24 people spent 1-2 hours, 24 spent 2-3 hours, 12 spent 3-4 hours, 2 spent 4-5 hours, 2 spent 5-6 hours, and 2 spent more than 7 hours.

The second set of questions pertained more to specifics about Facebook and its use to make judgements. Three of these questions were quantitative and three were qualitative. The quantitative questions will be addressed first.

The first question asked was, "What parts of Facebook do you draw judgments from most?" The choices were pictures, timeline, statuses, friends, and likes/interests. Here is how people tended to rank them:

Pictures - 50% of people said that they first look at pictures the most when making judgements about people.
Statuses - 44% of people noted that they secondly look at statuses when drawing judgements
Timeline - 44% of people responded that they thirdly look at timeline posts when making judgements
Likes/Interest - 38% of people said that they draw judgements from likes/interests the least

The next question asked what kinds of judgements are you most likely to draw, and asked respondents to check all that applied. The results were as follows:

82% of respondents said they draw physical judgements
76% said they draw judgements about personality
62% noted that they draw judgements on psychological characteristics
60% responded that they draw social judgements
36% said they draw judgements about culture
34% make judgements about social class

The third quantitative question was, "Do the judgements you make from Facebook affect how you interact with the person in real life?" 64% of respondents answered, "yes" while only 36% responded, "no."

The final set of questions were qualitative and dealt with short answer responses. The most common threads or notes will be touched on and discussed.

The first qualitative question was, "Assume it is the first day of classes of the semester. You meet someone in your class and “friend” each other on Facebook. You get home and scroll through this person’s timeline and notice that no one has posted on it in nearly 6 months. The only things on his/her timeline are screenshots of video games, which are posted almost daily. Based on this information what judgments might you draw?" Some common points were made and are noted below:

gamer - almost 90% of people said they would make the assumption that the person being discussed is a video gamer. This was the only commonality that could be seen as positive, negative or neutral since all other descriptions carry mainly negative connotations.
unsocial - 18 people
strange/weird/nerd - 18 people
no friends - 14 people
does not go out - 14 people
no life - 8 people
introverted - 8 people
loner - 4 people

The second qualitative question was, "Assume you are at an event and you meet someone of the other sex who you think is quite attractive. After exchanging information, you find their Facebook and scroll through photos. You begin to notice that they are hugging/kissing a different person (of the opposite gender) in every picture. Based on this information, what judgments might you draw?" Some common points are noted below:

whore/player - 34 people
no morals - 24 people
commitment issues - 18 people
social - 16 people
flirty - 14 people
attention hog - 10 people
party animal - 8 people
friendly - 8 people

The final question of my survey was, "If you answered yes to the previous question (about Facebook judgements affecting how you interact with people), how does it change your interaction? If you answered no, why does it not change the way you interact?"

These answers were all over the board since some were arguing that it does influence interaction and some were arguing that it does not. Some commonalities among the posts were as follows though:

Facebook manages expectations (which depending on your stance does or does not influence interaction)
Would not treat them differently but might think of them differently (silent judgement)
Would affect the demeanor of conversation (if they have different political views, do not bring up politics)
Good way to gain information about background on person so less time is spent on the general "get to know you" questions. Can also help shape appropriate responses to conversation.
False sense of "knowing" someone based on Facebook
Tend to avoid people based on Facebook information

As a side note, very few people noted that there is a huge difference between what is on Facebook and who that person really is in real life. Most of these people said that More weight is put on actual interaction rather than Facebook interaction.

Ties to Class Readings - 3/5/13

As far as how this ties to class readings, I had a hard time choosing which class reading most closely related to my topic. After thinking on this for a while, I chose Kelly's, "What Technology Wants." Kelly talks a lot about how technology evolves with humanity (Chapter 4). It is a mutually reinforcing relationship where we evolve as technology evolves and technology evolves as we evolve. This relates to how we make judgements. For instance, in the past, people have relied on personal experience, word of mouth, rumors, etc. to gather information in order to make judgements about people before interacting with them. Perhaps our methods for gathering this information has evolved and now takes place online, through social networking sites, instead.

Stuck - 3/6/13

After my survey I tried many different searches to gather more information on my topic. Honestly, I felt a little stuck. After a quick email exchange, my juices began flowing again and I was able to utilize a great source, a 2012 study titled, "Why Facebook Users Get More Than They Give" by Keith Hampton, Lauren Sessions Goulet, Cameron Marlow, and Lee Rainie. While the study does not deal directly with what I am researching, there are still some parallels and points to be made. First, I really like the researcher's use of the term "power users" because how active people are on Facebook definitely affected the way they responded to my survey questions. In a different, earlier 2011 study titled, "Social Networking Sites and Our Lives" by Keith Hampton, Lauren Sessions Goulet, Lee Rainie, Kristen Purcell, a point was made that "a Facebook user who uses the site multiple times per day is 43% more likely than other internet users and more than three times as likely as non-internet users to feel that most people can be trusted." This is important because it shows that frequent users will accept what they see on Facebook as fact, more readily than those who do not use the internet or Facebook.

