Opening Up Online: Social Networking and Online Survey Response Behaviors

Matthew Lackey, Nicholas Irwin, & Scott TurnerFors Marsh Group

May 2012

The Rise of Social Networking

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1Nielsen. State of the Media: The Social Media Report: Q3 2011. Retrieved from http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/social/ . Accessed on April 27th, 2012.2Pew Research Center (March 29, 2012). Pew Internet: Social Networking (full detail). Retrieved from http://pewinternet.org/Commentary/2012/March/Pew-

Internet-Social-Networking-full-detail.aspx. Accessed on April 27, 2012.3comScore (January 6, 2012). It’s a Social World: A Global Look at Social Networking. Retrieved from

http://blog.comscore.com/2012/01/its_a_social_world.html. Accessed on April 27, 2012.

Social Networking Usage by age group, 2005 to 20112

Engagement with Web Activitiesby age group, 2010 to 20113

• Social networking has rapidly emerged as the most common online activity, accounting for 22.5% of time spent online in America.1

Who Is Networking and Where?

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Source: Pew Research Center (March 29, 2012). Pew Internet: Social Networking (full detail). Retrieved from http://pewinternet.org/Commentary/2012/March/Pew-Internet-Social-Networking-full-detail.aspx. Accessed on April 27, 2012.

Experian Hitwise (March 2012). Top 10 Social Networking Websites & Forums - March 2012. Retrieved from http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/top-10-social-networking-websites-forums-march-2012-21698/. Accessed on April 27, 2012.

What Are They Doing…and What Does It Mean for Researchers?

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Source: New York Times. Facebook (Facebook IPO, May 2012). Retrieved from http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/facebook_inc/index.html. Accessed on April 27th, 2012.

Forbes. Social Media Privacy: A Contradiction In Terms? Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2012/04/24/social-media-privacy-a-contradiction-in-terms/. Accessed on April 27th, 2012.

Nielsen. State of the Media: The Social Media Report: Q3 2011. Retrieved from http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/social/ . Accessed on April 27th, 2012.Pew Research Center (July 9, 2010). Millennials will make online sharing in networks a lifelong habit. Retrieved from

http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media/Files/Reports/2010/PIP_Future_Of_Millennials.pdf. Accessed on April 27, 2012.

on

“Never in the course of human interaction have so many shared so much about themselves with so many others—and with so little apparent concern for their 

privacy.”

on

“its value lies in…the massive amount of information shared by 

its users.”Source:  New York Times (April 19th, 2012)Source:  Forbes (April 24th, 2012)

67% of technology stakeholders and critics agreed:

“By 2020, members of Generation Y will continue to be ambient broadcasters who disclose a great deal of personal information in order to stay connected 

and take advantage of social, economic, and political opportunities.”

“Never in the course of human interaction have so many shared so much about themselves with so many others—and with so little apparent concern for their 

privacy.”

on

Source:  New York Times (April 19th, 2012)Source:  Forbes (April 24th, 2012)

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1Couper, Mick P. 2008. Designing Effective Web Surveys. New York: Cambridge University Press.

• Online research made up 40% of commercial research in the U.S. in 2006.1

• As future generations of respondents become accustomed to sharing opinions and personal information online, researchers should begin to ask:

What Are They Doing…and What Does It Mean for Researchers?

Is the rise of social media changing the way respondents interact with online surveys?

1996 2007

$4 million

$1.6 billion

U.S. Spending on Online Market Research

Online Survey Response Behaviors

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Note: Don’t know/refusal rates are calculated based on the total numbers of items the respondents had the opportunity to complete.

• Open-Ended Responses– Online surveys elicit longer, higher-quality, open-ended responses– Open-end response quality can be influenced by:

• Increased size of answer space• Drawing attention to the flexibility in size of answer space• Clarifying and motivating instructions (Smyth et al., 2009)

– More investigation of individual respondent factors that affect open-ended response quality.

• Don’t Know/Refusal Rates– Lower don’t know/refusal rates reflect better survey response behaviors as these

responses reflect survey-satisficing behaviors.• Implications of Response Behaviors

– As we reach complete saturation of social media,online response behaviors could be incomparableto how they have been in the past.