Conclusions:

According to Hampton, Goulet, Marlow, and Rainie's study, "Half the adults and three-quarters of the teenagers in America use social networking sites (SNS) and Facebook by far is the most popular of these sites." While new research suggests that teenagers, especially in the West, are moving away from Facebook, it is nonetheless still an extremely influential piece of our society, at least for now. Since social network sites, such as Facebook, are seen as popular and important, it is no surprise that people make judgements based solely on other people's Facebook pages. Based on my research, I will argue that the judgements we make, based on what we see on Facebook, influences our future interactions with that person. Some people might argue that it is hard to make judgements based on Facebook alone due to suspicion of the truth of the perceived information. While this notion presents a good argument, it is important to note that in Hampton's 2011 study, he found that, "the typical internet user is more than twice as likely as others to feel that people can be trusted," therefore, most people, especially Facebook users will tend to trust what they see on Facebook. The importance of this fact lies in its impact on future interaction; when people believe they are getting truthful, good information, they will be more likely to reflect on that information during interactions. Another important fact is what part of Facebook people most commonly draw judgements from. In my survey, most people (50%) chose pictures as the most commonly drawn upon for judgment making. This ties straight to the previously mentioned article, "How Do We Make Moral Judgments? Insights from Psychological Science" which notes that, "visual imagery influences moral judgment." This also solidifies my survey results which showed that when asked the question about the person of the opposite sex taking pictures with a variety of opposite sex individuals, many people (24%) actually commented that the individual probably lacks morals. In addition, it is worth noting that according to my survey results, people are most likely to make judgments about a person on a physical level than any other type of judgement. In fact, 82% of respondents said they would draw physical judgements about someone based on his/her Facebook. All of these findings relate to how these judgments affect future interactions.

While my survey indicated that only 64% of respondents said that they did let the judgements they make based on Facebook influence future interactions with that person, it is noteworthy to point out the possibility that perhaps respondents are not fully aware how much they are affected by this social media network. This means that while some people might have marked that Facebook did not impact their judgements, they could simply not realize it because it is happening without the presence of rational though, thus happening on a subconscious level. While this might indeed skew my results, I did find that "power users," whom I considered to be anyone who spends 3+ hours on Facebook daily, were much more willing to admit that they let their Facebook-based judgements affect how they interact with people. In fact, of the 42 "power users" about 80% admitted that they let these judgment influence future interactions. Kelly might even argue that these users are more evolved since they are now using technology to make first impressions rather than relying on previous methods. Kelly would also note that this change is only natural and that we should embrace the natural evolution of interaction. He notes in his book, "What Technology Wants," that since time began, technology has been evolving alongside humans and has been aiding in our evolution just as we have been aiding in technology's. Relating this back to interaction, it is easy to see that perhaps this new idea of interaction influenced by preconceived judgements drawn from Facebook is just a natural part of our evolution as well.

This idea of humanity's evolution through drawing judgements from Facebook that influence our interactions is also somewhat dangerous. To make this point more clear, it is important to turn our attention again to the survey results. When looking at the questions dealing with scenarios, it is interesting to note what kinds of judgements people made; specifically, were they inherently negative judgements or inherently positive ones. The first of these questions was,

"Assume it is the first day of classes of the semester. You meet someone in your class and “friend” each other on Facebook. You get home and scroll through this person’s timeline and notice that no one has posted on it in nearly 6 months. The only things on his/her timeline are screenshots of video games, which are posted almost daily. Based on this information what judgments might you draw?"

The responses were relatively similar in all the participants (gamer-90 people, unsocial-18 people, strange/weird/nerd-18 people, no friends-14 people, does not go out-14 people, no life-8 people, introverted-8 people, loner-4 people). Notice that the most commonly used word was "gamer" which carries neutral connotations, meaning it does not signify any kind of positive or negative judgments. However, the next most common responses were the words "unsocial," "strange/weird/nerd," "no friends," "does not go out," "no life," introverted," and "loner." Of these words, 6 out of 7 carry negative connotations with the neutral response being "introverted." All of the other responses are seen as inherently negative judgements or at least as more so negative than positive or neutral. This leads to the assumption that perhaps more people draw negative judgements about people based on what is seen on Facebook than positive ones, inviting the possibility of prejudices that can influence conversations and interactions. The other similar question yielded very similar results that only enforce the previous claim (those results can be seen above in the survey results section). While there is not sufficient evidence to show how or if this affects the way people interact, through the survey it is safe to make the assumption that people tend to draw inherently negative judgements based on Facebook.

Based on these findings and Kelly's "What Technology Wants," an argument can be made that the influence of Facebook are neither good nor bad, but rather a natural part of our evolution of interaction. While it was noted that these preconceived ideas about people might be negative most of the time, they nonetheless influence our interaction. While most would view this as a negative thing, it can be argued that knowing about a person before interacting with them eases communication anxiety and provides some guidance on what to say or what not to say. Therefore, it is neither a good nor bad idea, but is more of a natural evolution that Facebook influences our interactions. With this concept in mind it is also neither something we should encourage nor discourage. Instead, it is something that people should be more aware of. Since it can be argued that the judgements people draw from Facebook can influence interactions with that person, people need to realize that what they put on Facebook should be both truthful and well thought out. With increased awareness of the previously mentioned argument, perhaps people would put information on their Facebook that would lead to good conversation, shared interests, and better connections. While this argument might lean toward encouraging this phenomenon, it is important that people realize it is just as much about what they do not post as what they do post. For instance, it might not be that smart to post about your hatred of a group of people, comments contained stereotypes, or things of that nature because those too will influence interaction, but in a negative way. Therefore, instead of approaching this subject as something to be encouraged or discouraged, it should be more concerned with bringing about awareness.

As Hampton's 2011 study notes, "We found no evidence among our sample that length of time using Facebook is associated with a decline in Facebook activity. On the contrary, the more time that has passed since a user started using Facebook, the more frequently he/she makes status updates, uses the “like” button, comments on friends’ content, and tags friends in photos." This means that the use of Facebook is not declining and people are not getting tired of this social media site, which means that people's interactions will continue to be influenced by Facebook and the judgements made from material attained on this social networking site. Kelly would argue that this is just nature taking its course and that this natural development will only continue to develop as we evolve.

Findings