Smyth, J. D., Dillman, D. A., Christian, L. M., & McBride, M. (2009). Open-ended questions in web surveys: Can increasing the size of answer boxes and providing extra verbal instructions improve response quality? Public Opinion Quarterly, 73, 325-337.

Methodology and Sample

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• Target Population– Youth ages 16 to 24– Sample size: n = 3,023

• Interview Method– Online survey completion

• Collection Period– Continuous survey conducted between July–December 2011

61%39%

Gender

Male Female

6%

14% 15% 14% 13%11%

8%10% 9%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Age

15%

85%

66%

10% 10%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Yes No White Black Other

Race/Ethnicity

Hispanic

Sample Demographics

Findings: Respondent Word Count

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Note: Counts are among respondents who provided a response to the item.

Proportion Sample Size

Social Networkers 79% 2,391

Non‐Social Networkers 19% 581

Free‐Response Word Count Prompted Word Count

Social Networkers 22.25 19.83

Non‐Social Networkers 16.68 15.23

Open-Ended Response Items• Free-Response Item: Respondents are given the opportunity to provide open-ended

feedback on the survey.• Prompted Item: Respondents provide explanations for indicating a recent change

in opinion.

Population Breakdown:

= significantly lower than other subgroup

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Free‐Response Word Count Prompted Word Count

Social Networkers 22.25 19.83

Light Networkers 14.89 22.02

Medium Networkers 22.54 21.01

Heavy Networkers 22.96 19.29

Findings: Respondent Word Count

Proportion Sample Size

Social Networkers 79% 2,391

Light Networkers 7% 169

Medium Networkers 20% 479

Heavy Networkers 73% 1,736

Social Networking Population Breakdown:

Word Count Among Social Networking Groups:

= significantly lower than other subgroup

Findings: Open-Ended Response Themes

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Note: Open-ended responses are content coded using multiple coders with 100% match.

Response Themes

Social Networkers 1.39

Males 1.44

Females 1.31

Light Networkers 1.44

Medium Networkers 1.46

Heavy Networkers 1.36

Non‐Social Networkers 1.22

Males 1.22

Females 1.22

Open‐Ended Response Themes in Prompted Response:

Open-ended responses to the prompted items were content coded with each unique reason coded as a theme.

= significantly lower than other subgroup

Findings: Don’t Know/Refusal Rates

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Refusal Rate Don’t Know Rate

Social Networkers 1.06% 10.40%

Males 0.94% 9.35%

Females 1.22% 11.88%

Light Networkers 1.28% 11.30%

Medium Networkers 1.20% 9.88%

Heavy Networkers 0.98% 10.47%

Non‐Social Networkers 1.60% 13.53%

Males 1.72% 13.02%

Females 1.31% 14.79%

Don’t Know/Refusal Rates Among Demographic Groups:

= significantly lower than other subgroup

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1Pew Research Center (February 3, 2012). Why most Facebook users get more than they give. Retrieved from http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Facebook-users.aspx. Accessed on April 27, 2012.

• Respondents with a profile on a social networking site show better survey response behaviors than non-social networkers.

– Social networkers give longer, more diverse responses and are less likely to engage in survey-satisficing behaviors.

– As the social media world continues to grow, evidence suggests that online surveys will benefit from respondents’ willingness to share information and opinions electronically.

• There is weak evidence to support differences in response behaviors among heavy and light social networkers.

– Among Facebook users, only 20% to 30% are “power users” who dominate the activity. 1

– “Power users” are segmented in how they predominately interact with Facebook.– One segment of “power users” may be more active responders than others.

Summary of Findings

Future Research

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Correa, T., Hinsley, A. W., & Zúñiga, H. G. (2009). Who interacts on the Web?: The intersection of users’ personality and socialmedia use. Computers in Human Behavior, 26, 247-253.

• Does the social networking site or type of networking activity affect response behaviors?

– Comparisons of response behaviors among youth who spend more time on blogging/text-sharing sites vs. media sites.

– Comparisons of youth who fall into different “power user” categories.

• Other individual characteristics that may modify the relationship between social networking behaviors and survey response behavior.

– Extraversion and openness have been found to be positively related to social networking use (Correa et al., 2009).

• Is there an optimal point where survey response behavior peaks among social media users?

– Does oversaturation of social media lead high-volume users to be bored with sharing information in other online formats?

• Are there differences in response behaviors between early and late adopters of social media and what implication does that have for future research?